Pink

I have a complicated relationship with the colour pink. I used to hate it and until CEGEP or so I refused to wear it. I didn’t want to be associated with such a “girly” colour. Now I actually own quite a few pink things (mostly shirts & sweaters) and I often wear them. I don’t generally seek out pink items on the rare occasions that I shop, but I don’t shy away from them either.

With Amelia, there seems to be a whole new level of pinkness. I bought very few things for her that were pink. I tried to find other colours that did not scream “GIRL.” However, we did receive many gifts that were pink that she wore because, of course, she looks adorable in pink. And furthermore if your baby is dressed in any other colour than pink, everyone assumes your child is a boy. Why is that? When did green and yellow and orange and purple become “boy” colours and pink the only way that people can identify that your child is a girl?

Anyway, there is an interesting article in The Guardian (thanks Amy) that discusses, among other things, this obsession with the colour pink for girls, its connotations and how girls are slotted into a specific role in Western society at such an early age. It is a fascinating read, and I recommend it even if you don’t have daughters. From the article:

A few years earlier, the Sunday Sentinel had been of the same opinion: “use pink for the boy and blue for the girl,” it said in March 1914, “if you are a follower of convention.” So accepted, in fact, was this convention that as late as 1927 Time magazine was observing, on the obviously disappointing birth to Princess Astrid of Belgium of a daughter rather than the infinitely preferable son, that the cradle had been “optimistically decorated in pink, the colour for boys”.

This is, as you may have noticed, no longer the case. For maybe the past decade or so, little girls have inhabited a universe that is, almost entirely, pink. It is made up not just of pink princesses and fairies and ballerinas and fluffy bunnies, but of books, bikes, lunchboxes, board games, toy cookers, cash registers, even games consoles, all in shades of pink.

This Christmas is no exception. There is a pink globe, specially for girls. Scrabble has been repackaged in pink (the tiles on the front of the box spell FASHION). Monopoly has gone pink, with the dog, thimble and shoe pieces replaced by flip-flops, a handbag and a hairdryer, houses and hotels becoming boutiques and malls, and utilities turned into beauty salons. In at least one major supermarket chain you can now buy slices of bright pink ham, cut into heart shapes and called Fairy Hearts.

So regular Monopoly is no longer appropriate for girls? And PINK HAM cut in heart shapes? How are we supposed to explain this to our daughters? Is the campaign, Pink Stinks, which is also discussed in the article, a good place to start?