The Pink and Blue project

Pink for girls, blue for boys.

Always has been, and across cultures right?

Actually no. Pink was once a color associated with masculinity, considered to be a watered down red and held the power associated with that color. Blue was considered delicate therefore something for girls.

Since then, however, the change has been resoundingly reinforced by a powerful consumer feedback loop; nowadays girls want pink things because pink things are for girls and girls are marked as girls by their pink things. Substitute `blue’ and `boys’ for the converse.

JeongMee Yoon, in her Pink and Blue Project, demonstrates how all-encompasing the adage is.

Urgh I know. DP's daughter's room looks like a Flamingo threw up in there.

aww I pink, but my daughters room wont be pink, maybe some splashes here and there but not all-encompassing.

Actually minik8te that's another rant of mine.

DP won't take me toy shopping anymore because I have a habit of going on angry diatribes about how you can't actually buy anything girl-related unless it is in Pink or even Purple. Hell they even have pink monoploy these days because girls can't handle the real thing.

But the 'boys' stuff isn't much better. All army tones of brown and green but at least you get more of a variety than fairy princess or sex kitten.

They have pink Lego for girls now too...no blue, they just get the normal stuff

Hehe I hate pink too! But unfortunately, at my baby shower everyone knew we were having a girl so we got MILLIONS of pink clothes so poor Chelsea was always dressed in pink at first as that's all we had (and people would say "wow you obviously love pink" haha)
Now I put her in blue (have a few cute blue things) and people assume she's a boy, but I'm not going to dress her in pink just so strangers know she's a girl

I'm not anti-pink, but I really like putting different colours on my girl. I do find though, that when she wears yellow etc, unless it's a dress people think she's a boy . I do put her in a lot of dresses, and I've got into making them so they can be any colour I want!

Her bedroom is also almost totally devoid of pink - only the cot sheets are pink (got them 75% off, wasn't going to argue with the colour!). The rest is green and white with animals everywhere. I wanted her room to be 'gender-neutral' (how I hate that term!) cos our kids will be sharing a room, and we don't know what the next one will be. Too much pink would drive me nuts though.

My aunty used to buy white clothes and dye them outrageous colours- Bright orange, green and yellow! They were fantastic

I read a very fascinating study once. Males were exposed to a pink/girly environment and females were exposed to a masculine one.
This was done from birth.
Any way the study concluded that gender stereotypes are not defined at infancy. Even after 1 year the boys living in a girls environment instantly headed for the trucks and cars.
Interesting isn't it

Edited by Kellie

lemongirl wrote: I have a habit of going on angry diatribes about how you can't actually buy anything girl-related unless it is in Pink or even Purple.

Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one!!
I hate the selection of colours for girls. I got so mad one day in the Warehouse coz Joy loved Tigger but only the boys clothes had Tigger....girls were only allowed Pooh & Piglet.