Here is a photo of me holding my nephew Vaughn and my daughter Willow. Can you guess which one is the boy and which one is the girl?
Of course you can. The boy (Vaughn) is wearing blue and the girl (Willow) is wearing pink. Putting these colors on bald babies allows us to easily identify their gender. Of course this is helpful when babies are young but why does it continue far past that stage? Pink is the sign of the feminine or “girl” and blue the signifier of male or “boy.”
But, how did it get this way? At some point our culture decided to assign colors to identify the two genders. So when did it happen?
It seems that looking through art history, boys and girls typically wore long white gowns, similar to christening gowns. Then in later years, you see children depicted in suits or dresses- but not gender identifying colors. At some point this changed and certain colors were assigned genders. But not pink for girls and blue for boys! Apparently prior to the 1920’s the color assignment was actually reversed. The belief was that red hues were strong and fierce and therefore more appropriate for boys. Blue was paler and gentler. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, “If you like the color note on the little one’s garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.” [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]
I am not sure when the color reversal changed back to what we know today, nor is anyone else for that matter. There are varying opinions out there: that it occurred in the 1950’s with the invention of appliances and products, that the Nazi’s use of the pink triangle for homosexuals became an identifier for feminity or that it was a byproduct of trying to return to women being “women” after WWII during which they had been working in men’s jobs (okay, that’s my theory), but what we do know is that a girl often chooses pink and a boy does not. Why is this? There is a scientific study by Princeton University that explains that, “kids become aware by age two that there
are two distinct genders and that they belong to one of them. Securing
a place in one’s gender is important to a child’s psychological
development. One easy way for a child to achieve this security is by
adopting the color assigned to his gender by society and rejecting the
other ” However, the researchers still found that girls that were raised outside of the typical gender colors, still desired pink: they called this the Pink Frilly Dress (PFD) phase. But, honestly, is it truly possible for a child of North America to be raised outside of our gender coloring system?
Two scientists from Newcastle University in England differ from the Princeton researchers. Based on their study, they felt that there was an actual genetic difference. They found that girls had a preference for red to light red hues over the universal preference to the blue color in different cultures.
An artist, JeongMee Yoon has been studying girl’s and boy’s preferences for pink and blue, respectively. She has been photographing both her daughter (see PHOTO) and son with their pink and blue objects. I love looking at all the objects that her children have collected. You can see how girls products are “pink” and the boy’s objects are “blue” (or at least a cool color, like green) as a result of marketing . In Yoon’s ongoing study,she found that in the 3rd or 4th grade, a girl’s preference for pink turns to purple. Can any researcher explain that?!
