Yesterday was my birthday.
I say that not because I'm expecting your applause and congratulations (though, they're appreciated), but because it's the main reason this is what I chose to write about in this post. Your birthday is the day that family, friends, and barely acquaintances make a point to get you a gift, buy you a card, or give you a shoutout on Instagram.
Major Side Note:
Every year I wake up to what I think is a sweet happy birthday text from my dad. When I open it, it says...
"Dear Aneyla - Happy Birthday to a very important person...YOU!
From Dr. AlSaleh
Reply STOP to opt out of all text messages."
This man really forwards me a happy birthday text from my dentist every single year and every single year it's the FIRST MESSAGE I WAKE UP TO. At this point, maybe it's my fault for not catching on, but dang, come on Dad.
Anyway, back to birthday gifts. As I'm sitting here looking at all the things I've been given, I'm starting to doubt the existence of the rainbow. Why, you ask? Well, let me answer that in one word.
Pink.
Pink ribbons. Pink cards. Pink notebooks and candles and birthday bags with hearts or flowers or cutesy quotes on them. Everything is pink. The funny thing is that I don't even like pink. I mean, I don't dislike it, but if given the stereotypical choice between pink and blue, aka the girl color and the boy color, I would most definitely choose blue. This got me thinking...who came up with these rules? Who decided that because I identify as female, I must enjoy the color pink? Who decided pink was a "girl color" anyway?
I did my research and could find no substantial reason for why colors became associated with certain genders. In fact, I even found multiple articles that said these roles used to be flipped. Pink used to be the color young boys were dressed in because it was viewed as "bold" and "strong" while blue was more suited for girls because of its "dainty hue" (YUCK). The only reason I could find for why blue has become the boy color and pink is reserved for girls came from a post on Racked.com by Jennifer Wright.
Wright takes us back to 1869 and a brief line in the classic book Little Women. The line states that Amy tied a pink bow around one baby doll and a blue one around the other to remember which one was a girl and which was a boy. Wright goes on to explain that this doesn't seem to be enough to have shaped the deep rooted insistence of boy colors and girl colors in our modern society, but we can't really find anything else that may have triggered it.
Let's forget about why it started for a second and shift our focus to why it has stayed. Can someone say gender reveal? This is one of the biggest things that serves to further cement the idea of the girl color and the boy color, and it is EVERYWHERE. I see a gender reveal on social media at least once a week. There's either a cupcake with blue dye on the inside, or an older sibling opening a cardboard box and letting out a single pink balloon, or a couple busting open a piñata to let the blue dust inside cover their whole yard. It's a big thing.
Even though we may have an issue with the idea of certain colors belonging to certain genders (well, some of us, definitely not all of us), we're willingly strengthening the idea by participating in things like gender reveals. So, what's the answer? Do we stop? Do we keep them going because it's not a big deal? Each of us has to decide that for ourselves, and I think it's okay if you don't have a definitive answer yet.
I don't either.
Aneyla, I've always been confused by the concept of gendered colors. I told myself that if I ever have kids one day, that I would just get them neutral colored things, like yellow. It's happy and simple. However, if we consider gender socialization, as soon as they start school or even look at picture books, that gender color assignment will become ingrained. I agree that there is no answer on how to solve it, but the increased recognition of the issue will be helpful to its eventual demise.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I have always wondered, too. I have thought, at least since I got curious and did a bit of research in high school, that it was because of the assignment of the color to gay men during the Holocaust (this article explains it a little bit https://www.esquireme.com/culture/nazi-colour-coding). Either way, the obsession of assigning colors to a child's sex only seems to be getting crazier by the minute! I cannot even begin to tell you how many mind-boggling gender reveals I have seen on social media, powder in the tailpipe of a motorcycle, someone shooting skeet that erupts into a cloud of blue or pink, these people are really thinking outside of the box. Seeing these, I wonder the same thing you do: do we stop or is it okay? I must admit, though I believe the idea of one gender "owning" one specific color is wild, I really do love watching the gender reveal videos. The camera will almost always pan back to the expecting parents and they are jumping, hugging, sometimes crying, all because they are so happy to be having a child, no matter the gender (well, most of them). I am glad you brought this topic up, because I don't think I have an answer either.
ReplyDeleteAneyla, two things! First, Happy Belated Birthday! Second, I truly appreciated your input on this topic. I agree that thinks like "gender reveals" are part of the issue of engraving this societal ideal of feminine and masculine into our minds. I see it so often at work, a little boy will pick up a glittery hand sanitizer holder and his parent(s) say something along the lines of, "no honey that's too girly for you," like what makes glitter girly, and why is it so bad if a guy likes it?
ReplyDeleteLots of good connections that could be made between this post, Izzy's post about hair, and Vivienne's post about movies. The common theme seems to be how arbitrary (and constructed) these "rules" are.
ReplyDeleteHappy belated birthday! I agree with you on so many points here. First of all, I also would have picked blue over pink. I like pink but blue is my favorite color. I've never understood why there's much gender held in such two little colors. A boy should be able to wear pink without being considered feminine and a girl should be able to wear blue without being considered masculine. We place such emphasis on a color from the time someone is born until the time they die, and for what? It's all about personal preference anyways. Thank you for your post. I hope next year you get to see more colors.
ReplyDeleteHappy Late Birthday!!! I agree with most of what you said however I dont believe for it to be 100% true. I think that a lot of the people in my life have gone outside of that norm. I may have gotten a lot of pink things, but once i was old enough to voice my opinions and tell people what I liked everything was what society would consider a 'boy colour'. If you read my post its about how I've always kind of gone outside what is normal for a woman. I personally love watching gender reveals, but I do agree that the use of pink and blue is kind of annoying. I think if I was to do a gender reveal I would choose two different colours. Not just to be different, but because I don't think society should be applying colours to gender.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Aneyla, I too have always wondered "Why do I have to love pink?" When clearly I LOVE blue more, more specifically, teal.
ReplyDeleteBeing the rebel I am (she laughs sarcastically) I hated when people told me I had to like pink or that blue was a "boys color", so I went in between and grew up on that wonderful violet, dense purple color.
Now, what confuses me more about these "gendered colors" is, why exactly, those who seemed to accept that I enjoyed the color blue, would always assumed I wanted strictly boys things? Not to complain, I was quite the "tom boy" but it really did make me wonder. It made me feel as if they thought I was confused about my gender, things like that. I could go on.