Commenting on the cuteness of a newborn can sometimes offer a risk in testing our abilities to deduce gender. To reassure the observer, that it is in fact a she, not a he—parents often use color cuing through clothes, blankets or a cuddly stuffed toy.
Decades ago however, gender confusion was the norm since fashion had a more homogeneous approach that lasted till young adolescence. From the 1800’s to 1890’s both girls and boys dressed in white, up until they began to walk. To confound the onlooker even more, both sexes wore dresses or short skirts beginning at age six till their seventh birthday. With a nod to an underlying connection to innocence, white’s practical use allowed for bleaching with abandon to remove stains.
The actual ritual of assigning color to gender (in Western culture) didn’t occur until the 1920’s. Pink was considered a suitable color for boys because of its close relation to red—a more masculine color to wear.
Blue was thought to be more appropriate for girls since the hue suggests passivity, feminine qualities, and a reference to the Virgin Mary.
After the 1940’s, pink and blue switched sides and have since remained hard fast visual identifiers for babies and preferred top choices for adults as well.
Since more men prefer blue vs. women preferring pink, is this coincidence or an ingrained preference since infancy? Or, are we predisposed on a biological level to prefer one color over another?
The results of a study conducted by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University, found that color choices may be driven on a genetic or evolutionary level. “The explanation might date back to humans’ hunter-gatherer days, when women were the primary gatherers and would have benefited from an ability to hone in on ripe, red fruits,” Anya Hurlbert, who led the team of researchers, said. “Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference.”
If this is true, is it acceptable to allow girls to migrate to pink, or could this choice possibly damage a girl’s ability to feel confident to defy nature by selecting a different color?
Those of us who frequent large toy stores on a regular basis know that marketers encourage and promote the color divide. It's never difficult to zero-in on the eye-jolting electric shades of pink—a.k.a the girl’s section. Can this sales strategy to perpetuate “pink is for girls” go too far?
A photographer named JeongSee Yoon felt compelled to document the pink and blue obsessions by children. Yoon began “The Pink and Blue Project” by photographing her own daughter’s collection of pink memorabilia. Yoon soon discovered that this phenomenon was not mutually exclusive to her own culture, but was a universal trait shared by many children from different backgrounds. Her riveting images illustrate the pervasive influence of marketing has on the subjects she photographed. The images illustrate a curious, almost archival level of adolescent color hoarding.
While Yoon’s project continues to maintain the status quo for what we’ve come to expect from color choices by children—men are defying convention (and wise-cracks) by crossing-over to the pink camp.
Showing support for breast cancer awareness and research, men are wearing pink beyond October, (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month). Donning the color throughout the year, reminds us that cancer never takes a day off while also promoting a much needed shift that only “real men wear pink”. Encouraging men to break with tradition may lend itself to two purposes—breast cancer recognition and the abandonment of keeping pink an exclusive color for the femme population.
Blue was thought to be more appropriate for girls since the hue suggests passivity, feminine qualities, and a reference to the Virgin Mary.
After the 1940’s, pink and blue switched sides and have since remained hard fast visual identifiers for babies and preferred top choices for adults as well.
Since more men prefer blue vs. women preferring pink, is this coincidence or an ingrained preference since infancy? Or, are we predisposed on a biological level to prefer one color over another?
The results of a study conducted by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University, found that color choices may be driven on a genetic or evolutionary level. “The explanation might date back to humans’ hunter-gatherer days, when women were the primary gatherers and would have benefited from an ability to hone in on ripe, red fruits,” Anya Hurlbert, who led the team of researchers, said. “Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference.”
If this is true, is it acceptable to allow girls to migrate to pink, or could this choice possibly damage a girl’s ability to feel confident to defy nature by selecting a different color?
Those of us who frequent large toy stores on a regular basis know that marketers encourage and promote the color divide. It's never difficult to zero-in on the eye-jolting electric shades of pink—a.k.a the girl’s section. Can this sales strategy to perpetuate “pink is for girls” go too far?
While Yoon’s project continues to maintain the status quo for what we’ve come to expect from color choices by children—men are defying convention (and wise-cracks) by crossing-over to the pink camp.
Showing support for breast cancer awareness and research, men are wearing pink beyond October, (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month). Donning the color throughout the year, reminds us that cancer never takes a day off while also promoting a much needed shift that only “real men wear pink”. Encouraging men to break with tradition may lend itself to two purposes—breast cancer recognition and the abandonment of keeping pink an exclusive color for the femme population.