Why do girls wear pink and boys in blue?

Why do girls wear pink and boys in blue?

Have you ever wondered why girls wear pink and boys wear blue? The choice of these colors to define gender roles (along with the forced yellow for the unknown of the unborn) is relatively new and, as many will assume, there is no single ancestral scientific or cultural basis for it. In summary, the definition of a gender role based on these colors is stupidity invented by capitalism and to demonstrate it, it is enough to say that before the first decade of the 20th century, boys used to wear pink and girls blue; a custom that did not last for many years either.

In the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, it was common to wear white robes to dress children

According to historian Jo B. Paoletti, author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, until 1884 social conventions in the Western world largely dictated that both boys and girls wear white dresses (a kind of robes) until they were six or seven years old, the age at which they also received their first haircut.

Little Franklin Delano Roosevelt wearing a dress.

After this, something changed in society. It took something more visible to identify the sex of a baby with the naked eye, so they decided to introduce color to infant clothing. This is how pink and blue arrived, along with other pastel colors.

In the first decades of the 20th century it was understood that pink, being a strong color and being associated with red (the color of blood), was related to children, while blue, which is “delicate and kind”, was intended for girls. A 1918 clothing catalog from Earnshaw's Infants 'Department' store recovered by Paoletti confirms this. Other sources found by the researcher affirm that in girls the color had racist connotations.

In 1927, Time magazine conducted a survey of America's leading department stores. They wanted to know what colors they associated with girls in their clothing lines. The responses became quite confusing because some states had defined the color blue for girls and pink for boys. In others it was the other way around. Things were not defined.

Why do girls wear pink and boys in blue?

Other investigations found that in Europe things were the same. In France, orphanages distinguished boys and girls with blue and pink, respectively, but in other countries, such as Belgium, Switzerland and part of Germany, it was the other way around.

Baby Bobby paper doll sold in 1920 in pink, green and yellow dresses (Photo: Winterthur Museum)

Hey boomers!

The association between clothing color and gender was not established until the 1940s. Baby boomers were the first generation to be raised under the precept that boys should dress like their fathers and girls should dress like their mothers, while except in the United States: a nation from which the rest of the world copies the worst of its customs.

The popularization of pink also had, to some extent, the message that everything would be fine. During World War II, women wore black, blue, and other dark colors to work in factories. At home, the clothes were also sober colors.

Mamie Eisenhower

It wasn't until 1953, the day Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in as the 34th President of the United States, that pink came to the fore as a feminine color. The ex-general's wife, Mamie Eisenhower, wore a pink dress for the occasion; something never seen before and that fashion lovers fell in love with.

The headlines of the time constantly talk about the first lady's dress and, above all, highlight the color of the dress, which they named “Mamie pink”. But one thing that must be clarified is that Mrs. Eisenhower wore that dress because she liked pink, it was an arbitrary fact. If he had liked blue, perhaps things would be very different.

The popularity of pink came quickly to Hollywood. Actress Jayne Mansfield was one of the first to get hooked on color. She had a pink car, she got married in a pink dress, she dyed her pets pink, her mansion was pink outside and inside too. She explained in an interview that she did this because "men want a girl to be pink, helpless and breathe deeply."

Jayne Mansfield (Getty Images)

We could say that women's love of pink in the 1950s was something natural and honest that, once it fell under the scrutiny of fashion magazines, became a catchphrase related to gender and gender roles. traditional.

Eva Heller explains in her book Psychology of Color that in Germany, although the distinction between colors emerged strongly in the 1920s, it was not until the 1970s that it became widespread throughout the world. Another determining factor in her popularity around the world was racer Donna Mae Mims, the first woman to win a Sports Car Club of America national championship. The legend “Think Pink” was written on the back of her cars and she was known as the “Pink Lady”.

Donna Mae Mims

Blue and Pink

In the 1980s things were first established in baby clothes: Blue for boys and pink for girls. And not just in clothes. Toys and various products, such as diapers, were also defined by this color distinction.

Paoletti explains that this was due, in part, to the popularity of ultrasound tests to determine if the mother was expecting a man or a woman. If parents knew the sex of their son or daughter, more products would buy a certain color. Manufacturers of baby products (clothes, sheets, cribs, diapers, toys) began to create them.

During the 1960s and 1970s, attempts were made to return to neutral clothing.

This is how the producers established the gender of the colors and the parents accepted it as something natural, when in reality it is not. In fact, all the relationships of colors with other concepts (such as passion red, death black, purity white or life green) are social issues and can change from culture to culture. In a matter of colors there is nothing established.

There is not a single scientific proof that says that men or women prefer to wear one color or another, gender has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is not in the nature of boys to accept or reject “girlish” things or vice versa. This is part of a social construction, the same goes for game types and a plethora of other elements. Boys and girls are that. Why not let them be what they want to be while they can be infants?

Tags: