Pink & Blue? Says Who?

When I gifted a purplish pink sweater to my domestic help’s three-year-old son, he responded sulkily, “I don’t like this colour. Pink is for girls!” When I cajoled him by saying boys and girls wear all colours, he just refused to agree with me. I remember my son happily wearing all colours when I made him wear them, till he attained the pre-teens and was not easily persuaded to wear the pinks, mauves and purples. As for my daughter, she happily wears all colours but yes, most of the gifts that she got as a baby girl were in varying shades of pink adorned with fairy, butterfly, flower, and doll motifs.

The young boy’s refusal to wear pink set me wondering how often we are inundated with the so-called colour rule – Pink is for girls and Blue is for boys? While growing up myself, however, this rule was not so deep-rooted as now. While females had some affinity for shades of pink, red and orange and males for varieties of blue, brown, grey and black, there were at least no pink and blue balloons, shoes, dresses, bags, stationaries etc. Most of the things available for children were in neutral colours and there were hardly any marketing gimmicks on the pink and blue decree. But if anything strongly characterises the modern social signalling of gender differences, it is the colour decree of ‘pink for girls and blue for boys.’

However, lately the pink and blue colour code has been reinforced in a strange way. In the sense, while it’s strongly embedded among parents, toddlers and younger children, at the same time, a few grown-ups are being unconventional enough to sport the colours meant for the opposite sex to prove that they don’t abide by the colour rule or to purposefully make a statement.

When as an eight-year-old, my daughter asked me one day, “who made this colour rule,” I couldn’t give her a logical response. I tried explaining as best as I could about the gendered roles for men and women and how norms affect colours and the way we tend to choose them knowingly or unknowingly – pink, a dainty and soft colour related more to girls and blue, a stronger and practical colour associated closely with boys.

Honestly, when it comes to choosing clothes for our children as parents, what do we look for? An item that’s unisex, comfortable and practical? Or pinks with frills, bows, fairies and flowers for girls and blue with aeroplanes, footballs, engines and superheroes for boys? Or do we struggle to find clothes in neutral shades and designs suitable for both girls and boys?

While the colour pink provides a distinct identity to women and girls with pinkathons, pink autos, and pink toilets as special markers for female events and facilities, frankly, I get quite irked with the profusion of pink and blue otherwise. Especially when we are invited to birthday parties of young girls and boys. From the invitation card to the party décor, balloon, cake, return gift, and wrapping paper, everything is a gush of either pink, fairies, and Barbie dolls for girls or else a splash of blue based on a superhero theme for boys.

Right from gender revealing parties, the birth of children and birthday parties to toys, baby products, stationaries and books – pink representing girls and blue symbolising boys – has emerged as the unsaid dominant rule. Not to mention the nurseries, children’s rooms, girls and boys sections in clothing stores, toilets etc. which are coloured based on this rule. Don’t forget the pink computers, telephones and bicycles too.

 While some may contend that colours are irrelevant, I strongly feel that they play a part in influencing how children think, behave and decide. Frankly, when we think about the colour pink, in all likelihood we conjure up images of little girls, soft, feminine, delicate, pink teddy bears, dolls and princess in pretty gowns. So much so that a young boy sporting a pink dress in all probability will be teased mercilessly by his peers and a girl sporting a brown or a blue dress at a party will stand out among her friends. While there may not be overt connotations for blue, being called a ‘pinkie’ is surely a term used to mean ‘girlie’ to ridicule boys who are sensitive, cry easily or display supposedly feminine characters or gestures.

Even different values are attached to the pinkness or blueness. So, if you are a girl, you have to like pink, meaning you’re also delicate, soft and girly. And if you are a boy, you have to like blue and not pink, or else you aren’t male enough. In other words, if despite being a girl, you like blue, brown, grey or black and not pink, you are not girlish enough. Also, it seems as if the two colours are also indirectly adopted to enforce the notion that there are only two possible genders one is allowed to be.

So, how did this gendered colour rule arise? Obviously, this rule is a western import and apparently, the two colours were first chosen because of how they complimented the hair and eye colours of the babies in those countries. Through the women’s liberation movement, women defied this social norm of gendered colours it did get reinforced soon after with dominant marketing strategies that in order to be gender normal you have to adhere to this colour code.

It’s not about the colours pink and blue per se but what it stands for. The notion of colour as a gender signifier or assigning colours to babies enforces a norm of how girls and boys are supposed to grow and fit into. Children as young as two and three tend to assign genders to even toys based on their colour: pink and purples are for girls and blue and browns are for boys. Once children absorb these colour clues, their conditioning and behaviour too are moulded as per the gender labels. Pink has become a cultural signpost for being a girl which indirectly pushes both young girls and boys towards their respective, perceived gender roles, thus limiting their roles and expectations.

Despite several pieces of research on the colour rule, the gendering of colour is largely a cultural construct, as cultural norms shape colour preferences. In fact, toy preference too is dictated by the same kind of rule as pink and blue. Babies become accustomed from birth to wearing and being surrounded by these colour codes which they pick up as social clues from their environment as to what being a girl or a boy means.

Toys are largely provided to children by their parents and family members who often categorise toys as masculine and feminine by their designs and colours. But it’s also seen that baby boys and girls show preferences for different kinds of toys as per their gender. So, while the boys are more likely to choose trucks, guns and machines, girls can be found going for dolls, soft toys and cooking sets.

This gendered toy preference is largely the outcome of children’s behaviour being modelled or reinforced in gender-appropriate ways. The developing brains of young boys and girls in their formative years steer them towards gendered paths away from an unbiased thought process.

Importantly, besides impacting babies the colour rule also affects the way adults consider them. A study showed that women treated the exact same babies differently depending on whether they were dressed in blue or pink.

What we don’t realise is the consequences this seemingly trivial issue of colour can have on a child’s developmental growth, perception and behaviour. It limits boys and girls to that one colour, those few toys and also behavioural norms and also restricts their thinking, decisions and ambitions.

One of the first things to change as individuals and then as a society is to break these stereotypes and to stop considering gender as binary opposites. Our attitude and conversations around what it means to be a boy or a girl often begin with this approach that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. It’s time to change the colour rule and initiate a new conversation allowing boys and girls the freedom to choose their colours.

Hearteningly, however, a few parents are refusing to comply with the pink and blue colour code and letting their kids choose their colours, toys and clothes to create a world with fewer gender stereotypes and sexism. Just like the rainbow symbolising the diversity of the LGBTQ community, our children should be exposed to all colours in the spectrum and thus explore all aspects of their personalities.