Why is Pink for Girls?

By Amber Kovacik, October 29, 2015

This weeks post is inspired by a question that has always puzzled me, and although it is a little off-topic for my blog, I choose that it would be a different style for me than normal!

 

WHY is pink for girls? Why is blue for boys? It is a custom to dress your newborn baby girl in pink tutus and onesies, and to dress your boy in blue sports-themed attire. At a baby shower, the expecting mother is given bundles of pink or blue clothes and accessories if the gender is known, or yellow and green to be “neutral” if the gender is a secret. But why do we conform ourselves to these color limits? As I type, I’m looking at the pink that engulfs my dorm: my bed sheets, my hairbrush and scissors, my water bottle, it is endless. Of course, this would be quite the opposite if I walked into a guy’s dorm.. right?

Research reveals that the “pink is for girls and blue is for boys” phenomenon happened more recently than we thought. For example, in a 1918 edition of Infant’s Department, the clothes manufacturer said “…there has been a great diversity of opinion on this subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty is prettier for the girl.” (LiveScience).

So what caused this change? It was found that the change did not happen excessively until mass marketing ensued, which was after the second world war. Even then, it did not “gel” until the 1980’s! After WW2, a consumer boom ensued, and these brands relied on heavy marketing to sell a product. After many clothing companies competing with each other, gender “colors” started to emerge. In society, you try to appear gender normal among others, and if a company could sway someone’s opinion that gender normal was pink for girls and blue for boys, then it would have a large influence on the people buying clothes.

In a study done in 2011, it was shown that

“When one-year-old girls and boys were shown pairs of identical objects such as bracelets, pill boxes and picture frames, but with one object pink and another of a second color, they were no more likely to choose pink than any other color. But after the age of two the girls started to like pink and, by four, boys were determined in their rejection of pink. This is the precise time when toddlers start to become aware of their gender, to talk about it and even to look around them to see what defines boy and what defines a girl.” (Gender study)

So, to answer the actual question, no matter the study or research.. there is no real reason why pink is for girls and blue is for boys. They are simply colors, and their roles for each gender have changed in the past. The reason today that blue is associated with boys and vice versa is because that is what has been marketing to the public in the last 70 or so years.

However, there are interesting articles and facts about these gender colors. As you probably have seen because it is October, pink dominates the advertisement for anything breast cancer related. Is it because Breast Cancer is a “woman’s disease” and pink represents women? Here is a quote:

 “Pink is often used for breast cancer campaigns, but researchers at Erasmus University Rotterdam found that when women were shown adverts dominated by the color pink, they were in fact less likely to think they’d contract breast cancer themselves or to donate money to a cancer charity.” (Pink Study)

So basically, if you don’t like pink, you are less inclined to believe you’ll get breast cancer and you’re less likely to donate to breast cancer. (I think that’s pretty cray)

There was also information found in 2002 by a group of researchers in Switzerland finding that pink is both beneficial to both females and males. It was found that “printing questionnaires on colored paper made no difference, unless the paper was pink, in which case 12% more people filled it in”! (Pink paper test)

Overall, I think something we can all learn from these statistics and this post in general is to not be confined by a color! If you like pink and you’re a guy, that’s awesome! And if you don’t, that’s okay too! I think if we did not limit our children and babies to colors, they perhaps would be more accepting to new toys and clothes!

 

2 Responses to “Why is Pink for Girls?”

1. Amber Kovacik October 30, 2015

   I’ll consider taking the course!

2. nzg5122 October 30, 2015

   We just talked about this in my Women’s Studies class (106U, highly recommend), and I think that this is such an interesting topic. It’s really fascinating to look at the way we sexualize and “polarize gender” literal infants