The Power of Pink

If I presented you with two baby gifts, a pink one and a blue one, and told you to give one to a boy and the other to a girl, how would you assign them? Chances are, you’d give the blue one to the boy and the pink one to the girl.

The History of Gendered Colours

Since the 1940s, pink and blue have been gendered as feminine and masculine colours. Post-war values of traditionalism created and upheld gender roles with renewed vigour in an attempt to make society clean-cut and conflict-free, and one way of doing this was the pink-blue colour attribution. Bright colours like pink became central to women’s wardrobes because they were seen as cheerful and feminine, and they worked to move women’s roles back into the domestic sphere.

Interestingly, this gendered attribution used to be the other way around. A 1918 publication from Earnshaw’s Infant Department stated that pink was more “suitable” for boys given that it was “more decided and stronger” than “delicate and dainty” blue, which should be for girls.

Although second- and third-wave feminism challenges such binary standards, this colour stereotyping is thoroughly ingrained into western society. Toys typically marketed towards girls, like Barbies and EasyBake Ovens, switched from being a variety of colours to almost entirely pink in the 1970s and ‘90s, respectively. Pop culture references like the iconic Mean Girls quote “on Wednesdays we wear pink” aligned the colour with vanity and highschool pettiness. 

This media through which pink has been promoted often reflects negative or limiting values assigned to women in society. Where boys were given cars and swords and building blocks, girls were given dolls to be dressed up, ovens to be baked with, and vapid lines to be quoted. Pink became linked to domesticity and frivolity, which in turn was attributed to girls and women, stripping them of much of the authority and opportunity given to their male counterparts. 

Everyday items like razors and soap have been found to be more expensive purely because they have been marketed with pink. This phenomenon is called the ‘pink tax,’ and it is significantly connected to the gender pay gap and the way in which women are financially limited by society. Colour carries weight, whether we want it to or not. But now that we’ve looked at pink from a sociological perspective, let’s investigate it from a scientific one.

The Science Behind Pink

Pink is not a primary colour, so what are its components? Red, white, and a little bit of violet. However, let’s now think about this in terms of the visible light spectrum. The spectrum is what gives us the acronym ROYGBIV, which represents the order of the colours on it. 

Now recall the main components of pink – red and violet –and notice that they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. There is no wavelength that corresponds with pink; pink does not exist on the spectrum. The presence or absence of the colour pink is based on our perception. This idea is both freeing and frightening, as it highlights just how deeply our reality is impacted by how we choose to see it. 

What Pink Signifies 

Recently, you may have seen people sporting pink ribbons in support of breast cancer awareness month, October. With Halloween coming up, you may recall the surge of pink-based costumes inspired by Greta Gerwig’s summer smash film Barbie last year. Feminists reclaimed pink during Trump’s election periods as an indicator of liberalism and freedom after he made many derogatory comments about women. One specific shade of pink, Baker-Miller, has been found to lower aggression and has been utilised in prisons with significantly positive outcomes.

Pink can take back its 19th century reputation of strength. It conveys confidence as well as care, ferocity as well as femininity. Pink is all about perspective and can mean many things to lots of different people. Its perception-based existence makes it magical–its significance is entirely based on how we see it. To reject pink would be to give into its negative stereotypes; instead, we have to embrace it, creating our own positive connections and connotations. 

Wear pink to school and work with pride, and let it become associated with all your hardwork and success like Elle Woods in ‘Legally Blonde.’ Support causes that identify with pink, and give strength to the colour through your charity and community. Learn about the ‘pink economy,’ a term used to describe the economic abilities and opportunities for the LGBTQIA+ community, and make the colour representative of achievement and equality. Give the pink baby gift to the expecting parents, regardless of the child’s gender. The power of pink is in your hands!

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