What’s in a color? Though most hues inspire little conscious reaction, anyone in the 21st century would be able to ace a quiz about gendered coloring: Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. Walk past a bright pink shop and you know without needing any other information that whatever’s inside is aimed at a female consumer base. But why is this true? There is nothing inherently feminine or masculine about a color. However, pink has so powerfully become part of our cultural code that it seems difficult to imagine a world in which it was as gender-neutral as green is.
Surprising as it may be, the color pink wasn’t the feminine marker we know today until the aftermath of the Second World War. As the men of America hastily shoved hard-working and capable women out of the workforce and back into the kitchen, it was imperative that a gender divide be redrawn in every conceivable way. Out with the denim overalls and factory jobs, and in with flouncy dresses, crock pots… and pink.
If you were to stumble into a time machine and find yourself in the 1700s, you would discover a culture in which pink was worn by both genders without distinction. A man rocking pink or floral would not have been out of the ordinary. According to Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (interviewed in the Atlantic), pink once had, if anything, masculine connotations. People associated it with red, which was a “war-like” shade.
According to NPR, one 18th century French writer went so far as to recommended that men paint their bedrooms pink and white, and a 1918 catalogue suggested dressing baby girls in blue, because it was a “much more delicate and dainty tone.” Pink, on the other hand, was more appropriate for baby boys, given that it was a “stronger and more passionate color.” But if anything, pre-WWII color distinctions were aimed at distinguishing between kids and grown-ups rather than between sexes. Pale blues and pinks would be worn by young children, but rarely by adults.
Perhaps in an era in which there was a profound fear about the need to return to “traditional” family dynamics and restrain women from taking their wartime freedom too seriously, a color designation seemed a simple way to remind the sexes of their essential differences. Just as the domestic sphere and jobs as teachers, nurses, and secretaries became inextricably linked to femininity (and subsequently became less valued), pink, too, became something exclusively for women—and not good enough for men.
The question now is, given pink’s socially significant history, what should we do with it? Should women embrace pink as a color of power, or should we work to gradually steer it back to a position of gender neutrality?
What do you think about pink?