Two expecting parents throw a gender reveal party. They
purchased a cake and gave the baker the secret information of the sex of their
child. The cake has a mystery color on the inside, blue if their child is a
boy, pink if the child is a girl. They cut open the cake, and suddenly, they
envision the child they’re bringing into this world with clarity like never
before. But wait, how did color become associated with gender identity, and
what does this mean?
According to an article, When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?, children’s clothing was gender neutral, or at least the line was
blurry on which color belonged to which gender, until 1940. Even after, there
was still a period of gender neutral children’s clothing around the mid 60s to
early 80s.
Despite this recent invention of boy and girl colors, it is
rare to find an infant that is never adorned in clothing specifically designed
for its gender. In the same article as before, one parent recalls, in comparing
her son born in 1986 versus her daughter in 1982, “All of a sudden it wasn’t
just a blue overall; it was a blue overall with a teddy bear holding a
football.” This statement reflects on how nonsensical these gender approved
clothes are, but also introduces a danger: these clothes push gender roles on
unformed identities.
One color being feminine and one being masculine isn’t the
end of the world, but it expands the idea that anything can be defined as solely
feminine or masculine, and corresponds with how, with pretty much any outfit,
it can be labeled as feminine or masculine, and unfit for one gender to wear.
Crop tops (shirts that show midriff) are not very popular in
feminism today. According to Rosalind Gill’s essay “Supersexualize Me!:
Advertising and the ‘Midriffs,’” these shirts are advertised in a way that “buying
the product will empower you” but this undermines the fact that today, “the
body is portrayed as the primary source of women’s capital” and that, by
promoting hypersexual clothing specifically to women, we are helping to
undermine any woman that does not meet the standards for the perfect body.
Colors were the beginning, but gendered clothing impacts
everyone through all stages of life, often negatively, and to rid the society
of these errors, we should be working to correct the clothing advertised for
children and adults alike, because the problem is the same.
Gill, Rosalind. “Supersexualize Me!: Advertising and the ‘Midriffs.’” Supersexualize Me!:
Advertising and the "Midriffs", edited by Gail Dines and Jean M Humez, 2015. Gender, Race, and Class in Media.
This is an interesting post. I remember learning in high school that it used to be that blue was a feminine color and pink was considered masculine. This article talks about it: http//www.businessinsider.com/pink-used-to-be-boys-color-and-blue-girls-here's-why-that-changed-2017-10 But to sum it up, it says that pink used to be masculine because it was considered a lighter version of red. Blue was tied to the virgin Mary, so it was considered feminine. While it is still strange that color was used to determine gender, I think that it is interesting that these two colors have reversed themselves from how they used to be.
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