Why is Blue for Boys and Pink for Girls?
Where did this stereotype come from? Was pink always designated a feminine color, and blue a masculine color, or did culture somehow dictate the gender preferences? There are differing opinions, which I have hunted down to mull over. 
Isaac and Ella, my friends' babies
You might be familiar with the famous portrait called "Blue Boy". But I didn't know that Gainsborough painted a companion pieced entitled, "Pink Boy". So it seems, in the 1700's, the modern stereotypes had not yet been established. (source)
In the US in the early 1800's, boys and girls were dressed alike in white from birth through early childhood. Babies wore "long clothes" which were white cotton dresses that extended beyond the length of the infants' body.
In the early twentieth century, ideas about child-rearing changed, and developmental stages such as crawling were encouraged. Children's clothing was adapted to allow for more movement and more colors were introduced.(source)But even as late as 1899, young children were still dressed in unisex dress. The pattern descriptions read, "child’s dress appropriate for either a young boy or girl"
Originally, pink was designated for boys, as it was thought to be the stronger color. In Christian tradition, red was associated as male, and its ‘little’ sibling pink was used for boys.(source) Blue was associated the Virgin Mary and therefore considered feminine.
Take this news clip from a 1927 issue of Time magazine, "In Belgium, Princess Astrid, consort of the Crown Prince, gave birth a fortnight ago to a 7-lb. daughter. Said despatches: "The cradle . . . had been optimistically oufitted in pink, the color for boys, that for a girl being blue."
After WWI, blue was used extensively for men's uniforms. Therefore, blue became associated as more of a masculine color. From the 1940's onward, pink was pushed as a woman's color. "Think Pink" was the marketing slogan to convince women to embrace their femininity. Dressing girls in pink reinforced this role by conditioning with a set of rules that started with little girls, made of "sugar and spice and everything nice."
Book by Lynn Peril
Today, those gender specifications hold strong, with pink designated for girls, and blue for boys. Fashion is making inroads to break the stereotype, but for the majority of our (American) society, I think people are still pretty traditional.
Take this present-day catalog image of room designs for baby boys and girls:
I'm curious to hear from readers in other countries- do gender specific colors hold true for where you live?
P.S. in New York City, there is an exhibit currently going on at the Fashion Institute of Technology which traces the evolution of color in fashion. She's Like a Rainbow: Colors in Fashion. If anyone goes, I'd love to hear how it was.
16 comments:
I've just visited your blog for the first time and am really intrigued by this post...the sociology/history of color is very interesting. I hope you do more on this topic!
Also, I might just have to get over to FIT before May 9th for the Fashions History show, sounds cool.
I was redirected here from A Dress A Day, and will be sure to bookmark this entry! From Sweden I can report that although the past few years (decade even, maybe?) show an increase in a more unisex approach to children's clothing and colours, the general idea is that pink is for girls and blue for boys. Not only that, but there are a depressingly large number of people who think red, orange and purple also make little boys' willies fall off.
Bani,
thanks for joining us! That is too funny that people are so opposed to colors for boys that they think somehow, it will effect who they are. Such silliness...
I'm always curious how different cultures and different regions perceive colors differently
Thanks for the welcome!:D
It is interesting, isn't it? I've noticed that red for example seems to be a "boy" colour in the US - something I keep telling people here when they think red is "girlish". *smirk*
Like Bani, I also came here A Dress A Day. I love colour very much, so am thrilled to find your blog!
I love this post on colour and gender. Makes me think of a movie I saw in the mid-80's called "The Pinks and the Blues". It showed how a group of parents, many of whom were committed to not projecting gender stereotypes onto their little kids, did so anyway in ways they were not conscious of, and how these unconscious cues called forward specific behaviours in girls vs boys. (E.g. girls would come up very to mom to request something and would ask her in a low and intimate voice; vs boys who would stand at least a few feet away and robustly almost shout their request to mom.) If I recall correctly, before the researchers pointed out to the parents how they had been cueing their kids to do this kind of stuff, some parents had been concluding that since they were feminist-aware and committed to not conditioning their kids, therefore gendered behaviours much be "natural" and "inborn" after all! Were they surprised to be made aware of the depth of their own contributions!
Anyway. I'm in Canada. I want to acknowledge, first, that I must generalize to try to answer your question.
At first glance, gender roles in Canada appear to be quite similar to those in the States, and in many ways that matter, they probably are. But as someone who voraciously ploughs through all kinds of magazines and pattern books as well as visits online fabric stores, I have been jarred many times by what strikes me as a much more hyped-up pressure in the States to conform to these roles. For example, I have been almost shocked by the extent to which some U.S. online fabric stores actually tell customers in their product write-ups which colours and prints are appropriate for little boys, and which for little girls. Taking into account my 50 years of experience as an urban and rural Canadian being ongoingly exposed to both Canadian and U.S. media and now, to online stores, I have found some of this sort of gender-role advocacy coming from the States to be so over-the-top that it's actually made me consider not buying fabric from a couple of shops.
Again, not that such generalizations are always true of folks on either side of the border. But, still. There's something expressed by the predominant culture in the U.S. that keeps clashing with my own cultural sensibilities and catching me off-guard. Come to think of it, other Canadians have emphatically agreed with me on this.
Sorry for the length of this, if you might find that a problem! It's a subject I have thought a lot about.
Susan
Yikes — re "The Pinks and the Blues" movie, I meant to say, "very CLOSE to mom"!
Susan,
welcome, and thanks for your insightful commentary! yeah, our culture does tend to ram gender biases down our throats, don't they?
I am a Malaysian residing in Canada. I must have dressed my son in the wrong colour many times when I first arrived in Canada.
I do not like dark colours which are sadly being assigned to boys, so I would buy him white shoes with grey and pink strips, white shirts with red shorts and etc. I became more cautious after my grade 2 boy was asked by a girl friend:" Why are you wearing a girl shirt?" just because the shirt he wore has some purple colour on it.
The association of colour to gender is not so strong in Malaysia. Of course the "pink for girls" trend has arrived but people are not satisfied with "blue for boys". I have a pleasant surprise when my male relatives showed up in orange, red and all the rainbow colours when I came back to Malaysia for the Chinese New Year.
This is what I've heard "In ancient times, it was believed that evil spirits menaced the well-being of infants. It was also believed that evil spirits were allergic to certain colors, especially to blue. According to Dr. Brasch: "It was considered that the association of blue with the heavenly sky rendered satanic forces powerless and drove them away. Even in our own time Arabs in the Middle East continue to paint the doors of their homes blue to frighten away demons. Thus, the display of blue on a young child was not merely an adornment but a necessary precaution."
yeah i tottaly agree. come on can't girls have blue cribs too or manly for us girls? Well i found the topic very interesting and am glad i read it. keep on righting the good stuff! oh and it is my first time on this blog!
No such stereotypes in India - if it is colorful, it belongs in baby clothes! My American relatives are shocked that my nephew wears pink, yellow, purple, red, ...
I discovered this blog while Googling as I wondered why blue has been designated for boys and pink for girls. I have two sons, under 3 years old and I find I am very uncomfortable at the idea of dressing them in Pink, especially as they get older, like it is ingrained in me that if I do their "willies will fall of"
I also read the article in trivia-library.com that said evil spirits were allergic to blue as it was associated with heaven/sky and therefore infants, especially males were clothed in blue to protect them, while "On the other hand, since female babies were considered inferior, it was felt they required no special color to protect them. In later times, parents became very much-conscious of the neglect of girls and introduced for them the new "pink" look."
http://www.trivia-library.com/a/why-is-the-color-blue-used-for-boys-and-pink-for-girls.htm
Another article says it may be genetically / gender based - that women prefer hues towards the red end of the spectrum, while men prefer hues towards the blue end. Though I would question how they know the preference is based on nature rather than nurture.
And wouldn't that mean that the baby wears pink or blue based on the gender of the person dressing them rather than the baby's own gender?!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/boys-like-blue-girls-like-pink--its-in-our-genes-462390.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL2081187520070820
I have been sewing some baby clothes for charity. I live in a metropoliton area that is made up of people from al over the world, which got me thinking about if sometimes the recipients of the clothes wonder why we give pink for girls and blue for boys. I found your blog during my search about the blue/pink tradition.
When my son was born in 1991, my mother gave me a pink blanket she had used with me (a girl) in the 60's. I used it a few times with my son when he was an infant because it was a good size and folded well. Somewhere along the line my son became attached to the pink blanket. Over the years it was used at sleep time, carried to daycare, used as a super hero cape, and many other purposes. By the time my son was in elementary school I was able to start easing the pink blanket away. It is no longer square and the binding has been reattached many times.
My son is now 17 and as far as I know having a pink blanket didn't damage him in any way. Probably also helped that no one in the family ever made a big deal about it.
On the point of little boys wearing dresses, I have a picture of my grandfather from the 1890's. Grandfather was about a year old in the picture and was wearing a dress. We believe it was white and would have been used by all the children in the family through the years. I would think it did help with diaper changing.
thanks for sharing!
How about this idea: The earth is associated with the feminine side; hence, "mother earth"/"mother nature". What color is the 'door to life'? Right, pink. Conversely, the heavens are associated with the masculine side; hence, "heavenly father"/"our father which art in heaven". What color are the 'heavens', the sky? Right, blue.
I llove the color blue and have a baby girl. Pink has never appealed toe even as a little girl. I dress my daughter in all sorts of colors but prefer blue. Her nursery is blue and green. I have had people ask me if she is a boy while wearing blue clothes with sparkles and flowers on them ( also considered very girl - yet because the color is blue, they assume she is a boy over these girl-type decorations). I am in the US.
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