Pink - in Gender

In Gender

The association of pink with girls dates to the modern era, probably developing at different times in different countries. In 1856, it was reported that Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie of France prepared outfits with blue trimmings for the anticipated birth of a son, but their reasons were religious in that the son was to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whose traditional color was blue. An 1868 American source, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women refers to French fashion's assignment of colors−"Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy and a pink on the girl, French fashion, so you can always tell ."−but it is unclear whether the French fashion was to use colors to distinguish between children or between boys and girls. Before the 20th century, Europeans countries varied, with some assigning colors based on the baby's complexion, and others assigning pink sometimes to boys and sometimes to girls.

In the United States, there was no established rule in the 19th century. A 1927 survey of ten department stores reported that pink was preferred for boys in six of them and for girls in four. The foremost student of the role of color in children's fashion, Jo Paolettit, found that "By the 1950s, pink was strongly associated with femininity" but to an extent that was "neither rigid nor universal" as it later became.

Some date the origin of the association of pink with girls in the United States to the 1910s or 1920s. Many have noted the contrary association of pink with boys in 20th-century America. An article in the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department in June 1918 said:

The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. 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.

• Some feminists have sought to 'reclaim' the color pink. For example, the Swedish feminist party Feminist Initiative and the American activist women's group Code Pink: Women for Peace use pink as their color.

• The pink ribbon is the international symbol of breast cancer awareness. Pink was chosen partially because it is so strongly associated with femininity.

• One study by two neuroscientists in Current Biology examined color preferences across cultures and found significant differences between male and female responses. Both groups favored blues over other hues, but women had more favorable responses to the reddish-purple range of the spectrum and men had more favorable responses to the greenish-yellow end of the spectrum. Despite the fact that the study used adults, and both groups preferred blues, and responses to the color pink were never even tested, the popular press represented the research as an indication of an innate preference by girls for pink. The misreading has been often repeated in market research, reinforcing American culture's association of pink with girls on the basis of imagined innate characteristics.

• A study has been reported to show that a greater proportion of females respond favorably to pink because of a preference for reddish things like ripe fruits. It has been criticized as "bad science".

• The phrase "pink-collar worker" refers, in the West, to persons working in fields or jobs conventionally regarded as "women's work."