Few weeks ago I responded to one of my friend’s instastory, saying that her pink laptop is ultra cute. And to my response she replied saying she actually likes pink but she doesn’t like it when people know that she likes pink, since people will think she’s a girly person (you know, pink is a girl color). She said that she wanted to be seen as a cool girl rather than a “cuntik-cuntik” (feminine, girly) girl.
Then she asked herself whether it is wrong or not to not like being called girly, following her question I tried to probe her, was the reason to feel so because being girly is not who she is or is it because she feels anything that is associated with being girly is something she looks down upon? And she answered, “THAT’S IT!” Though at first she can’t identify what she was feeling, I gave her my take on her issue; it is true that any feminine associated traits are deem as weak, submissive, oh the misogyny underlying it just suffocates me. I also can relate to her desire to be seen as a strong woman, but must we strip our feminine traits and replace it with masculine traits just so we can get stamp of approval as a strong woman from our society? Sadly, most likely yes, women still have to adopt masculine traits in order to be deemed as someone strong. Still, no matter how many masculine traits women try to replace their feminine traits with, they will never be seen as equally strong as men. Not until we can smash the patriarchy and bury its ruins deep in the earth.
However, I just couldn’t stop thinking why the hell do we even assign colors to certain genders, like, why? How? Why would colors have genders for God’s sake. Since that conversation, I came to wonder since when we assign gender to certain colors; why is pink a girls’ color and blue a boys’ color? Turned out, it has never been like that from the start. Pink even was deemed to be more suitable for boys because it was a strong and distinct color, well that is according to the 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department. To quote them, “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.”
To me, it’s funny how it didn’t become the norm to have a consensus that pink is a girls’ or in this starting point; a lady’s color until the inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower as the 34th President of the United States at 1953. At the inauguration, Mamie Eisenhower wore an enormous rhinestone adored pale pink ball gown, that was quite a shake for the people since women in that era wore much simpler style in a more muted colors. And because her position as the First Lady, it was no wonder that the whole nation was influenced, manufacturers and retailers alike started to market products targeted for women in the color pink. After that you know how it went, if a diamond cartel can market a made up the obligation for people to only propose to your loved one with diamond ring because it shows them how much you love them (coughs De Beers coughs), then why can’t decades of a collective of manufacturers and retailers dictating you which color fits your gender, not to mention the pop culture trends following them?
We’ve been associating certain qualities to colors since long time ago, like how we as Indonesian generally acknowledge that the meaning behind our national flag’s colors; red for bravery and white for purity. But seriously, I still don’t reckon there’s a logical reason to assign or align gender to color, moreover assigning gender stereotypes to a particular color. In the end, it’s just a construct by the capitalists to boost their profit margin. In all seriousness, I think we should all really unlearn the social construct that certain color has specific gender or a symbol of any specific gender, because really, it doesn’t have any logical reason supporting it. It may become a barrier for some to be themselves without being looked down upon, like how my friend can’t enjoy her (super) cute pink laptop because of the fear of being judged as a weak woman, or how guys are trapped in a dull closet of for the rest of their life because splashes of colors on their outfits are just not man enough for them. Pfsh, talk about fragile masculinity, but that’s a whole other massive and utterly complex issue we can have a discussion about later.
snowghoul
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
titsay
