A feminist thought piece, written by a girl whose only qualification is her opinion
When I was young, a large number of my friends seemed to harbour a distaste towards the colour pink - although distaste might be putting it lightly - detestation may be a better way to describe it. There are a myriad of similes I could use to emphasize this; they avoided it like the plague, like a fish and a net, a cat and mouse - almost like the colour pink was harmful.
There were colours I disliked too.
I was personally averse to the colour brown and that mucky, distasteful mix on green and yellow that bared resemblance to abhorrent snot; however, I can't say I ever truly evaded these colours like others seemed to with pink. Perhaps pink was just too unsightly to these people, perhaps they truly thought it horrid, but why pink?
Now it could just be my immense bias towards pink that is preventing me from seeing how unsightly it is, or was at that age, but I struggle to understand how so many shades of pink can be deemed as so deplorable to many young minds.
At least no one that I have met have shown scorn towards the colour, not man, woman, girl or boy. Will you roll your eyes at me, scoff at my words and treat me as foolish if I speak my thoughts on this matter? What if I said that pink is hated by so many children due to the introduction of internalized misogyny? Perhaps misogyny isn't the correct word but my point stands, it's the teaching of femininity being associated with negative connotations.
The colour pink has been labelled as the embodiment of femininity - which in my mind opens up a whole new can of worms but I'm trying not to tangent - am I supposed to believe it to be a mere coincidence that the feminine element is detested? Why, as an impressionable young mind, did it seem shameful to embrace femininity?
It's nothing new that boys and men are taught to shy away from femininity since it's not their 'nature'; however, why are young girls rejecting it too when it originated as what defined them? Why do young boys feel the need to renounce feminine attributes whilst young girls assimilate masculinity?
We have a celebration in Wales called Saint David's day, which I won't get into the semantics of - because I don't know them - but something about it nags my mind. It's the outfits we wore in school when participating in this celebration; you could choose between wearing a traditional Welsh dress, frilly with a bonnet, or you could wear jeans and a Welsh rugby shirt. Self imported into separated categories, 'girly-girl', and 'tom-boy'.
I adored the dress, I found it cute, and yet I usually wore the jeans instead. Whilst I'm not entirely sure that I was the most popular at that age, I certainly wasn't unpopular; I got along with all of the girls in my class and I liked that, it felt important to me. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be liked. Most of the other girls wore jeans, so I wore jeans. I'm sure that most of the girls were wearing jeans just because they were more comfortable, and it likely wasn't for any deeper reasons; however, that wasn't the case for me.
When asked the dreaded question, 'are you a girly-girl or tomboy?', I would respond with an ambiguous, 'I'm a girly-girl-tomboy'. What does that even mean? What are these labels that we create for everything? Why do we create these labels? What is a 'girly-girl'? Why was I ashamed to be one? What makes pink feminine? Why defines femininity and why? Why do people scorn it? What did it do but be associated with women?
This is likely the part where I'm supposed to collect my thoughts and conclude my writing, answer all of the questions I proposed, but that I can't do; all I can do is give my opinion.
I have known many people whom once despised pink come to love it as they grew - what thought does this provoke? it tells me that at the age in which we are our most impressionable, so many become averse to the colour pink, to femininity. it tells me that this can be perceived as a reflection of the world we grew in, the world in which is a product of past generations.
It tells me that misogyny is ingrained in our society, built within our statues, spoken within our slang, snapped on our phones and watched on our news. It tells me that the beginning of these teachings may just start as the intolerance to the colour pink and what it represents. It tells me that there are young children rejecting a part of themselves, rejecting femininity to fit into a society that subtly rejects it.
Perhaps the young and impressionable minds of children can acknowledge something within our society that we have grown to ignore, that we can't acknowledge because it is as accustomed to us as we are to it,
or perhaps pink is just unsightly.
