‘Pink is for girls’- A message deeply engrained from childhood, stitched into baby clothes, splashed across toy aisles and packaged into nearly every product targeted at women. Pink has become the most obvious marker of femininity today. But has it always been so? Absolutely not.
The truth is, gender-coding colour is nothing more than a deeply rooted construct that’s no more than a few decades old. It isn’t natural, it isn’t biological. It was manufactured by a marketing team with the sole aim of boosting sales.
So here’s the burning question – if femininity isn’t a colour, what is it?
WHAT IS FEMININITY?
Femininity is often reduced to a long list of supposedly ‘girly’ traits like owning lots of pink things, having long hair, wearing makeup, etc. Society treats it like something you have to perform to be recognised as female…as though it’s something that must be proved.
But what if you skipped the makeup, rejected pink and refused to perform every ‘feminine’ expectation? Could a lack of lipstick really damage your identity? Absolutely not! What it means to be female is so much more than that and more importantly, its inherent not curated.
In fact, historically, pink was the least feminine colour you could wear. The gender coding of pink that seems obvious now was actually reversed in the past : pink was for boys.
PINK & BLUE: A FLIPPED HISTORY
In the early 1900s, babies of both sexes wore plain white for practical reasons. White cotton and linen could be boiled and bleached easily, making them cheaper and more hygienic than coloured fabrics. Colours weren’t relevant to the equation at all, let alone the gender of a child.
In the late 19th/Early 20th century, the gender-coding of colour began. The colour red was firmly coded as masculine because it had military undertones, representing war, courage and blood among others – concepts that were considered masculine at the time. By colour theory, pink is a lighter tint of red- and so it was perceived as a toned down version of it, resulting in it being considered ‘junior red’ – for young boys. Parents were told that if they wanted to ensure their sons grew up masculine, they should dress them in pink.
Blue, by contrast, was seen as a feminine colour because it was perceived as delicate and serene, a colour tied to purity and gentleness due to religious associations. It was thought of as better suited for girls and everyone was advised to dress their daughters in blue to ensure they grew up feminine.
In Japan too, pink carried masculine associations for a long time – tied to the tradition of the Japanese cherry blossom trees, pink represented young warriors who died in battle while in the full bloom of life.
All this proves one thing – pink does not have an inherent gender.
The only reason that today it’s perceived as a colour for girls is because that’s the meaning society decided to attach to it. What might feel like an obvious association to most people today is not natural and certainly not biologically linked in any way. It was constructed, assigned and so easily reversible.
So if this wasn’t always the case, how did people start associating pink with femininity? The answer is simple and yet so unexpected – it was a marketing gimmick designed to make people buy more things than they needed.
PROFIT & THE POST-WAR PALETTE
Post-World War II, families had more disposable income which fuelled the rise of capitalism and consumerism. This was followed by ‘the baby boom’ which was a period of significant increase in birth rates, occurring between 1946 and 1964, raising the demand for baby products and toys. This is when the marketing industry saw an opportunity to double profit. By assigning pink to girls and blue to boys, they could ensure that baby wardrobes and toys weren’t passed down to siblings and re-used. Parents were pressured to buy separate baby products for their daughters & sons, effectively doubling sales overnight.
Now, you might wonder, why not keep pink for boys and blue for girls? Why did the flip occur? Among various cultural contributors post-war, one of them was that since pink was historically already associated with boys, families were very likely to already have pink boy clothes and blue girl clothes. But by flipping it, they now had to buy a whole new set of pink things for girls and blue things for boys, which guaranteed maximum sales possible.
Suddenly pink wasn’t just a colour anymore – it was now an identity marker. If people tie their identity to something as easily marketable as a colour, there will always be demand. Which leads us to the question: what role does pink play in today’s consumer market?
PINK-WASHED: FEMININITY FOR SALE!
Decades later, the tactic has remained the same, pink is still tied to femininity and weaponized to pressure women into buying more than they truly need. Products packaged in pink or featuring pink tones are subtly marketed as enhancing feminine qualities, thus attracting and quietly overcharging female consumers who want to be perceived that way – a practice known as the ‘pink tax’.
Now, pink is making a comeback through the ‘inner child’ and ‘girlhood’ trends on social media, pushing women to splurge on pink razors, pink phones and even absurd items like pink coffee- all under the glossy facade of empowerment or nostalgia.
Many of the pink products that marketers push us to buy to ‘reconnect with our child selves’ assume that little girls always want pink. But let’s be real, a lot of little girls might probably pick a black phone over a pink one – because it looks cooler and more like a spy gadget.
When we pick pink to “honor our inner child” we’re often just reacting to nostalgia manufactured by advertising agencies. We’re not reconnecting with our real childhood, we’re ‘reminiscing’ about some pink-washed version of it scripted by marketing strategy teams.
For them, it’s the easiest and most profitable way out – instead of understanding their female consumers’ real needs and desires, they just slap pink on it and watch it sell out.
YOU ARE FEMININITY
The marketing industry will continue to distort the concept of femininity into something we can buy rather than just inherently be and though we can’t change that overnight, we can certainly change how we perceive it. Femininity isn’t in the costume, it’s in you. You don’t perform femininity…you are femininity.
Even stripped by every traditional gender marker like long hair, makeup or the most obvious one – pink, being female is inherently feminine. Pink doesn’t make you feminine and rejecting it doesn’t make you less so. Your identity doesn’t need to be purchased back through colour-coded products.
If you like pink, like it simply for pink and if you dislike it, don’t reject it just to rebel against the stereotypes – reject it because you genuinely dislike it. Remember, the very idea that pink is inherently feminine is a marketing gimmick only a few decades old and it’s about time we detached from the gender politics of pink.
Pink isn’t a girly colour. Pink isn’t a boyish colour. Pink is just a colour. Femininity is simply the state of being female. Pink is just pink. That’s it.