My childhood memories are made up of different shades of pink. Many of my baby photos feature me in all types of pink onesies, dresses, and dainty headbands. The backgrounds of these photos are bundles of rose-colored blankets and stuffed animals. In most of my birthday photos, my cheeks are flushed a rosy shade that matched the color of the pink sparkly princess dresses I wore. When I was four my parents painted my childhood home shell-pink after my constant pleading and prodding.
I guess it is an understatement to say that my favorite color growing up was pink. Looking back, it seems that I breathed and lived for anything pink. I really do not know why I was so obsessed with the color when I was a kid, and spoiler alert, continue to be. When thinking about the reason through a perspective that considers modern society, gender, and gender roles, one could argue I was conditioned from my birth as a female-born individual to like pink. Modern society has assigned pink for girls and women, and blue for boys and men. One can walk into any store and see the application of color to gender everywhere. Even basic-needs items such as toothbrushes and shaving razors are gendered by color. So perhaps my adoration for pink as a child was not entirely natural.
Despite my seemingly undying love for pink, there was a phase in my life from around age 11 to 16 when I rejected and excluded everything pink from my life. My once hot pink room became a dark aqua blue. When I walked into my closet, the clothes hanging from the hangers were mostly black with some speck of color here and there, but none of them were pink. When people asked me what my favorite color was, I would immediately respond with blue. I was lying to myself. Deep down inside I knew that my favorite color was not blue, but I was too ashamed to admit it.
Lying about my favorite color might seem like something of little importance, but it was part of something bigger. I was not only denying the color pink but also anything that might have been considered “girly.” I kept denying things that I liked and enjoyed doing as someone who was born and has identified as female for my whole life. I would often make snide remarks about things that were considered “girly” such as wearing makeup, caring about clothes, OneDirection, and even the idea of romance. Instead, I pushed myself to like things that seemed “edgier”,dark, and not at all “girly.” While in this period of my life I did find some “non-girly” interests that I genuinely liked such as comic books and playing basketball; I would still avidly read young adult romance books and only tell my closest friends.
For a long portion of my life I denied who I truly was: a girly girl who loves pink, watches romcoms, plasters her walls with posters of boy bands, and obsesses over her outfits because the right fits make her feel good. I still do not fully understand why I hated being a girl for the longest time— maybe it had something to do with internalized misogyny. But now I am happy to say I’ve been going through a healing process and am beginning to embrace my love for pink again and open to exploring my femininity. Now, whenever people ask me what my favorite color is, I say pink.