When I was six, my favourite colour was pink. Everything I owned was pink and I loved it. I felt pretty, I felt girly, I felt cute and at six, I loved that feeling. When I was six, I wanted to be pretty and girly. I didn’t see anything wrong with that, and why would I? It wasn’t until I was older that I started to feel wrong about liking pink.
When I was 13, my favourite colour was blue. I stripped myself of the colour pink. It was too pretty, and I hated the way it made me feel girly. Very quickly, I went from loving the feminine parts of myself to wanting to remove any traces of them. When I was 13, to be “girly” was to be weak. My teachers never needed a girly girl to help them set up the gym equipment; they needed a strong boy. As a teenager, I never let myself like the colour pink and a small part of me resented the girls who did.
Today, my favourite colour is pink again and looking back, it’s crazy how I’ve come full circle. As I reflect on that though, I think it’s interesting to see just how against liking girly things I was. I was so afraid to be thought of as a girly girl that I rejected anything that put me in that box; but why?
I think the main reason was simply the fact that in high school, to be a girl meant you were weak, emotional, silly, unreasonable and pretty much any other stereotypical word you can think of. I surrounded myself with a lot of unhealthy people who believed the same things I did and I could never free myself from it. Being a girl and presenting myself in “girly girl” ways was bad.
Of course, it didn’t help that the boys in my high school were constantly belittling the girls around me for acting too “girly.” Girls at my high school couldn’t laugh, wear bright colours, drink Starbucks or have any interests, really, without being made fun of. I was never brave enough to go against the standards the boys in my school had set and so instead, I believed in them.
That is until quite recently when the Barbie movie came out. It helped in breaking the dislike I had for the colour. I think at the end of the day, it was less the colour itself and more what it seems to stand for. Pink means feminine and I’ve always had a hard time accepting the feminine parts of myself. As I’ve gotten older and continue to do so, I think it’s important for me to embrace what makes me a woman. It challenges the stereotypes placed upon women that shame them for being overly feminine.
At 20, I’m learning to re-love the colour pink and at the same time, I’m embracing my femininity and what makes me a woman.