In one of my high school English classes we discussed the difference between "connotation" and "denotation". Denotation being the dictionary definition of a word--what something actually means. ("Actually" here being used with the understanding that all meaning is created.) Connotation being the ideas or feelings associated with a word. For example, pink.
Pink, by definition, is the color between red and white. But pink has many connotations. According to the dictionary on my computer's dashboard, "pink" as an adjective can also mean, in a derogatory sense, "having or showing left-wing tendencies"; or "associated with homosexuals" (which I will get to later); or, historically, a type of ship.
Escaping my dashboard dictionary, "pink" in society often equals "girl". It hasn't always been that way. Until the late 1940s, the "rules" for color associations and babies were fluid. Pink being cited as "more manly" was for boys and blue "associated with girls since the Virgin Mary is customarily dressed in blue." Whatever the reasons, the current color situation didn't appear until after the Second World War.
Once article I found states,
Regardless of the original connotations of the two colors, it's clear that they've now reversed their earlier meanings and that pink is much more associated with girls now, and vice versa for blue. There have been some studies that suggest that women just "naturally" like pink better, and that blue is a color that men prefer innately. Other suggest that the now current color consensus, which appears to have materialized int he 1950s, came from the Nazis branded gays with pink triangles in their concentration camps.
Not to say that is a perfect quote, but it works. I feel confident is forwarding the theory that pink is associated with girls because of a choice made by Hitler. Now, I'm not saying the current gendered color situation is directly caused by Hitler, but it cannot be coincidental either.
Which brings me to my point: pink being solely associated with girls and many products aimed at girls and women being available only in pink is stupid.
I've been working at a local Target to earn some money while I figure out what I'm doing with my life, and I work in the clothing section most of the time. Until I started, I did not understand how much of the baby stuff and toddler/kids clothing was gendered. The amount of pink in the girls sections is sickening. (There are other colors available, but only in pastels.) Perhaps the "pink product" that is the worst, is the pink nasal aspirator. In the same section, there are other basic baby care tools that also come in pink. The originals are white. The pink versions are all more expensive, another point I will return to.
The other day, a co-worker and I were working in the baby section and talking about the amount of pink, specifically pink bottles. I held that it was stupid for basic baby products to be gendered like that. She said that people want the gender of their baby to be obvious to others. First, what business is it of anyone else the gender of a stranger's baby. Second, why does it matter?
Answer: it shouldn't, but, disgustingly, it does. Society trains us to think pink=girls. Limiting girls to almost a single choice, although that is slowly changing, diminishes them and strengthens the status quo.
Pink products are not limited to girls either. There are pink products for women too: razors, ear plugs, shoes, bicycles, and many other everyday products. Perhaps the two most astonishing, to me, are pink guns (like it matters the color of the thing you're using to shoot bullets) and pink pens. Yes, pink pens. Because women need special pens.
This trend is economically discriminatory as well. Women's products cost more across the board--known as the Pink Tax. Other than in California, which banned gender-discriminatory pricing in 1995, women's products cost more. (At least in the US, but I'm sure the same holds true across most of the Western World.) And it's not just lotion and deodorant. It's dry cleaning and health insurance; the latter because women tend to live longer than men. Remember that nasal aspirator? 2 cents more expensive than the gender neutral white one. That may seem like nothing, but it is indicative of the larger problem. Women are charged more and are paid less.
My last point, and the catalyst for this post, is the use of pink as the color for breast cancer. And I get it, most cancers have colors associated with them for awareness, and even other illnesses. But, the most associated, known, whatever, one is pink for breast cancer. And the name most tied to that association is the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for more cancer awareness and prevention measures. I just don't think having pink ribbons everywhere is helpful anymore. Or professional athletes, almost all of them men, wearing pink shoes or socks or jerseys is raising awareness.
Last night, I was watching a baseball game. And for Mother's Day (a completely made-up commercial holiday) the players were wearing pink, all to support breast cancer awareness.
On this topic I have two points. First, this kind of "pinkwashing" isn't helpful. Companies can that make products or deal in products that increase the risk of cancer in everyone can buy good public opinion by donating money from some pink product. It is stupid and unhelpful. A gesture meant to make people feel good without doing any actual good. Instead of making a specialty product, why not stop fracking?
Second, many of the breast cancer awareness campaigns are based on "Save the Ta-Tas" or "Save Third Base"--statements which are incredibly harmful. They focus on breasts, and only sexualized breasts, instead of women. It is offensive. The logical trend from "pink" to "women" to "breast" to "object" is distressing. As they have been for centuries, women and their bodies are commodities to be bought and sold.
If you have read this entire post, thank you. And now, I ask one more thing: when confronted with the choice between a gendered product and a non-gendered product, choose the latter. There is the theory that products are only made because people buy them. Conscientious consumerism is hard but anything worth doing is hard and this is possibly the only way to effect change.
Sources:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/?all
http://forgottenhistoryblog.com/pink-wasnt-always-considered-a-feminine-color-and-blue-wasnt-always-masculine/
http://www.businessinsider.com/womens-products-more-expensive-than-mens-2015-4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/21/komen-is-supposed-to-be-curing-breast-cancer-so-why-is-its-pink-ribbon-on-so-many-carcinogenic-products/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-s-holmes/breast-cancer-awareness_b_1988050.html
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