Now it sort of like a norm with everything pink customized for women and depicting feminity whereas blue and darker colours depicted masculinity.
Hello everyone!
It’s been a while since I have written in this platform but I am grateful to all of you who have kept coming to this page and enjoying my world.
As I was deciding what to wear for my birthday in May I saw this pink dress which I had bought for Holi which I hadn’t worn because of the whole pandemic. I was still searching if I could find something else I could where instead of that pink dress when a thought came into my mind, Why am I not wearing pink?
Since we are born somehow it is seen that if it’s a girl everything is pink and if it’s a boy everything is blue. Even for gender reveal parties and stuff this colour coordination is used. As the child grows up from birthday parties to clothes to room colours, everything is either pink or blue based on the gender. I guess me not liking pink was sort of a rebellion of my own against this very notion. When I was small naturally I had lot of pink stuff because everyone gifts you pink because you are a girl. Someone commented on this or one of my friends commented (I don’t remember who) that boys favourite colour needs to be blue and girls pink. I guess I have this tendency that whenever someone like forcefully implements things on me I don't like it. I feel that whatever I follow should be on my terms and my acceptance not because someone assumes what I like and just puts it on me.
I think stemming from this belief I started despising the colour pink. I actually changed my whole wardrobe to blue because I was like why not. Why should I like pink because every girl needs to like pink.
This marketing of pink for girls and blue for boys is actually quite recent. Funnily a 1918 infant trade department Smithsonian article states that pink was for boys as it was derived from red which signifies power and blue which is more petite is for girls. Even F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby when describing Gatsby as wearing a pink suit.
Gradually as world war ended somehow feminity shifted towards pink with female actresses started wearing pink dresses from Jacqueline Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe's dress in Gentlemen Prefers Blondes.
Now it is sort of like a norm with everything pink customized for women and depicting feminity whereas blue and darker colours depicted masculinity.
I didn’t like this notion so I never actually bought any pink clothes but somehow I had bought a pink dress. I actually wore that dress because I felt like I was taking out my anger on the colour pink which had actually no fault. I was blaming the narrow mindedness of the societal outlook of gender bias on a mere colour. So I decided from that day on rather than changing the colours I would like to change the thoughts of people regarding them. Who says a boys wearing pink isn’t masculine and a girl wearing black isn’t feminine enough. It is our narrow-mindedness that enables us to put labels on people just by viewing what colour clothes they are wearing. We need to stop putting labels and not judge people based on what they wear. People should have freedom to wear whatever they want. Did you know that the wedding dresses earlier were of any colour rather than white. Well that is a discussion for some other day.
But we really need to stop labeling people based on colours rather accepting them for who they are and live in harmony.
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