Pinkwashed

A few weeks ago I felt like I was caught in a social-behavioral experiment. When I set down my 18 month-old daughter, Lucy*, in a Best Buy to walk on her own she bolted away from me down an aisle on a clear trajectory. Amid a long row of boxes on shelves stacked from the floor to twice as tall as her tiny frame she had spotted the single pink item amid a sea of gray and black; Lucy smacked the box and looked at me with the excitement she reserves for when my mother has a new toy out in preparation for Lucy's visit.

Tearing my daughter away from the pink box she attempted to take with us I felt like I had already lost the bigger fight: Lucy identified with the color pink.


I harbor no ill will toward the color pink in and of itself: I cannot say I have a grudge toward any part of the color spectrum, but pink had become my enemy. As a professor who teaches and writes on issues of gender in US culture—and, you know, someone who would like to see everyone treated equally—I have some real issues with the girl = pink equation. Pink tool cases marketed to women seem as inane to me as ballpoint pens for "her", though I read somewhere that some women prefer the size of the tools in those sets—I'll refrain from further comment on that one.

http://celebritybabies.people.com/2009/02/19/toy-fair-2009-barbie/

As some may already know, in the last century people accepted that boys alone were suited to pink and girls to the more delicate blue. I offer the point only to underscore the arbitrary nature of these colors. In the last quarter of century, however, the trend of "pink is for girls" has gone into overdrive. Toys for girls have gotten pinker. From 1974 to 2009, Barbie's Townhouse went from multicolored to multi-shades of pink.

How, then, do I explain Lucy's affiliation with pink? She, like all children, is a quick study.

Family and friends, who generously give to our daughter as a show of love, have been the primary givers of pink, the pink play mat, the pink water bottle, and the pink school bus (just like the ones you see around town all the time). With all that pink our daughter has learned, "pink is for me."

My partner and I willingly participate Lucy in cultural traditions for females; we gave our daughter a name considered traditional for a woman, we put her in clothes typified for females (e.g., dresses), and we use feminine pronouns. There have been some conflicts along the way, like the time we argued in Target about a pack of onesies: I said she could have the pink and purple pack with flowers on them, because there was no reason for her to avoid feminine colors, but she should also have either the red and blue nautical themed onesies with boats and whales or the gray and green astronautical onesies with the dogs in rockets and on the moon (we came home with the nautical choice as the second set). I like flowers, but I wanted to make it our practice early on to communicate that the sea, the moon, and the stars are also options for Lucy's interests.

Back to my nemesis pink (not P!nk, because I think we can all agree she's pretty damn cool), the narrow association of pink with certain interests (e.g., play kitchens and tea sets rather than play work benches and power tools) equates to a narrow associations for my daughter. I don't want to despise the color pink, largely because the color's association with women would mean to also despise those things we think of as feminine. Moreover, I would hate for my unease with pink to lead Lucy to feel shame for enjoying playing/working in the kitchen or anything else we see as feminine. My bigger issue is that when I turn her loose in a Best Buy I want her to know that the black gadget, the white gadget, and the pink gadget are all equally attractive options—that is, right before I tell her to put it down because we're not getting it.


*Her pseudonym, and, also, her patron saint as given by us, her parents.