The Pinkification of the Rainbow

Loving Family Dollhouse

Have you been into a toy shop lately? You should. Walk into any toy shop and check it out. One end will be full of Lego and action figures and guns and games. The other end will be pink. Totally pink. Barbies, accessories, bikes, games: pink, pink, pink. Have you noticed, too? Well, we are not the only ones.

PinkStinks

Barbie Fashionista Ultimate Limo

I recently read an article about a British campaign called PinkStinks. It was conceived in 2008 by two sisters, Abi and Emma Moore, who believe that our children – both girls and boys – are being negatively affected by what they call the ‘wholesale pinkification’ of girlhood. Their campaign  ‘targets the products, media and marketing that prescribe heavily stereotyped and limiting roles to young girls.’

Barbie Quad Roller Skates

They claim that society is going backwards, and they are impugning marketing and media for consciously obliterating the gender equality campaigns of the 1970s with ‘pernicious gender stereotyping’. Products for girls have become overwhelmingly focused on fairy tales, fashion and make up… ‘and pink has become the ubiquitous brand colour to represent modern girlhood.’

Well, they are certainly right about the tsunami of pink that has flooded the market. Here’s just one example.

Drowning in Pink

Eloise Shop, Plaza Hotel, New York

While in New York at Christmas my daughter and I visited the Plaza Hotel, home of Eloise. In case you haven’t been introduced, Eloise is the character in a children’s book from the 1940s, a six year old girl being raised by her English Nanny in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. She is neither pink nor remotely princessy, but an active, imaginative child with a penchant for getting into trouble. Yet the woman responsible for the décor in Eloise’s souvenir shop has doused everything in a truly hideous shade of lolly pink.

Horrified, and suddenly aware, we marched into bookshops, clothes shops and toy shops. Let me tell you – ‘pink for girls’ is the rule of thumb in every store.

Colour-coding our Kids

Girls Pinkalicious 12" bike

Strangely enough, pink was historically designated as a strong colour for a boy’s nursery, merely a lighter version of red, while pale blue was considered a softer, more feminine colour for girls, with connections to the Virgin Mary. Today pink is for girls, blue is for boys and never the twain shall meet.

Medical kit

Don’t get me wrong, I do realize that there will always be some gender bias in this world. We are not exactly the same, and it is natural that we should have different interests. Nonetheless, researchers claim that such blatant gender discrimination is dissuading girls from experimenting with boys toys, and vice versa. And what of the girls (like me) who loath pink, or who might prefer to dress up as Superman rather than Cinderella?

PinkStinks is keen to turn the tide on this smothering trend. It aims to raise public and corporate awareness of the detrimental effects of a purely pink world on our daughters, and to promote ‘media literacy, self-esteem, positive body image and female role models for kids’.

Conflicting views

You & Me Doll Accessories Tote Bag

To my surprise, many parents are outraged by this: firstly, by the argument that pink has negative connotations; secondly, by the inference that they are bad parents for promoting the power of pink. Emails to PinkStinks have apparently been derisive and vitriolic.

Yet others say that it is about time this issue was addressed: ‘This campaign is way overdue,’ says one journalist. ‘Pink does stink …it is the colour of the glass ceiling that traps young girls’ aspirations in a perfect pink bubble.’

But why does an innocuous colour preference have child psychologists so hot under the collar? Is the pinkification of our daughters really such a serious threat to gender equality, or is this a storm in a teacup, albeit a pink one?

Subliminal marketing

Barbie Fashion Fairytale Vanity Set

Some researchers claim there is an issue: that submerging the female psyche in pink is an insidious marketing ploy that is dividing boys and girls into ‘gender apartheid’; that such strong reinforcement of gender biases limits our children’s imaginations and their horizons by sending out subliminal messages that girls should leave the tough stuff to the boys while they sit passively in their ivory tower painting their nails and flouncing about in their fairy dresses.

Disney Princess Magic Wand Laptop

There is a growing fear that the subliminal message of pink will undermine ourdaughter’s chances to be independent, free-thinking, three-dimensional young women. According to research there is some evidence that this kind of sexual typecasting actually does affect the way our children think in the long-term. Colour coding is not innate (children are not born with in-built colour preferences), but nor is it necessarily evil. However, some researchers fear that our kids, exposed at an increasingly early age to such forceful stereotyping, can become hardwired by the time they are adults.

Less Pink more Personality

Personally, I am totally anti-pink and would willingly outlaw this horrendous colour in its entirety, but then I am a redhead, and when I was growing up red and pink did not go together. EVER. So I learned to avoid it, and loathe it. But despite my innate dislike of pink, I struggle to see it as a serious attack on feminism. Surely most little girls outgrow the pink princess phase before they reach their teens and learn to be individuals? And do we really want to deny them a childhood fairy tale or two?

Cupcake Fairy Halloween Costume

One less fiery journalist refers to this prevailing fashion for pink as the ‘ghettoization of pink’, and asks simply why girlhood should be so monochromatic. ‘It’s not that pink is intrinsically bad,’ she says,’ it’s just a tiny slice of the rainbow… but ‘it fuses girls’ identity to appearance’. As Abi Moore comments: ‘There’s more than one way to be a girl’ but media and marketing are seriously narrowing that definition, failing dismally to provide our daughters with any other choices. And truly, for those of our little girs without ambition to be Pink Princesses, what an unimaginative, two dimensional, lolly-pink world we are creating for them.

*all the toys and costumes come from the Toys ‘r’ Us catalogue for 3-4 year olds.