as a freshman in college, i took a class that introduced me to the study of popular culture.
and while at the time i strongly believed i had a handle on the way media worked-
what it ended up doing was challenging everything i ever thought i knew about
"the way things are," especially when it comes to gender.
i remember being in class, saying,
"but i like barbies and mall madness and romance comedies because that's who i am"
and feeling pretty darn stupid when i learned otherwise.
in an effort to understand why her daughter would only wear pink and play with pink toys,
artist jeongmee yoon started a photo series called the pink & blue project to capture what
seems to be a universal trend of associating blue with boys and pink with girls.
 |
| originally spotted here. |
also, read a marvelous response to raising girls and the whole
pink princess phenomenon on pacing the panic room.
I've read that historically, boys were dressed in pink (the baby version of the very manly and forceful red) and girls were dressed in pale blue. It was a marketing campaign that switched the association. (of course, I can't remember where I read it, having two small boys to dress myself. They occasionally wear pink when I get their white shirts mixed in with the red towels.)
ReplyDeleteWow. These kids really went all out with their color obsessions, eh? When I was little, my favorite color was "sky blue" (as I put it) until the pressure to conform and choose either pink or purple as my favorite color got to me. It took a few years, but I soon returned to my blue obsession. It just feels right for me.
ReplyDeleteWow this is crazy. However I am in awe if all the pink haha. I'm a women studies minor & we talked about this subject all the time. Great post!! Also I was obsessed w mall madness too! I haven't met a lot of people who actually remember that game! So fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm hosting a giveaway on my blog, check it put if you can!
Xx kelly
www.MessyDirtyHair.com
oh wow! What an interesting project...
ReplyDeleteI see this all in full effect when designing kid's bedding. Boy's things are almost always blue (sometimes you get some maroon, forest green, tan or dusty orange for accents) and girl's stuff is most certainly PINK (pink with aqua, pink with lavender, or the current favorite of the past few years, pink with lime green). The company that I work with literally wont produce a girl bed without pink because the buyers insist that it wont sell. This seems totally bananas to me(children arent so black and white! they should have choices! they are more interesting than this!), but the even more depressing thing is that while boys get sports, trucks, airplanes, rocketships, cowboys, adventurers, dinosaurs and animals on their bedding, girls are pretty stuck with princesses, fairies, ballerinas...fairy princesses, ballerina fairies... etc etc.
As a blue/green/red kid who totally love both fairy tales and making mudpits and tree forts in the back yard, this kills me. I distinctly remember hating shopping for bedding for my room cause the girly stuff was pink and purple (colors I HATED as a kid) and the boy stuff was way too sporty/butch for me.... Why are we still putting gender into such silly compartments in 2012?!
Anyway, sorry for the rant, great photo project and very thought provoking articles. A pleasure as always, Ms Sami!
xA
xA
This is why I love to see kid's rooms done in non-traditional and unexpected color schemes.
ReplyDelete