Not So Pretty in Pink

When I was younger, I adored pink and wanted to grow up to be a princess. Once I hit my teenage years and traded rosy dresses for blue jeans (and more practical career goals), I tried to keep this fact on the down-low. Sure, my tastes had changed, but my antipathy was further motivated by the realization that people take you less seriously when you're decked out in cotton candy pink -- and that, as a little girl, I was expected to love pink and be sweet and feminine. And I always feel it's best to shake up people's expectations.

So why broadcast my youthful pink-fetish in this very public forum? Well, I was just so tickled to come across the PinkStinks campaign in the U.K., which decries the way girls are pressured by cultural standards and an all-powerful marketing industry to be pretty in pink. The founders, Abi and Emma Moore, have become the hero of tomboys everywhere who grow up fleeing pink dresses and trying not to have their worth determined by what color clothes they wear or toys they play with.

Showing just how screwed up the world's priorities are, the playfully named campaign has been attacked as trying to upset the natural order of things. What next?! Women will want men to do the cooking and cleaning while they go out and run corporations -- wearing black suits no less! Ahem.

Actually, as a Guardian article points out, there's nothing natural about pink femininity. Less than a century ago, it was all about pink boys and blue girls. (On rare occasion, I've even seen men defying norms about appropriate colors for their sex today, and I have to say, there's something attractive about a man in pink.) But, like Hallmark-created holidays, marketing geniuses have a way of making us believe.

Unfortunately, emphasizing the right looks can have serious consequences. Studies show insecurity about appearance and fitting in seriously messes with kids' minds -- so that "C" your daughter brought home on her math test might be because someone told her she wasn't feminine enough beforehand, not because she procrastinated on studying. How crazy is that?

Whether pink or blue is considered the perfect female color, the problem is the same: judging our kids based on looks seriously disturbs their psyches. Didn't your parents ever tell you beauty is on the inside?

Photo courtesy of Zach Klein's Flickr photostream.