Follow me!
Gender Mystique

Why pinkification matters

3/31/2014

 
There's been quite of bit of back-and-forth about pink lately, Researcher Rebecca Hains summarizes it very neatly:

“What’s the problem with pink, anyway?” griped Yael Kohen in New York. Then, building upon Kohen’s piece, Slate senior editor Allison Benedikt demanded: ”What is it with you moms of girls? I have never met a single one of you who isn’t tortured about pink and princesses.”


Over at Pigtail Palls, Melissa Wardy lays out the counterargument:

There is a difference between being anti-pink and being anti-limitation, and as someone who educates thousands of parents every week on this issue I feel most parents fall into the second camp. We are not anti-pink. We are anti-limitation.


Anyone who studies -- and critiques -- gender distinctions can expect to be accused of one of two things:

  1. trying to disrupt the "natural" order of things, by which is meant binary, biology-is-destiny ideology. (Men and women are opposites or complements, there are only those two categories, and the corresponding cultural coding of masculinity and femininity is the natural outcome of these binary biological differences.)
  2. making a mountain out of a molehill



Countering the first assertion is a matter of evidence, both scientific and cultural. Biological sex is not either-or. There are as many variations on gender codes as there are cultures in human history. Of course, like other modern controversies, from climate change to vaccination, evidence can not sway the committed unbeliever. My research is aimed at the persuadable reader, and at the embattled advocates for gender equality and acceptance who need the ammunition. 

The second accusation is more problematic. People who espouse this view often claim to embrace a more inclusive and accepting view of gender variations. They want their boys to be free to be artists and their girls to be engineers. But gosh-darn-it all this fuss about pink is so TRIVIAL! 

Here is where I will take the liberty of substituting "pinkification" for "pink", because it isn't about the color pink itself, but about the cultural pattern of offering children a strongly stereotypical version of gender. Pinkification is what I will call this pattern. Here's why it isn't trivial:

  • The pinkification of culture has a history, and it is recent. 
  • Pinkification is not just the use of pink to denote "girls' things", but the narrowing of choices to exclude neutral options, which reinforces the fore-mentioned (incorrect) binary 
  • Pinkification works because it targets children at a developmentally vulnerable stage.
  • Pinkification teaches children stereotypes that limit the way they perceive themselves and others. 
  • Pinkification excludes and stigmatizes children who do not identify with gender stereotypes.


Blue is NOT a spokescolor; pink is a spokescolor. 

3/21/2013

 
Here's a great post from Kyle Wiley of The Good Men Project (re-blogged via the Huffington Post, but hey, Arianna's rich enough). My favorite line:
It’s not just “a” girl color, but the international spokescolor (yes, a made up word) for the female gender.
Made up words are the best, because like all custom-made items, they fit better than the off-the-rack-versions. That is exactly the idea I have been trying to get across, less articulately, when I talk or write about pink and blue. Blue is NOT a spokescolor; pink is a spokescolor. Why is that, do you think? Is there something magical about pink itself? Mais non.

The magic is one of the oldest known superpowers: giving birth. Stay with me, friends. Here's how I see it: Women used to be powerful because they gave birth. The only way men could be more powerful than women was to control reproduction -- through marriage, through rape, through laws about birth control and abortion. But none of that transfered the magical power from women to men, so a cultural solution emerged instead. Make birth dirty, make sex a sin, make women dirty, weak sinners, lower than men because of their magic power.

Now all you have to do to maintain male superiority is make sure they are not tainted by anything remotely effete or feminine. Punish homosexuality. Raise little boys to be not-girls. Ridicule boys --and men-- who cry, or who are unathletic, or who like pink. It's a small price to pay for a place at the top of the social order.

Why have women put up with this? Many reasons, including a need to protect their offspring, their own survival and this complicated force called "hegemony", which results in acceptance of the dominant culture even when it works against you. (Kind of a cultural Stockholm syndrome.) But all is not lost; there are men and women, mothers and fathers, who believe that all humans have magical powers of love, imagination and creativity, and that humanity will benefit when every baby is valued for its potential to love, imagine and create, not its role in human reproduction.

Peace. (Steps off soapbox, returns to her index cards.)

Book release date announced

6/17/2011

 
Exciting news! The book is now listed in the Spring 2012 Indiana University Press catalog, with a release date of March 22 (my brother Bob's birthday, which makes it extra special)! I expect to be doing the final FINAL revisions between now and mid-July.

UPDATE: The release date has been moved to February 16. Sorry, Bob, that's someone else's birthday.

In late April, I presented my paper on Pink Boys at the Popular Culture Association conference in San Antonio. Once the book revisions are done, I'll be turning that into an article or two. The challenge for me is that this isn't history -- it's breaking news!
The week before the conference there was the J.Crew nail polish kerfluffle, which precipitated a media frenzy that even swept *me* up for a while, just when I was trying to finish my presentation. A couple of weeks ago there was a smaller foofaraw* over Storm, the Canadian baby whose parents are trying to avoid gender stereotyping. That translated into two interviews shoehorned in an already busy day. (Links to the interviews are on the Recommended page)

Personally, I am in favor of anything that makes people pay attention to the everyday, and think about it in a critical way. (Not critical=negative, critical=analytical). Some people look beyond the everyday for meaning, but as an American Studies scholar I want my students and readers to realize that even the most mundane, seemingly trivial aspects of their lives have meaning. Turning off the autopilot in our everyday lives is a necessary step for anyone who wants to live more deeply and intentionally. That certainly includes our lives as parents!

*Can you tell I was raised on Pogo?

History matters.

4/14/2011

 
One of the reasons I wrote this book is simple and selfish. I got tired of telling people over and over again that boys used to wear pink. After finding the Infants Department quote about boys wearing pink about 25 years ago, I wrote articles, gave talks and worked on exhibits in major museums (beginning with the Smithsonian) that used that information. No cocktail party or online discussion forum was safe from me. Now and then I would be pleased when a total stranger would tell me that boys used to wear pink, having seen it "somewhere". But being asked the same question for most of my professional life was like being stuck in the academic version of Groundhog Day. I was in the first day of class in an introductory course forever; the conversation always started with boys wearing pink and seldom moved past that initial bit of information. I am hoping the book will at least establish the history of gender symbolism enough so we can talk about what it says about our culture.

The wildfire reaction to Toemageddon 2011 (h/t The Daily Show) has made me consider even more deeply the importance of history and historians in our civic culture. You could say that the history of  fashion is trivial, but if more people understood how recent our "traditions" are and how they continually change, I have to believe it would help diffuse the culture wars.

Less trivial examples of our need for historians include the widespread misbeliefs that the American Revolution was about taxation, not representation, that the Founding Father were not only Christian, but had beliefs that were in any way similar to modern conservative Christians, and that the Civil War was not about slavery.

Wouldn't it be nice if all the networks would replace a few of their "former political strategists" with bonafide historical scholars? (And please, don't call Newt Gingrich a scholar. He's not.) We have great historians in colleges and museums all over the country - social historians, political historians, cultural historians, business historians. We also plenty of independent historians -- I am currently reading  and relishing Sarah Vowell's history of our annexation of Hawaii, "Unfamiliar Fish".

Oh, and it also would be nice if the History Channel would produce a news show that brought in historians to put the news in context. I'm available!

    Jo Paoletti

    Professor Emerita
    ​American Studies
    University of Maryland

    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    January 2023
    February 2022
    May 2021
    June 2020
    February 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    February 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

    Categories

    All
    1920s
    1950s
    1960s
    1970s
    1980s
    Aging
    Ask Jo
    Baby Cards
    Baby Clothes
    Baby Dresses
    Beyond The Us
    Book 1
    Book 2
    Book 3
    Boys
    Button On Suit
    Button-on Suit
    Child Consumers
    Children And Consumers
    Children As Consumers
    Color Symbolism
    Creepers
    Culture Wars
    Design Details
    Dress Codes
    Dress Up Play
    Dress-up Play
    Ethnicity
    Fashion And Age
    Feminism
    Garment Details
    Gender Binary
    Girls
    Hair
    Layettes
    Men
    Middle Childhood
    Neutral
    Pants For Girls
    Pink
    Pink For Boys
    Prenatal Testing
    Princesses
    Que Sera Sera
    Rants
    Research
    Rompers
    Sexuality
    Stereotypes
    Teens
    Toddlers
    Tomboys
    Transgender
    Unisex
    Unisex. 1970s
    Women
    Writing Updates

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.