Search results for pink

The blog Blue Abaya is an account of the experiences of a women who moved to Saudi Arabia from Finland.  One of her posts centers around the difference in the color palette.  “Pinkness,” she writes, “seems to be everywhere.”  The  prevalence of pink in Saudi Arabia is a great example of how the meaning of colors is different from culture to culture.  Pink simply does not have the same feminine association there that it does in the U.S.

In addition, she tells this story:

[M]y american friend… was in a shopping mall with her [one-and-a-half-year] old son. His hair is a little longer which is unusual in Saudi but many parents in the U.S. find cute.

A Saudi woman with a baby stroller stopped to talk to her asking, is this your daughter?  My friend said no it’s a boy.  So this Saudi lady dramatically threw her hands in the air looking toward the sky and began praying:  “Oh Allah guide this woman to the straight path!” “Guide her to cut the sons hair!”  “He looks like a girl, guide this poor woman!”

She told my friend she MUST cut his hair because he looked like a girl.

My friend was appalled at the woman’s behavior. Nevertheless she tried to be polite and said pointing to the woman’s baby dressed up in an all-pink outfit “What a beautiful girl you have mashallah.”

The woman replied:  “It’s a boy.”

My friend asked why is he dressed up in PINK?

She replied: “Oh, I don’t believe in colors being gender specific.”

Ah, culture.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Last week, as most of you no doubt heard, the Susan B. Komen for the Cure breast cancer awareness group announced it would no longer fund breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, saying it had a policy against funding organizations that were under investigation (Planned Parenthood is currently under what many see as a politically-motivated investigation about whether it used any federal funds to pay for abortions). The decision drew a lot of attention and criticism of Komen — not just of the decision about Planned Parenthood, but of its role in the breast cancer awareness/research community more generally.

The Komen Foundation is known to many primarily because it’s often listed as a recipient of the funds companies promise to donate when we buy products branded with a pink ribbon. But many critics express concern with this type of marketing-as-awareness, and discussions of the “pinkification” of breast cancer and criticism of the policies supported by groups such as Komen surfaced as part of the debate about the organization over the weekend (which is ongoing, with the VP for Public Policy at Komen announcing her resignation today).

Given this, Dmitriy T.M. thought readers might be interested in the trailer for the documentary Pink Ribbons, which looks at the rise of pink ribbon branding and its impact on breast cancer prevention efforts. I post it with the caveat that I haven’t been able to see the whole film, but would love to hear from those of you who have, or who can speak to the issues it raises:

Cross-posted at Jezebel.
American Studies professor Jo B. Paoletti has announced the publication of her book, Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America.  I’ve been eagerly anticipating getting my hands on a copy. It was from Paoletti that I learned that the idea that pink was a feminine and blue a masculine color was a relatively new invention in American history (one that even now does not necessarily extend to other countries).  See, for example, this pink 1920s birthday card for a man (with a pre-Nazi swastika too).

The book asks “When did we startdressing girls in pink and boys in blue?”  To answer this question:

She chronicles the decline of the white dress for both boys and girls, the introduction of rompers in the early 20th century, the gendering of pink and blue, the resurgence of unisex fashions, and the origins of today’s highly gender-specific baby and toddler clothing.

In an analysis of baby cards from the 1960s, she notes that many of the cards are gender-neutral and include both pink and blue, but that even the gender-specific cards (this particular baby was a girl) use both colors. These cards, then, reveal that pink and blue had emerged as recognizable baby colors by the 1960s, but the use of blue in the “for girl” cards and the preponderance of gender-neutral cards suggests that the importance of gender differentiation hadn’t taken hold.

She has a large collection of examples.

At her website Paoletti says she has a book planned on “old lady clothes, mother-of-the-bride dresses, cougars and other age-appropriate nonsense.” I can’t wait.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

I love a newborn elephant as much as the next person, probably quite significantly more, but must we get all stupid and say that she likes pink? Must we, Zooborns? Really? Sigh.

Sent in by Chloe Angyal at Feministing. Thanks Chloe!

Pink, by the way, has only been associated with female humans for the last 60 years or so, and only in parts of the world.  See, for example, our posts on a vintage Father’s Birthday card and advice for mothers. (And, while we’re at it, this art project is pretty stunning.)  I’m pretty sure elephants, even girl ones, are indifferent.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Oh how I love a good example of our tendency to gender cats and dogs.  See, for example, my cat person/dog person rant and our post about an adoption campaign arguing that it can be manly to own a cat.

Josh Pearson sent in another colorful example from The Blue Buffalo Trading Co., a company that makes pet foods.  The company subtly genders dogs and cats with blue and pink, respectively:

More, the language on the site sexes the animals themselves. They consistently refer to cats as “she” and “her” and dogs as “he” and “him.”  For example, the text reads:

I hope everyone recognizes this as bizarre.  Dogs and cats come in both hes and shes (that how there are more cats and dogs every year).  And notice that we tend to stereotype dogs as more like the stereotypical woman (dependent, passive, and happily subordinated) and cats like stereotypical men (independent, self-serving hunters), even as we masculinize dogs and feminize cats.  So there is some serious contradiction going on here.  We gender everythingthough, so why not dogs and cats!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Last week we received ten requests* to discuss the furor over a J. Crew ad featuring a 5-year-old boy in pink toenails, with his mom, Jenna Lyons, the President and Creative Director of J. Crew.

Fox News, Media Research Network Center (MRNC), and One Million Moms criticized the ad for supporting a liberal agenda aimed at mainstreaming gender-bending behavior and causing this particular child to be confused about his gender or sexual orientation.  Their criticism was picked up by mainstream news outlets, including ABCNews, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the Los Angeles Times, who mostly just posed the question as to whether they were correct, while balancing opposing views in support of the idea that painting a son’s toenails pink was consequence-less.

Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of this “furor” (as I called it).  On the one hand, the criticism of the ad is a cautionary tale to all companies and a lesson to us all.  Here at SocImages, we frequently criticize companies that portray and assert rigid gender roles, especially for boys.  But look what happens when a company dares to do something different?  Outrage!  Accusations! Perhaps we’re short-sighted to imagine that companies can just tell whatever cultural story they want to tell.

On the other hand, perhaps this isn’t a story about advertising, perhaps it’s a story about media more generally.  It’s true that there were objections to the ad.  But I didn’t find many of them; just a few high-profile examples.  Perhaps what really happened was what is sometimes colloquially referred to as a “slow news day.”  Only the choir would have been preached to if the criticisms weren’t picked up and highlighted by many more media outlets.  And those outlets, as I did above, beg audiences to pay attention to the “furor.”  A furor that might have been largely of their own making.  Say “hello” to ratings.

These are my thoughts. Yours?

*  Many thanks to Katrin, Zoe S., Jeff H., Prof. Mary Reiter, Sara P., Andrew Slater, p.j., Brian K., Ben Y., and Dmitriy T.M. for the submissions!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The color of one’s nipples varies according to the color of one’s skin. Lighter-skinned people tend to have lighter nipples, while darker-skinned people tend to have darker nipples. To add to the many racist products and procedures designed to make the bodies of darker-skinned people more like the bodies of lighter-skinned people — eyelid surgery, eyelid gluing, Asian rhinoplasty, hair straightening, and skin lightening — Theresa W. sent in a product designed to make the nipples more “pink.”  These products, featured at The Faster Times, seem to be mostly aimed at the Asian market, many of whom are already quite light-skinned.  Below is a selection of the many products one can find.

Finale Pink Nipple Cream:

Bioglo Cherry Pink Lip Nipple Cream:

The rest are after the jump because the packaging shows images of breasts.

more...

Though it’s certainly here now, pink didn’t stabilize as a girls-only color until sometime in the 1950s.  During that decade, pink was the in-style color for bathrooms in residential homes.  Notice that this ad, sent in by Penny R., features a boy in a pink bathroom with no threat of emasculation:

Pam Kueber, at Retro Renovation, estimates that:

…some 5 million pink bathrooms went into the 20 million+ homes built in the United States from 1946-1966… 1 in 4 — at minimum — mid-century homes had a pink bathroom.

She quotes a 1958 Electrical Merchandising that said: “If forced to pick one color as leading this year, most industry men say pink is tops.”

Pink is so strongly associated with women now that it hardly seems appropriate for a family bathroom.  Kueber bemoans that home owners are taking sledge hammers to pink tiles and encourages us to preserve the bathrooms because we all look excellent in pink-tinted light.

See men in pink (then, now, and now).

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.