{"id":60133,"date":"2013-12-16T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=60133"},"modified":"2014-06-09T20:43:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T01:43:11","slug":"when-cowboys-wore-pink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/16\/when-cowboys-wore-pink\/","title":{"rendered":"When Cowboys Wore Pink"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would you think of Woody from\u00a0Toy Story<\/em>\u00a0if he wore pink?<\/p>\n

\"woody-pink-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Would you think the color choice was incongruous \u2014 that it didn\u2019t seem masculine enough for a 1950s-era cowboy toy?<\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019d be wrong. Check out these images from the\u00a01955 Sears Christmas Book catalog\u00a0that Elizabeth Sweet, a newly minted Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis, sent me. Here\u2019s Roy Rogers Apparel, featuring Roy Rogers and his son, Dusty \u2013 who is wearing a cowboy outfit with red, yellow, and pink accents:<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To modern eyes, this is surprising. \u201cPink is a girls\u2019 color,\u201d we think. This association has become so firmly entrenched in our cultural imagination that people are flabbergasted to learn that until the 1950s, pink was often considered a strong color and, therefore, was\u00a0associated with boys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0for boys. Although gender segregation is\u00a0de rigeur<\/em>\u00a0today, it wasn\u2019t back then.\u00a0Look at these outfits for boys and girls, also from the 1955 Sears catalog: There are brown and red outfits\u00a0for boys and girls.\u00a0<\/em>Pink and blue outfits\u00a0for boys and girls<\/i>. Blue and green outfits\u00a0for boys and girls<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These spreads make it clear that in the 1950s, when\u00a0Woody\u2019s Roundup\u00a0<\/em>is supposed to have originated, Woody would have been pretty darned stylish in pink.<\/p>\n

A decade later, things had started changing; pink was more closely associated with girls. (As Elizabeth notes of the Sears catalogs in her collection, \u201cI didn\u2019t find anything similar in 1965.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s marketplace, I believe parents would love to see options like these. In fact, just yesterday, one of my friends posted this to facebook about his failed shopping trip:<\/p>\n

Alright, parents, I went to buy my daughter cool costume stuff like pirate stuff and cowgirl stuff and all I found was princess outfits. She doesn\u2019t know the word “princess.” She knows the words \u2018cowgirl” and “pirate.” What\u2019s the deal? Why does every company want her to be a princess? Why can\u2019t she be an awesome cowgirl pirate?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sadly, the reason is that in the retail world, this kind of diversity just doesn\u2019t fly anymore. The status quo is segregation; as Elizabeth Sweet has\u00a0argued<\/a>, \u201cfinding a toy that is not marketed either explicitly or subtly (through use of color, for example) by gender has become incredibly difficult.\u201d And the more entrenched this practice becomes, the harder it becomes to change, as change is perceived by marketers and retailers as a risk.<\/p>\n

Therefore, for the foreseeable future,\u00a0pink will serve as a clear delineation in the marketplace: If something is pink, it is most definitely\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0for boys, who regard it as a contagion \u2014 something to be avoided at all costs.<\/p>\n

So it is that if Woody wore pink today, he would be unintelligible in the marketplace. And so it is that my friend can\u2019t find a good cowgirl outfit for his little girl: he\u2019d have to travel back to 1955 to do so.<\/p>\n

The push for \u201cgirly\u201d to be synonymous with \u201cpink\u201d saddens me. It has caused girls\u2019 worlds to shrink, and it only reinforces for boys the idea that they should actively avoid anything girlish. Monochromatic girlhood drives a wedge between boys and girls \u2014 separating their spheres during a time when cross-sex play is healthy and desirable, and when their imaginations should run free.<\/p>\n

Instead, we\u2019re limiting our kids.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Hains, PhD is a media studies professor at Salem State University. \u00a0Follow her on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>. \u00a0Read the original post here<\/a>. Cross-posted at Business Inside<\/a>r and The Christian Science Monitor<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would you think of Woody from\u00a0Toy Story\u00a0if he wore pink? Would you think the color choice was incongruous \u2014 that it didn\u2019t seem masculine enough for a 1950s-era cowboy toy? Well, you\u2019d be wrong. Check out these images from the\u00a01955 Sears Christmas Book catalog\u00a0that Elizabeth Sweet, a newly minted Ph.D. from the University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":60138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[223,225,15,373,55,2099,293,23705],"class_list":["post-60133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childrenyouth","tag-clothesfashion","tag-culture","tag-color","tag-gender","tag-gender-childrenyouth","tag-social-construction","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/12\/woody-pink-21.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60133"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62915,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60133\/revisions\/62915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}