We can all remember those moments on the playground when a boy, handed a pink ball, racket, or team shirt, would loudly protest, “Pink is for girls!” His face twisted into a pout as he played, his friends snickering in the background. Pink is for girls, blue is for boys—it’s a belief so ingrained in our culture that many accept it as fact. But why is that?
Colour psychology plays a significant role in shaping societal behaviour, influencing everything from personal preferences to cultural norms, which is what we see with pink and blue. However, these gender associations are not actually rooted in any real psychological or biological differences, but came about due to marketing strategies that, over time, shaped our perceptions.
A Change in Perception
Although pink is now strongly associated with femininity, the situation was quite different before 1940. Pink, being a lighter shade of red—a colour traditionally linked to masculinity—was actually considered more suitable for boys. On the other hand, blue was deemed more appropriate for girls, reflecting the colour traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary.
This all changed when an American department store launched a PR campaign in the 1940s that successfully flipped the colour conventions, making pink the preferred colour for girls and blue for boys.
Karen Haller, a specialist in colour psychology, notes, “They did a really, really good job at convincing everyone that pink was for girls and blue for boys.”
Soon, other stores and manufacturers jumped on board, seeing it as a chance to increase their efficiency and, therefore, profits by limiting products to specific gendered colours. It allowed companies to simply their marketing strategy with distinct product lines that easily appealed to parents and consumers.
This over time reinforced these gendered norms and society gradually adopted and perpetuated them onto the next generation.
Influence of Gender Norms
These gendered norms are learned behaviours, as children absorb these ideas from the adults around them, their peers, and the culture at large. As Karen Haller points out, “When you hear little children saying, ‘pink’s for girls,’ it’s like, where did they learn that from? They learn it from adults, they learn it from peers because it’s all learned behaviour.”
It’s not just about colour though. These norms also reinforce gender divides and stereotypes in other aspects of our lives. Society buys into the divide between genders in roles, behaviours, and expectations for boys and girls. Certain activities, interests, or even jobs can be deemed more manly or girly, impacting people’s choices despite their actual abilities or passions.
Switch to Gender-Neutral Colours
People are beginning to recognise the potential harms of such a rigid blue/pink divide and are gravitating more towards colours considered “gender-neutral” such as green, yellow, or grey. Haller points out the irony in the situation, “Then all of a sudden came out gender-neutral colours to combat the gender colours that actually never existed because there’s no such thing.”
Deeming gender-neutral colours in reality is unnecessary as no colour, even blue or pink, is inherently gendered.
Wear Any Colour You Want
By exploring the history and impact of these colour norms, we can begin to see colour for what it truly is—a powerful form of personal expression that transcends gender.
As a society, we need to move beyond dictating our choices, such as what we wear or how we decorate our homes, by outdated stereotypes. We have the power to redefine the meanings of colour and break the gendered limitations placed on them. So let’s change our perspective and use colours as tools for our personal expression.
Wear what you want!
It was a privilege to have Karen on the latest episode of Greatest Minds. To listen to the full episode, see here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2uaG44Htdiq1YYQ8NJi9Ow?si=E_wZHkNeTuGM-bIZgbBP3Q
To listen to other Greatest Minds episode, see here: https://thepodcastguys.co.uk/greatest-minds/
