Do you thik boys/girls instinctively like the colours blue/pink?

Proud uncle - yes tis true - red was considered to be a strong manly colour so pale red (ie pink) was for young boys whereas blue was considered to be calm and restful for women so pale blue for boys.

Not many people know that gainsboroughs boy in blue has a companion painting of boy in pink.

And yes in Kazakhstan they don;t do blue for boys and pink for girls at all. I have several photos on DS in pink velvet as a baby!

www.billiemilholland.com/?p=450

iv not read all the replies so it may have been mentioned but historically in england pink was a mans colour and blue was a ladies colour. apparantly this lasted until about 150 years ago (roughly) so i would presume its a society thing

correct me if im wrong

i was told this by a history lecturer

Pink v Blue is a marketing tool designed to make parents buy two of everything. Why encourage people to buy one green toy when you can get them to buy the same thing twice, one blue and one pink.

That's why we never see ads like these anymore.

iiiinspired.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/remember-time-we-used-to-play.html

Did you hear about the European country that banned the Teletubbies because Tinky Winky was male with a handbag and therefore was promoting homosexuality?

I fucking hate pink. Thank goodness, DD has come out the other side (at nearly 9,) I never bought her pink, but the first outfit she had was brought to the maternity ward by MIL - a puke pastel pink onsie that said "Love To Shop" with pictures of high heels and a bottle of milk. I nearly threw up on it. Manky.

DS2 is determined that pink shall remain in the house though, everything DD rejects from her room is being siphoned off into his - he's 3.8, and has no idea yet that his prediliction for pink and handbags (filled with Bob the Builder toys) are not socially acceptable. He's just started nursery, so it won't be long.

Working with kids, I found that they were mainly attracted to bright colours with high contrast. NOT pink. I hate that all the "big" toys (kitchens, rockers, desks etc) are now available in pink, I have a friend whose toy room looks like the inside of a bottle of pepto bismol. To each their own, of course.

I think some children like pink. And some don't. Dd loves girly dresses in all colours. She also likes her favourite motorbike t shirt and batman hoody. Ds likes all things superhero related but still likes to play with his dolly and pink pram. They both know that pink is "for girls" and blue is "for boys". Do they care? Um no.

Which just goes to show that the real underlying stereotype is not the colour but the perception that boys are strong and girls are delicate. FFS -how do people get a conclusion that an 8lb baby boy is strong and an 8lb baby girl is delicate. It is especially laughable when research shows that the pre-birth attrition rate and immediate post-natal attrition rate is higher in boys i.e. girl embryos and babies are actually more robust.

[slaps hand on forehead at the idiocy of it all].

Not at all, it is a sociological influence that presses societies belief that pink is girly onto children through their interaction with their peers and the media.

It wasn't that long ago that blue was for girls and pink for boys -

Towards the end of the great war, in June 1918, America's most authoritative women's magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal (it still exists), had a few wise words of advice for fretting mothers. "There has been a great diversity of debate on the subject," it wrote, "but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

When DS was in the neonatal unit straight after birth, I was assured by one of the doctors that they would do their best to dress him in "gender appropriate clothing"
I assured her that I knew I had a son, so not to worry on my account, and I doubted that he cared at all.
Not innate - and as other posters have pointed out, absolutely ridiculous that the colour spectrum has been narrowed to two colours (try buying clothes for a preemie in anything other than pink or blue...)

No they don't. How could they instinctively prefer a colour according to their gender? I can guarantee that if green was "for boys" and orange was "for girls", kids would eventually gravitate towards those colours instead, if the same amount of conditioning were to take place.

Kids aren't even born with an innate knowledge of what is disgusting" - they learn to avoid "grossness" by copying adults. The same goes for colours.

Saw it on telly with that Dr Robert Winston dude. So it must be true

WilfSell - great minds :-) Although you don't exactly have to have a great mind to realise that the hoo ha about blue for boys and pink for girls isn't innate.

Ha. I was just going to post the exact words 'no of course not' samandi.

And your sister is ridiculous.

No of course not.

I agree that most little children like pink (and glitter & sparkles) until 50% of them are told that they shouldn't.

DD wasn't remotely interested in pink until she started nursery & all the girls were fighting for the pink cup.

Even then I think it was more of an "I should like pink". Her favourite colour's really always been blue.

DD doesn't like pink and she doesn't like blue, she likes orange and yellow.
Can I get her clothes in these colours?
No.

she also doesn't want to be a princess or a pirate so I assume she has no gender - at least as defined by marketting people.

Blue used to be the colour for girls as it was associated with the Virgin Mary - note pictures of her always in blue and hence Alice in Wonderland being dressed in an "Alice blue gown".

I hate the limiting of choice for no reason, I cannot see how there can be a girls scooter and a boys scooter - is there an inherent gender based diffrence between scootering???????

DD, 3, likes pink as much as any other colour, but her favourite colour is yellow. MIL is firmly in the camp of boys like X, girls like Y so always buys her pink things . Since DS was born in April she keeps passing on her youngest DS' toys which I mostly trucks, trains and cars. DD loves these, but they are "for DS". MIL has been conditioned that boys and girls are differently by nature, but cannot see that if you give kids the freedom of choice they will play with most anything regardless of gender.

IMO its societal pressure all the way. I don't mind DD playing with pink toys, but I resent the division of "boys" and "girls" toys. Sometimes its segregating the princess toys from the knight toys, sometimes its selling a blue bucket and spade to boys, but a pink set to girls and sometimes its doctors outfits for boys and nurses outfits for girls. I know there are a lot of people who claim that some of us "read too much into it", but I think its shocking.

In olden times pink was for boys (it was a shade of red and supposedely more manly) and blue was supposedely a feminine colour for girls.

Ive asked family to try and refrain from buying pink for my little one.

I really wanna say something clever like "yes I'm having a boy, we're thinking of calling him Mikhail Baryshnikov Smith actually" and walking away but I'm never level headed enough when I see them to do anything good like that!

Ok they are idiots!

no I'm sorry but that doesn't excuse looking at two toddlers stood on front of you and saying "oh look at the little girl, isn't she pretty/cute" and completely ignoring the little boy beside her

and only SPEAKING to me to ask if I'm carrying a girl if they notice I'm pregnant

and if some idiots did say "no he's a boy" does that give you a licence to join em? although I do not get the impression that that is what happened with these women, I think they only targetted girls from the start!

Lacking I do share your frustration but it's also possible they've approached parents of boys in the past and got the "no he's a BOY!!" response...

No, I don't think so (answering OP's question as I dived into this one). DD is just over 18 months and will opt for blue one day, green the next, black another, pink another...
I find it frustrating that sometimes there is no choice other than between pink and blue with regard to toys/clothes.