"We are waiting to see what we have before choosing the colour for the babies room"

[FlipFlippingFlippers]

This is not an anti pink thread but seriously?! For what its worth I am female and I like pink. And blue. And green. And yellow. You get the idea. It just bugs me that people give colours gender. I do have a pink hating, dinosaur loving dd so I might be a bit more sensitive to this.

The issue is not saying no girl can like pink... It's this idea that the first place your child has as their 'space' must be visually appropriate to their gender. And that means pink and flowery for girls and blue and probably nautical for boys. I can't believe that some people can't see this might be more broadly indicative!
Both my girls had plainish rooms as babies and both went very sasse & belle, calamine walls and bunting when older. Which is fine, but at least I didn't find it essential to put that in place for them, when they were toddlers.

"What are the studies on kids that came out too late or went in too early?" It's a couple of years since I read the book, but my recollection is that they are more likely to conform to gender stereotypes when they're older.

So what? I hear those of you who think it's no big deal say... Well, my answer is that a gender-polarised society is massively damaging to both sexes. It leaves boys out in the cold when it comes to literacy (he doesn't read well - he's just a boy rather than intervene), emotional development (men are much more likely to commit suicide successfully), to be both perpetrators of and victims of violence. And it leaves women high and dry economically in a capitalist society where people's worth is measured by their earning power, and where women not only earn less, but are likely to be left impoverished by divorce (and 1 in 3 marriages where both partners are on their first time round end in divorce - the odds are worse for second, third etc. marriages). No one benefits from extreme gender polarisation - and, in the words of that old slogan from Apartheid era South Africa - "If you're not part of the solution, you;re part of the problem"

Yes but the colour thing is arbitrary. Pointless, boring, but not damaging.

You are most definitely part of the problem if you tell your girl she shouldn't climb a tree because she's not a boy (as someone described on here the other day), or if you tell your boy off for crying and not your girl. Or, of course, if you tell your girl she can only have pink, or your boy he can't have pink.

But a baby girl whose room is painted pink will suffer no harm from that at all, as long as she's treated equally with boys in practical and meaningful terms. The trouble is that that's not what we, as a society do do, generally - but we could, without changing the pink factor.

The other thing that always strikes me about these threads is that I think almost all women, including feminists, certainly including me, and almost all men, would like to be able to choose their clothes and their favourite colours, and do fit in with societal norms about dressing like a woman or like a man. I would be most miffed if some well-meaning feminists came along and said I couldn't wear pink or a dress, because it was gender polarisation.

I can wear a pink dress if I want and be constantly aware of the need for gender equality in everything I do.

I also defend the right of a man to wear a pink dress, as long as he respects gender equality.

I think ppl get overwrought about colour.
It is perfectly possible to conform to stereotypical dress codes for boys and girls but to foster and encourage equality.
A girl can climb trees wearing a pink t shirt. And a boy can push a pram wearing dinosaur trainers.
The most successful women I know personally do not wear flat shoes and hairy armpits.

Oh. I just realised that might sound as though heels and make up are essential to success (whatever success actually is). I don't believe that at all, just that I don't see that all the "trappings" of typical or traditional feminine appearance need to be thrown away in order to achieve your goals.

YANBU it is the tip of a really rotten iceberg.

Completely agree with this.

^ me too.
And me.

I think a lot of the gendered kit is a cunning marketing plan: you have girl so you buy the pink stuff and then DC2 is a boy so you have to buy it all over again but in blue this time...

It pisses me off that the boys do things (pirate! train driver!) whereas the girls are princesses and all they do is waft about cuddling kittens and waiting for Prince Charming.

When my daughter was very small I painted her room bright yellow with a massive rainbow across one wall. When we moved, she was in the throes of pink barbie crap, so her bedroom got painted pink with barbie wallpaper . She grew out of it quite quickly though, and even in the midst of that, she had bright clothes and gender neutral toys and clothes. And looked bloody gorgeous. Apart from anything, pink looked awful on her. Navy and bright red suited her much better.
All this pink for girls and blue for boys is pretty rough, and I do think it's part of a wider problem; I hear stories still of girls at school thinking maths and science are not girly enough subjects to take at A-level, or that girls can't code or be engineers. And it just doesn't seem to be getting any better. The fact that the Stemettes have a need to exist in 2014 is, frankly, horrendous.
And it begins with pink. Not pink by choice, but girls and parents of girls foisting pink everything on young girls, and those girls then growing up thinking that's what they have to be; pretty and pink and delicate and princessy and thin and argghh.

All this pink for girls and blue for boys is pretty rough, and I do think it's part of a wider problem; I hear stories still of girls at school thinking maths and science are not girly enough subjects to take at A-level, or that girls can't code or be engineers.

But that's nothing to do with pink! My DD likes (some) pink clothes and has a (partly) pink room. She loves numbers and I can totally see her becoming a mathematician or engineer.

Yes, girls are often led to believe they have to please boys, aren't as worthwhile as boys, and and can't do science. It's a HUGE problem that I really care about and am very, very careful to let both my DC (a boy and a girl) know they can do anything they want, wear any colour they want etc and to avoid subliminal messages like the boy getting action/sciency tops and the girl getting princess/gorgeous tops.

But a pink top does no harm at all and the fact that people thing pink is for girls and blue is for boys - while daft - does no harm at all. Those colours could be gold and silver, green and orange, whatever. It doesn't matter. We need to focus on the subliminal and constant messages we give girls but pinkness isn't one of them.

I have heard that pink used to be a boys' colour (baby version of red, seen as a thrusting and active colour). There is nothing about pink that inherently says "girly", "decorative" or "can't do maths".

I dress my baby daughter in blue a lot because I like the colour blue. It's actually not at all hard to find blue clothes for girls. Pink clothes for boys would be more tricky - I actually think the boys are more discriminated against colour wise than girls. Is that a masculist issue?

All i could think when i read the op was 'they are not in London'!

You don't need to worry.If house prices dont crush more and more young couples will share with parents and siblings share bedrooms.
The pink bedrooms were representing an era before the recession and before the house prices-especially in london.

As for the 70s nostalgia yes we wore brown and cream and yellow but we witnessed much more sexism every day , at least our dcs live in a society with better laws and that's more important imo.

Firmament, you're right that one pink top isn't a problem, but I'm not the first person on this thread to talk about pinkification being the start if a slippery slope that starts at birth. It's not that pink is bad, it's that pink is only do girls, and pink Equals certain toys or certain films which equals certain activities, which means that girls are told by society to only do certain things. Pink clothes are full of cupcakes. Blue clothes are full of trains. Ergo girls like pretty things and boys like engines. Girls should do cooking and boys should be engineers. It's a slippery slope.
One pink top isn't the issue. Designating a room pink because the unborn baby is a girl and girls do pink, I think, is.

Well, I agree the pink is used in that way. i.e. you will get a pink princess top and a blue space rocket top. I just think it's getting confused to think pink is bad in itself - a pink room, a pink top, even loving all your clothes to be pink, whether you're a girl or a boy. And especially bad to steer your girl away from pink, because what that's saying is as a girl, your choices have to be limited. Again.

In the current social climate, falling for the concept of girls = pink = girly = princessy etc is easy to do. I think we can fight that though. Hence my DD's pink robot top.

Nursery 1 was painted yellow before DS1 was born. The room needed a major face lift and it needed to work as a nursery for either sex, or another occupant as we were looking to move. As it turned out we did move before he slept in there, and it's been useful for tenants that it wasn't gendered.

Nursery 2 was cream and in a decent state so was jazzed up with a mural of a tree and animals. We knew we had a DS, but didn't want to have to redecorate for subsequent children. DS2 has moved into the room as it was.

DS1's room is more masculine, but the walls are plain red/ white, and can easily be updated by changing accessories. The colurs were chosen to suit the room and reflect his interests. I don't want to have to redecorate frequently, so have avoided extremes that are hard to update.

I agree with the theory that overly feminine colours are prominent to encourage repeat purchases. If my first child had been a girl, major purchases would have been chosen around the possibility of a brother using them. Less of an issue with having a boy first.

I have no DD, but godchildren, nieces, friends kids etc

A few years ago I did find myself buying more feminine stuff, now in all fairness they liked it BUT made me stop and think

My goddaughter is getting an Atlas this year- no more fairy stickers, no siree!

and I will continue to get them clothing they will like, and yes it will have shades of pink !

Mybigfat actually it was a woman at the rental place...and that is an edited for clarity version...my real effort included more vocal pauses and erming and liking etc....I think I might have said 'proper' and not 'technical'.

But yes I actually talk like that in real life...people at work like to provoke me to rant about something in order to witness the florid prose monster in action.....

Fun fact - back in Victorian times pink and blue as baby colours were the other way round: “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 color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”

Obviously it's the same issue but backwards but it'd be interesting to know why the change happened.

Anyway back to your point OP, I tend to find that people who decide to paint their baby's rooms in the supposedly gender appropriate colours tend towards traditional gender roles in other things as well so they're more likely to be the parents that are horrified at their daughter getting muddy or their son playing with dolls and I think that's why I think it's a shame.

Of course, kids choose colours they like when they get older anyway so they may end up colour-coded anyway but is there a need to indoctrinate them in the uniform from the word go?