Pink Stinks

[randomama]

Reading about feminist books for 5 year olds in today's Guardian, it mentioned this "Pink Stinks" campaign. Which protests against the pinkification (OK, I made that word up) of girlhood.

I don't have any girls (yet) but as a girl, I LOVED pink, although my mum didn't indulge it (she was Clothkits all the way). I wanted to be Barbie or a Princess but have ended up writing a feminist PhD thesis. So in my experience a love of pink and princesses and a lifelong commitment to feminism have not been incompatible.

BUT my question is what do feminist or non feminist mothers of girls or indeed what do any of you think about the pinkification of girlhood and/or the campaign by Pink Stinks to stop it?

Cheers

Madame I think you have far more eloquently said what I wanted to say but didn't quite manage.

I think the Pink Stinks campaign is misguided. Also, looking through their choice of suggested role models, while there are some wonderful, high achieving women among them, they seem to have consciously excluded women who look remotely girly.

Yes Susan Sarandon is a marvellous actress but so is Reese Witherspoon. Has she has been chosen as a role model more because she is an amazonian/butch woman? I just don't get this need to devalue femininity. It goes back to all those ridiculous beliefs that I remember from my school days that the pretty girl in class can't possibly be clever or good at sport.

Yes but my friends are always congratulating themselves on not putting their DDs in pink / their DD's hating pink, saying how shitty pink is, basically being smug about it while I sit there with my pinked-up DD (and yes, sometimes it is Asda pink too).

And there is the circular nature of the argument - shops sell it, we buy it (or our mothers do..)

I also agree with Crazycatlady that there is an element of parental snobbery at play here.

I've just ordered dd an "I'm no Princess"sweatshirt!

Omicron - they sound like pita's! Bet their dds have pink nightclothes and insist on sparkly toothpaste which they hide when you come round

treedelivery - I hope so [fgrn].

I actually woke up on my 7th birthday no longer liking pink, I hated all my presents that year. I think Madame got that spot on.

MadameDuBain: you made me think about this more carefully & you're quite right - pink is not the issue at all, it's the polarisation of boys & girls at such a young age, plus all the silly princess & fairy stuff which is pretty lame. I think the pinkification thing is just representative of all that, perhaps.
Seeker: I love the sound of that sweatshirt & feel I should immediately order one too!

I have nieces and nephews in their 30s,another lot in their 20s, a dd of 13, a ds of 8 and a god daughter of 1. So I have been buying toys for a loooooooooong time! And when my eldest nieces were little the gender segregation of tous was huge, both in colour and type. Things gradually got better, and by the time my dd was born at least most shops didn't have the overt pimk/blue divide. Things have gradually got worse again until now the segregstion is as bad as ever - if not worse. Yhere no longer seems to be any attempt by the major manufacturers to hide the fact that they think boys like killing things and girls like putting on eyeliner. At least they used to try - there was always an uncomfortable looking boy playing with the toy kitchen in the picture on the box, and a disgusted looking girl on the fort box. Now there isn't even a nod to breaking down stereotypes.

This is why it's so wrong to say that women don't need to be feminists any more - the price of freedom is eternal vigilance!

I hankered after pink as a child in the 70s, and it wasn't there.

I find myself persuading dd2 that everything doesnt have to be pink though.

This has been a really interesting thread. I support the Pink Stinks campaign and when they were doing the media rounds a few days ago I thought they did a good job.

On one hand pink is, indeed, just a colour and I do think children are capable of more sophisticated choices than we sometimes give them credit for.

However, my concerns about pinkification are many.

1. We've gone backwards. ELC is a case in point - it has only become so pink and blue in the last few years. I remember when it was all green and purple. When I was young my parents dressed me (according to the photo evidence available) in normal colours - yes there may have been some pink but there was also a multitude of other colours apart from black as my mother considered it unsuitable for young children (and guess which colour I remember always wanting???)

I think the drivers for this are economic - as several have commented it makes hand me downs between siblings more difficult (if you care about what others think anyway). Marketing has become infinitely more ruthless since the 70's when I was growing up.

2. The gender polarisation of toys is genuinely damaging. When a 7 year old is itching to get her hands on the dinosaur stuff but thinks it is "for boys only" what does this do for her future expectations? We are conditioning girls and boys to value girls only in terms of prettiness, compliance and the like.

I'm not an academic like some of the other posters here but I believe strongly that there is a link between these messages and the "pornification" of popular culture that seems to have occured in the same time frame. A lot of the women who are still pink obsessed in theie 20's are the same ones sporting the straight blonde hair, orange skin, hairless nether regions, WAG type look that originated in the porn industry. They are the same women that would rather give
up their vote (why bother????) than be labelled a feminist.

After all, there's no need for feminism anymore right?

I would actually like to pick up on the Susan Sarandon comment.

Have a look for a moment:
here
here
here
here
here
here

The fact that an otherwise sane and reasonable poster can with a straight face describe her as "butch" and suggest that she's unfeminine frankly shows that this pinkification thing and the pushing of one incredibly narrow idea of femininity has gone further than I thought. If Susan Sarandon is butch then I'm a banana.

Santa, I thought that too. If SS is butch then I would be happy to be described thus!

My dd loves pink, probably helps her define herself as she has two older brothers. She has some pink things, she has some not very pink things, mostly she has things that she likes and plays with! I think most posters underestimate the power of peers as opposed to pink. Certainly my dcs are independent enough in their thinking to love a range of toys, I guess it helps that we have both 'boys' and 'girls' toys in the house. When I became a parent I was instantly surprised how quickly my boy became a boy...loving to bash stuff, anything with wheels, etc....whereas my dd would hold a doll not poke her fingers in its eyes, had little interest in transport and she had as much, if not more, opportunity to play with boys stuff but she much preferred girly things...

The issue as a parent is to find 'girls' toys that problem solve and give as much to learning as boys stuff, like lego and puzzle blocks etc.

I'm afraid you're a banana then Santa! . Yes she has been made to look her best for these images but she is not one of Hollywood's beauties that's for sure.

My point was more about the fact that there are none of the really beautiful film actresses on their list of role models, almost like they had been deliberately excluded on the basis that they are too beautiful, regardless of their acting ability.

What? Susan Sarandon looks fine to me - like a normal woman in fact.
And she has very pretty regular features.

I'm going to have to rethink my "sane" comment then as you are clearly a fruitloop .

IMO Susan Sarandon is gorgeous. And she's sixty-three, the same age as my mother and my MIL, and still gorgeous. And this picture at least was taken last year when she was sixty-two. Reese Witherspoon is thirty years younger.

Goodness me is Susan Sarandon 63?

I gotta get me some decent face cream and sculpting underwear!! AT 30 years younger I look waaaay more haggard and roughly 30 years away form being any sort of role model!!

So now Meryl Streep isn't beautiful?

Meryl is sixty, let's remember

Please tell us who you consider to be the "really beautiful" sixty-something actresses?

Ok, stop it with the women twice my age who look more fun in the sack.

Gah!!

Sat here, completely at how ridiculous this thread/pinkstinks campaign is.

I know a fair few women who love dressing up in pink, feminine outfits (and always have done), who are in top jobs and I know girls who dress in unisex clothes that are SAHM. My DD didn't like pink, now she does. She has some pink things and loves skirts but at the moment she is in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. She likes girly toys but also likes playing with cars. So what if the catalogue has a picture of a boy playing with it. She still knows that she will like it too. Children aren't stupid. My DS has a few pink things in his wardrobe and for christmas I bought him a doll (from the girls section in a pink box). I just buy what I want and have never thought that the choice is limited.

These days, if you like pink then you must be a doormat/a bit thick/only want to be a housewife. I too know smug mothers who want to tell you how their dd doesn't like pink. Who cares. I agree with Rockbird. If you don't want to buy pink, buy blue. In fact most items come in a pink version and a bright coloured one. If you don't like those options what the hell do you want.

Just another completely ridiculous thing that some "expert" has come up with. Why not just try lightening up a bit.

Why do these role models have to be 60+?

You see actually, I'd say that if you think people who don't agree with pinkification think those who do like pink for all girls are raising doormats - then you are very very suggestable to marketing ploys!

They have totally won you over infact. The message you have heard is those who object to marketing are in some way loons who think girls in pink tops will grow up to be doormats. I hate the pinkification of girls - but I don't think my girl will be a doormat.

Smug mothers are smug mothers, if they weren't smug over pink, they would be smug that little Jonnie reads hyroglifics at 6.

Don't quite know where you managed to drag that idea from tacky.

1. I don't think that girls in pink tops will grow up to be doormats
2. I also don't think that people who don't want pink things because they like other colours think that girls in pink tops will grow up to be doormats.
3. I do however, think that the idea that the colour pink or marketing ploys will change a girl into somebody who thinks she should be the little woman at home or shouldn't have a great career is ludicrous.

If I am getting this wrong, please enlighten me. What is so wrong with pink apart from you just don't like it. I hate green but I don't think putting it on can change you.

Whats the harm in advertising a fire engine for a boy. It doesn't mean that a girl can't buy it. What if they started marketing them with girls. Does that mean boys couldn't buy them.

I mean, they used to market Mr Muscle, using a skinny guy with glasses but I still bought it.

I dragged it from the bit where you said

These days, if you like pink then you must be a doormat/a bit thick/only want to be a housewife

I took that to mean that you felt this was the notion being put across by such things as PinkStinks.

My point was that if you believe that, you have bought into marketing in a major way.

You use quite strong language for what is a general discussion about no one in particular. I can't be bothered with that, it's Christmas. Lighten up

This is really interesting - I've scanned the thread and can't see that anyone has mentioned that pink was until very recently considered to be the colour for baby BOYS and blue was for girls. Up until well into the 20th century, then at some point (can't remember when - it was in the Guardian last weekend) it flipped. Pink was associated with red, which was a BOYS colour (aggressive etc) and blue was pale & calm. I've got two boys and they looked wonderful in their red babygros. I avoided pastel colours generally and tried to get vibrant stuff (anyone remember Gymboree?). For me, the pastelification of girls is the issue - pastel coloured Lego etc for girls - WHYYYYYYYYY?

Sorry, I have scanned my posts and I really can't see any strong language. I think you are just reading as you want to see it.

I don't really care if anybody wears pink or doesn't. My thoughts are that it doesn't matter what colour you like or what shops want you to buy, people are who they are.