I don't know if this is being petty but

[fayyive]

Got some junk mail from "Sunlife" about insurance or something.

It comes with 2 application forms, one printed on blue paper titled "for you" and another printed on pink paper "for partner".

Although the accomp. letter says "to householder" am I to assume the man is to whom it is really addressed to and the wife is the partner?

It came with a freepost envelope, and like I do with all unsolicited mail, it's going to be sealed and put in the postbox

Somebody made a decision to do that. It's amazing, isn't it?

Someone made a decision to print forms in a different colour because they do different things and are to be completed by different people.

I have sitting on my desk forms from Standard Life re something to do with shares. One is printed on pink paper and one on blue paper because they both do different things.

There's nothing in to support the assumption it was meant to be filled in by a man.

If they don't want people to react as the OP has then they should have chosen two different colours then shouldn't they.

These companies spend £££££ on marketing, and mailshots will have been through many stages of development before going to print and out.

Obviously the colour choice will have been thought about extremely carefully. In the absence of any reason otherwise, I think it is likely that OPs assumption about what they meant is entirely reasonable, and in fact pretty likely to be what they intended.

The "nothing to see here" and dismissal of colour choice as nothing meaningful in what will be an extremely expensive marketing campaign is, well, almost painfully naive, quite frankly.

I suppose if you've never worked in larger companies you might be unaware of this sort of thing, is all I can imagine.

They could have gone for blue and green or pink and yellow. I'm not convinced there's no sexism at play in choosing pink and blue.

Of course it's sexist and naive to think otherwise.

Experience tells us that pink is a girls colour and blue a boy. Look at children's shops where it's signposted.

By the way I don't agree with that. Just that society tells us it's the accepted status quo.

The whole distinction of gender associated colours is also very heteronormative. Several shades of shit really!