The pink used to be for boys notion

[ALittleBitOfButter]

I've just seen on that gender neutral baby clothes thread, once again, that someone has mentioned the oft repeated idea that in the olden days pink was for boys and blue for girls.

While this does reveal and confirm the fickle nature of "gender identity", I wonder how widespread it actually was as an idea? People keep putting up a quote from some 1920s newspaper but this is the only evidence I've ever seen used.

I don't believe it really, based on literature. I.e. Milly Molly Mandy had her candy pink striped dress, Laura Ingalls had pink, Judy in Seven Little Australians had her iconic pink frock.

Does anyone else question it too?

I understood that in the past the colour blue was heavily associated with the Virgin Mary and therefore seen as a feminine colour.
Pre 20th century the colour pink wasn't a colour per se it was categorised as a light red. Red was seen as a military colour, hence light red being seen as the more masculine colour

Fair enough, maybe I misunderstood. I think your sentiment that it was gender neutral was right, and the people saying it was a masculine colour are definitely wrong as the wikipedia article also proves.

I was told to look at paintings

I'd rather look at literature than paintings, or written evidence from the time.

The Wikipedia page does not source its claims that pink was masculine.

So why was blue associated with the Virgin Mary?

blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2012/11/30/did-boys-use-to-wear-pink/#.WZ8lKviGPcs

blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/07/02/boys-wear-pink-revisited/#.WZ8lV_iGPcs

link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10508-012-0002-z?shared_access_token=qS39JxfGvQEc5QirnAlnjfe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6_ErQX7nPBm2KihNH7C_cxkO916d1VxaCcH3A57rp0KfFzjeWkffHNquW8fF97Pp2kwwIOPpfvcFxF_F_GetuUy-H4Bb8jlPns_hnCU2sda_nUU51t4J8QNpZI-MNfB1I=

Looks like it is a bit of a myth. In Ye Olde Days, there does not seem to have been any consistent rule either way.

Blue pigment was the most expensive to produce so became a sign of wealth and power. Depictions of the Virgin Mary from 400 AD showed her in blue in keeping with her being shown as queen of heaven

Guardian have an interesting article on the colour blue which mentions the depiction of Mary:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/17/colour-blue-rich-divine-ancient-egyptians-virgin-mary

I was born in the late 1960s and grew up in the 1970s and '80s when little girls rarely wore pink. Yes, little babies were colour coded pale pink or pale blue (but always safe to check as clothes were handed down from baby to baby), but from toddlerhood onwards, children wore a variety of colours.

The phenomenon of a sea of pink in shops selling clothes for children, along with pink plastic shite marketed for girls is, I don't know, maybe 20-25 years old?

Gender markers and capitalism are intertwined.

We have a photo from the 1920s of my grandad aged about 7 wearing a dress. I remember him telling us that all little boys back then (where he lived, anyway) wore dresses until they were 7/8, then they moved onto shorts. He thought it might be something to do with having clothes that any child could wear, and considering the high rates of infant mortality I guess it would make sense to have unisex clothing for as long as possible.

(The picture is black and white, though, so I don't know whether the dress was pink)

I think boys wearing dresses would have been because of toilet training and lack of washing machines. Also makes economic sense from having a wardrobe that all your children could wear.

This is my Dad, aged 2.5, taken in 1912, exactly 100 years before he died. He was 'breeched' (put into trousers) at the age of 5. His frock was white and the velvet coat was dark green.

Queen - most 7 year olds would have been toilet trained for many years though?

Maybe all those babies who undo their poppers on their babygros "to make them into dresses" actually identify with being born in 1912, not "having been born into the wrong body"?

I like this quote, from the 1780s:

Loose dresses contribute to the easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind. This remark is so obvious, and so generally known, that we find studious men are always painted in gowns, when they are seated in their libraries.

~en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_(clothing)

I love this dress and shoes. I'd be so happy wearing that to a fancy dress party or a ball. Stuff gender neutral clothing

Loose dresses contribute to the easy and vigorous exercise of the faculties of the mind. This remark is so obvious, and so generally known, that we find studious men are always painted in gowns, when they are seated in their libraries

Voltaire - see the painting of him in that style of dress on the cover of Penguin Classics issue of Candide