Pinkification

[hmpf]

Any of you out there with children, nieces and nephews, or friends with children who can confirm this? It's an impression I've been having myself, but it's difficult to tell if it's really worse than when I was a child (late 70s/early to mid-80s) because there are no children at all in my circle of acquaintances.

I notice I don't have a tag for gender stuff yet... hmm.

**

Speaking of gender, I feel I should explain my recent Phideaux post a bit more. What I found odd/amusing/fascinating about that youtube vid is not so much the fact that he's wearing a dress (and a wig) there, per se. Or rather, there *is* something odd about it, namely, the way it seems a joke yet not. He's kind of wearing that dress (and the wig)... completely deadpan. As a (gender) performance it's interesting to me because it's neither properly parody nor imitation, it just kind of... is. And I am amused - in a respectful, even admiring way, not in a "OMG how funny, a guy in a dress!" way - that that is one of the *very* few video documents he's made available of himself (it's from his website, originally).

I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well here. I'm not sure I *can* explain what I feel about Phideaux, quite. I love his music, *intensely* (the older stuff more than the newer stuff, though - I've been listening to Ghost Story nearly non-stop since Christmas), and I'm... intrigued by the extremely scarce information I've found about him online. Like a) he chose that video to put on his website, and b) his day job is directing tv shows, mainly soap operas. I keep wanting to put the pieces together to get some kind of coherent picture, but of course there isn't enough information. And, wow, am I sounding like a stalker or what, now.

Oh well.

Comments

[starwatcher]

.
Yes. My grand-niece is 14 months old. Although her mother likes pink, she doesn't want to 'pigeon-hole' her daughter, and is already complaining that it's exceedingly difficult to find clothes in 'neutral' shades - greens, tans, frex. When she does find them, they're more likely in the boys' section, which is okay for now, but may upset the child when she's old enough to notice.

Walking through the toy section of any store, there's an aisle for boys' toys, and an aisle for girls' toys, and ALL the girls' toys are pink, and decorated with flowers, stars, and butterflies. Trying to find non-gendered toys is possible, but difficult.

What's worse, the 'household'-type toys - stove, vacuum, fridge - are very frequently pink. Like no boy will ever practice cooking or cleaning? They do... until they reach an age where cultural awareness informs them that pink = girl, and refuse to play with "girls' toys".

It's a real minefield for parents who try to raise their kids gender-neutral, so to speak. And it even carries over to adult stuff. I needed a new cellphone recently. The phone I chose came in two colors; the salesman asked if I preferred pink. "Oh GOD no!" I said. He just chuckled, but I'm damn sure he wouldn't have asked a man if he wanted a pink phone.
.

[unovis-lj.livejournal.com]

Pink = girls, blue=boys has been a convention (probably commercially motivated) since at least the 1950s. It might be earlier, pre-WW II, if some WB cartoons are an indicator.