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Pink and blue clothing for babies is a relatively new tradition, with pink being assigned to girls and blue to boys since the 1950s. This practice is mainly confined to Western Europe and the Americas. The origin of this tradition is unclear, but it may have been inspired by a passage in the novel Little Women. In the past, pink was considered a more masculine color, and blue was associated with the Virgin Mary. Today, pink and blue have different connotations and are not always gender-specific. In other countries, different colors are used to denote gender and other meanings.
If you enter a baby clothing department, you will see a lot of pink and blue clothes. While you can find a range of colorful clothes for girls, it’s much harder to find pink colors for boys. The two colors are gender specific, though things are definitely loosening up. The style of assigning pink to girls and blue to boys is relatively new and was not a common practice until the 1950s. It should be noted that it is by no means a common practice in other countries and is confined most often to Western Europe and the Americas.
Debate about when and why pink and blue came into vogue to designate gender rages on, but nearly every topic alludes to a passage from the novel Little Women, published in 1868. Amy ties a pink and blue bow to the cufflinks of Meg, Daisy and Demi, so people will know the difference between the girl and the boy. This is said to be done in the “French style”, suggesting that it might have been possible in France that the colors were already gender specific.
There is evidence that this practice was not always common or always practiced in much of Europe or America. There are images of numerous baby boys wearing pink jumpers in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Indeed, many suggest that the colors were once reversed, with pink being considered more masculine. It is certainly true that blue, especially dark blue, was associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian Europe. Painters often mixed lapis lazuli into paints to represent what was considered the most sacred female icon.
Most people who study the matter attribute the pink and blue gender assignment to the 1950s, which featured a virtual explosion of color, not just in clothing, but also in things like appliances and furniture. Dressing children in colors to specifically denote gender suggested the nascent middle class and beyond. In other words, people who could afford to make the gender assignment did so, since many children appear somewhat asexual to their firstborn.
Another possible theory links these genre references to the 1950s film Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn. However, Hepburn was an extremely feminine woman, and her pink dresses may have proved to be an inspiration. This explanation is somewhat unlikely given that the film wasn’t released until 1957.
Today, pink and blue may not always mean what they did in the 1950s. Pink is a traditional color associated with lesbian and gay activism. Especially for adults, both men and women can wear both colors. While most men won’t wear a predominantly pink suit, many do wear pink shirts with their suits. Also, since the 1980s, when the fads of the day ruled the day and shows like Miami Vice influenced fashion, pink became a much more acceptable color for men and didn’t necessarily denote a lack of masculinity.
In other countries, these colors do not have the same gender assignment. Many colors are seen differently. For example, in Asia, children are more likely to be dressed in red, as are brides. This is the color of celebration, while white is considered a color of mourning. Thus the pink and blue tradition is recent and relatively exclusive to the Western world
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