I saw this miniature broom set at a popular baby shop. Having a three year old boy who is ALWAYS playing with the house broom, I thought ‘THIS IS BRILLIANT’, because I can now teach him to start helping around the house instead of just making a mess for me to clean up alone. But they only had this pink set, in what we all know as ‘the pink aisle’ a.k.a the girls aisle. The boy’s aisle of toys had trucks and cars, golf sets and a few gardening items, but no broom, no hand broom and no scoop. At first I took this picture and got upset that there was no blue version of this. I was thinking HOW DARE THEY in 2018 still project ‘sweeping’ as a task that girls would be more likely to emulate. 

This brought back every lecture I had sat in about the history of patriarchy and its perpetuation in society in preset day. This broom set make me remember the necessity of feminism to bring about a balance in gender roles that has never existed in widespread society even until now. 

I was angry, I wanted to write to the store and the manufacturers and ask why they are prescribing domestic activities for only girls? If it were nail polish, a medical set, or legos, I don't think I would’ve been as upset, because beauty is a girls job right? Promoting girls to take up a profession in medicine is a good thing right? And building of Legos promote more girls to later have the option of engineering and architecture, right? But because it was a ‘household’ item I went into fight mode. “Is that what they think women are? ‘Household’ keepers? Domestically inclined to learn the art of cleaning from a young age?” 

As I contemplated this blog my thoughts turned inwards. After a few days, I realised I was incessantly questioning my own beliefs. WHY do I think they should have a BLUE one? Does that not make me as bad as the manufacturers? Wait...I actually buy into this construct that blue is for boys and pink is for girls?  Why? Is it because I was brought up that way? Barbie is Pink and Toolsets are Blue.  What if I bought this set for my son? Does it make him less of a boy? Does it make him inclined to think he’s a girl? Will he get teased by other children for playing with ‘girls toys’ or ‘pink things’? Because children are already being brought up with this idea of pink and blue? Do I want my son to think this? If he thinks differently would others not look at him as an outcast in society? Do I want to raise my son feeling like an outcast? Does thinking differently make one an outcast? How do I raise him knowing what society perpetuates isn’t always the right thing to believe? I became aware of my own prejudice of the colours pink and blue. And I had more questions than answers, but despite that, my understanding was growing.

Wikipedia claims “The reality that ‘pink for girls and blue for boys’ has existed continuously since at least the 1820s, while ‘blue for girls, pink for boys’ is only recorded between 1889 and 1941..” 
For five decades there appears to have been a ‘fad’ to swop the colours around, but the perpetuation of this ‘opposite ideal’ for five decades was still not enough to eradicate the inexplicable allocation of the colours to their genders.

These days “Pink and Blue” bring to mind the ‘gender reveal parties’ parents are having when a child is going to be born, they have a ‘reveal party’. They cut a cake, or open and envelope or pop a balloon and the gender of the baby is revealed, pink reserved for girls and blue reserved for boys. It almost feels like a fact that the gender owns the colour, because these colours are symbols of the private parts you possess before you are even born.  But over multiple decades these colours have been claimed by a gender, because those in charge of making the toys and clothes and I dare say the “rules” and those marketing them to us, saw a glimpse of a pattern and then perpetuated it to the point of nausea. I say nausea because I sometimes feel overwhelmed in the girls aisle by the ‘plague of pink’ surrounding me.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE pink, but as a girl child, it wasn’t my first favourite colour. When I was young (under ten) I loved green first, then purple (in my teens), then black (varsity days), and as an adult I discovered a love for pink (in my 20’s), and now my favourite colour is yellow. Not because I buy things in my favourite colour, the way I did in my teens and twenties, no... Yellow is my favourite colour because when I see yellow it brightens my soul and I get all tingly emotionally, it makes me happy; it’s also the same colour as my favourite flower Sunflowers, so there is both emotion and logic behind my love of yellow. My husband’s favourite colour is Red because he’s a Man United fan. And he’s not a United Fan because he HAS to watch all their matches, or a fan only when they win, no, he’s a fan because something in the team (no matter who plays on the team or who coaches it) causes an emotional charge in him the way the colour yellow or sunflowers does so in me.

Which got me thinking: does the colour blue and pink have emotional charges? And are they charged in a particular way because of the constructs we have bought into and continue to succumb to after years of indoctrination over their symbolism? Now with the LGBTQI movement gaining positive strides (the way feminism continues their fight against patriarchy) I feel we cannot speak about pink and blue without mentioning ‘gay or straight’. 

Along with the construct of ‘boys wear blue’ and ‘girls wear pink’, it is becoming a belief that the reversal of colours (worn or preferred) are signifiers of a reversal of gender and sexual preference. And in my experience and observance, it is more directed to males, a boy who wears pink is sometimes teased for being a girl, he is thought of and spoken of as weak and sensitive, but a girl who chooses blue isn’t necessarily ‘teased’ to be a ‘tom boy'. This worries me that as a society we not only have associated the colour pink with girls, but also now with weakness and sensitivity, which in turn the belief is claiming that ‘girls/women are weak and sensitive’ as a rule. Having being raised by a strong single mom, and the fact that majority of households are led by women who exude strength and stamina, it is shocking to see the thought patterns don't match the real life world examples. (This is inspiring me to write a blog about our ‘matriarchal system’ and the false constructs around them, but back to the reversal of the ‘pink and blue’ allocation.)  Sometimes a reversal of preference of this ídeal’ has led to harassment, bullying and unnecessary pain caused, all over a preferred colour. 

Now my son is 3 years old, he does not define himself by gender or sexual preference. He understands some people are boys and some are girls, mommy is a girl, daddy is a boy, our dogs for example, Jackpot is a boy and Princess Soji is a girl. Now because his language skills are only developing I have no idea of investigating exactly what those differences mean for him. But when I try to tie his hair into a bun or pony tail or when he saw his father dressed in costume for a show of ours where his Dad wears a pink mini dress, my son exclaimed “NO! DADDY IS NOT A PRINCESS”. I was shocked when he made the claim. Somewhere in his short life experience, and small vocabulary skill set he found the expression that tying your hair, and wearing pink, or a dress makes you a ‘princess’ which he understands as being a girl. 

Now I am not making any judgement on gay or straight, I believe people need to be what they are and no-one has any right to judge or be prejudiced against any lifestyle, basically I believe in: if your life expression and preferences does not hurt another being, then feel free to be who you are. 

But as we all know there are prejudices prevalent in society that are against LGBTQI, and there are people who hold firm views against freedom of sexuality, and they are raising their children with these prejudiced ideals. There are a lot of reasons from religion, culture, upbringing to denial, rejection and ignorance that cause this prejudice, and I now think this ‘pink and blue ideal’ is one of the foundation thoughts that lead to further perpetuate this prejudice. 

The ‘pink is for girls and blue is for boys’ belief makes people believe something that doesn’t exist. Now when I say that, I am not denying that the culture of ‘pink is for girls, blue is for boys’ exists. I am saying it is a human construct based on nothing of particular substance and an empty reasoning and that as it was created, so can it be destroyed. And who knows it may lead to more understanding, less bullying and more freedom of choice and acceptance of different choices. 

IF all of us parents in this generation, whatever our belief is, if we taught our kids that as a child you can like pink or blue no matter what gender you are, and if ‘the powers that be’: the manufacturers of clothes, toys advertising agencies etc. if they also follow suit in their campaigns and products; I honestly think in a few generations time we would eradicate this useless ‘construct’ of pink and blue. 

And yes this is a Utopian view, no one is any lifetime has managed to convince absolutely everyone in existence to put aside their views for a better mind construct in the hopes of a better future. But like any cause, the battles won are small and over time can amount to larger victories against prejudiced thinking perpetuated by these simple ideals we sometimes unconsciously adhere to.
Since I read Echkart Tolle’s THE POWER OF NOW and A NEW EARTH, I am on a ever present awareness journey.  I find myself thinking more about ‘How we think about things and why we think in certain ways?’ I urge you to join me in this moment to moment learning process, investigate the thoughts that automatically pitch up in your head and if you aren’t happy with them, change them, and let your behaviour reflect the change as an example for others to follow. 

I want to buy this pink set for my son, but I am not raising him alone. So a family discussion has to happen first before I rashly go attempting to change the world by forcing others (like my husband) to change their minds. In this journey I have discovered you have to be ready for consciousness and cannot force anyone into awareness. My blog is about posing ideas you may want to think about, for yourself. In no way am I asking you to change your beliefs or behaviour, these are my thoughts and I wish to share them so as to bring insight to something you may have been already thinking about, and to encourage discussion on the topic at hand. 

I will continue to investigate my own thoughts and the minds of those I live with even further to help change this society from the inside out and always for the better. They sound like grand claims, but all grand claims start with an idea, and they start with one person, looking within, thinking further and aligning thoughts with actions. For now I want to be that ‘one person’. Do you? Its starts with one step, simply, next time you buy something for your child, red orange yellow green or blue, reflect on the ideals it perpetuates, and ‘buy in awareness’ because if you aren’t ‘in awareness’ know that you’re “buying into” something on a psychological level that could influence you and your families belief system for generations to come.