The Pink Controversy

I joined The Sew Weekly yesterday. I will probably pick and choose what projects I do, so don't expect me to suddenly start posting projects every week. I sew more slowly than that! :)

This week, The Sew Weekly asks, "Okay, so do you love or hate the color pink for your own wardrobe?" I was going to post a comment on the thread, but then I realized that I had more to say on the subject of pink than would fit in a reasonable comment.

When I was younger, I hated pink, partly because my sister loved it so much and partly because I was a non-conformist/activist who thought that pink had too many gender stereotypes linked to it for me to even consider putting it on my body.

As I've gotten older, I've started wondering why a color gets such a bad rap when it's not even ugly. Every other color is liked or disliked based on aesthetics, but pink is surrounded by gender and political controversy. Baby girls are wrapped up in pink blankets, and little girls are dressed in pink. But baby boys are wrapped up in blue blankets, and little boys are dressed in blue. So why no backlash against blue? Why do grown men feel like it's acceptable to continue to wear blue (even baby blue!) frequently while adult women very often shun pink like just wearing the color will lower their intelligence, make them into mindless frilly housewives (these are distinctly different from modern, capable homemakers, by the way), or even turn them into five-year-old children who should only been seen and not heard? Why has society chosen to despise the very color it chose to represent girls and women?

I don't have any answers here, just thinking out loud. But I will say that getting older has definitely changed my perspective on things. I no longer hate pink. I kind of love it, and I look pretty good in some shades of it. My skin tone requires bluish and muted tones of pink, so no hot pink or peachy-pink, but dusty shades of maroon and rose and many others are colors that I've been incoroporating into my closet in the last couple of years. I even chose it as one of the colors for my Fall Palette. So yes, Sew Weekly, I definitely love the color pink for my wardrobe. :)