I heard the very end of a program on Public Radio a couple of weeks ago, and what I heard intrigued me. I don’t know what the content of the whole piece was, but what I heard was something like this: “Because of clever marketing, the color pink has spread like an epidemic. In these days of metrosexuals and shifting gender roles, males are thinking pink again … but will it ever be the new black?”
That was it; that was all I heard—or close, anyway. And I was in the car and couldn’t take notes, so I had to rely on my memory until I could get home and write it down, so who knows how accurate it is.
But if you had heard just that much of the program, what would you have thought that program was about? My assumption was that it was probably about the tradition of gender-specific colors: pink is for girls, blue is for boys, you know.
Well, so anyway, it got me thinking about the whole pink-blue thing.
Does pink have a social impact? Pink is everywhere these days. I see girls wearing “P!nk” sweatshirts and sweatpants (some of them actually pink) with “Love Pink” emblazoned across their chests and butts. Pink running shoes and pink baseball caps, pink ribbons to signify the battle against breast cancer, professional football teams wearing pink in support of breast cancer research. Pink for the Susan B. Komen campaign against breast cancer. Pink is everywhere.
Pink has always been with us, though it was not always as gender-entrenched as it is today. Back in the 1700s, men and women wore pink. But can “ordinary” guys wear pink in the 21st century? We know that the pro football players can get away with it because no one doubts their virility, but how about the rest of us?
I found a reference to a book, “A Journey Around My Room,” published in 1794, in which a French writer recommended that men have pink and white bedrooms to brighten their moods! But you know those French guys, right?
Do you remember F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” set in 1925?
Remember the Robert Redford version of the movie? (Much better than the Leonardo DiCaprio version from last year.) Redford, as Gatsby, wears a pink suit, and some of the other characters speculate about him: “An Oxford man! … Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.” Evidently it was not cool for a guy to wear pink in 1925!
I found some ads from a 1918 trade catalog for children’s clothing that recommended blue for girls. The ads said that it’s a “much more delicate and dainty tone.” Pink was recommended for boys “because it’s a stronger and more passionate color, and because it’s actually derived from red.”
Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. That’s been the case in the U.S. since about the end of the first World War. But it wasn’t hard and fast until the 1940s. And then in the ’70s, the women’s liberation movement sort of pushed for gender neutrality. In the ’80s, it switched back again.
Today, though, just about any color goes for grownups, but we still hold onto the notion that for babies, it’s pink for girls, blue for boys. Just check out the bubble gum cigars that new fathers give out!
All of this discussion of pink and blue made me think of the famous twin baseball brothers, Pink and Blue Hawley, born in Beaver Dam in 1892.
They were teammates at Wayland Academy and in the semi-pro leagues. Pink was an outstanding pitcher, and Blue was his catcher. Pink went on to become a famous major league pitcher, but Blue died when he was only 19 years old.
Their names didn’t hold these guys back. Pink was called one of the greatest major league pitchers of all times. He won 31 games in 1895 and 27 in 1898.
I have a couple of pink shirts, and I like them a lot. But I also have some blue ones!
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