Why This Chick Hates Pink

Most people consider pink to be a feminine color, but have you ever heard the expression it takes a real man to wear pink? Or what about celebrities/rappers rocking the pink stuff now-a-days? I mean, even the pope rocks it!

Maybe men would be willing to wear pink, to be comfortable with the color, if almost every product under the sun didn’t have a “pink version” to be marketed toward women.

Now, disclaimer: I am a woman who does not care for pink, nor do I own any item in pink. I understand I am not the core market.

That being said, I’m still insulted. And it is every place I turn…let’s take sports first.

Why would you change your brand – the famous pin stripes!!! – so that women can wear “their versions” of the hat to the game? I don’t care how many extra hats/uniforms/etc it sells:

• If the pink version was not an option, women would wear the regularly colored jerseys just like everyone else and how they did before the introduction of pink;
• as cute as the girls may think they look, I’ve heard backlash from men being disgruntled about the whole thing – maybe it’s a fine line between women invading their “private-time sports space” and perverting the pride of a sports team, but still and
• this is your brand, people!

Saatchi & Saatchi think I’m wrong about dissing the pink trend. That they found out *surprise!* women are just as interested in technology as men, and seeing electronic items in pink lulls them into a safe place where they are happy to ask questions and buy things. I’m embarrassed by the multitude of assumptions woven into the “research by a marketing company that has a vested interest in a certain result that fits with their marketing campaigns from the past 10 years.”

Regardless of how patronizing, sexist and infuriating this trend is, however, it’s selling things. Look at the horror – look at it!

One last disclaimer before I go: pink has also now been associated with breast cancer. There’s not much I can criticize here: the ribbon and Livestrong bracelet knock-off had to be some color. But I do not think this accounts nor predates the pink trend.

No, it goes much further back into our socialization, the gendering process we all went through as children. Pink for girls, blue for boys. But you may be surprised to know that it wasn’t always so – in fact, the trend was inverted.

So perhaps this is all just a blip in our cultural evolution. In 50 years from now it will all be over and women can feel comfortable buying non-pink items just as eagerly as men.

I hope.