the origin of pink for girls and blue for boys

[Eenee]

They used to also dress boys in pink and girls in blue well that was my understanding anyway

[LimeSlice]

Yep, what em said.

It was the reverse until late 19th early 20th century, as the pale blue was considered a softer colour. We had a thread about this about 12 months or so ago. There was a lot of detail in it I think, very interesting.

[Floweryfields]

I read somewhere just recently that when colour dying of fabric first became common, boys were dressed in pink and girls in blue, as pink dye's were more expensive and boys valued more highly than girls (china originally I think). Blue was also considered more dainty for girls as it was a gentler colour.

Just found this:

Contrary to the above, until around 1940, blue was the common color for girls, as it was seen as daintier. Boys, on the other hand, were dressed in pink, because it is a dilution of the color red, therefore considered to be stronger. In addition, boys were commonly dressed in skirts and dresses up until the age of 6 or 7. It was not until the late 1950s that dresses for baby boys were dropped from the clothing lines in most department stores.

There are many photos of my Dad dressed in 'dresses' as a bub.

that using color for baby gender identification is (perhaps) a pretty recent development. Earlier in the twentieth century, color identification was used but it was reversed. That is, pink was used for boys and blue for girls. This was noted in several newspaper articles (1914, 1918) advising that since pink was the stronger color and better for boys whereas blue is more delicate and therefore more suitable for girls.



It is also stated that the current identification didn’t become uniform until the 1950s. Nazi Germany made homosexuals wear a pink marking and this may have had something to do with the switch in gender identification color.



But it is also said that blue may be associated with boys because having a boy baby was considered associated with good luck in ancient times. So the boy baby was dressed in blue since that was the color of the sky where the gods lived and was considered a way of warding off bad luck. Same thing in Greece where blue eyes were considered to be able to turn away evil.



In ancient China, red dye was relatively cheap and plentiful whereas blue dye was much more expensive and rare. So it was considered appropriate to dress a son in blue because he would bring a dowry to the family when he married.

[beansbeans!]

Oooh I love reading about these sorts of things. I always find it surprising as to why society follows certain things.

Bit off topic but, I know that wedding dresses used to be light blue until Mary Antoinette got married and she wanted something different so went with a white dress. And also she is jill in the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill. And on the wedding front that flowers used to be smelly herbs to ward off evil spirits but they were replaced by flowers because of said smell.

We have pics of Dh's father as a child in dresses (actually the girls' going home from hospital outfit is one of his dresses). I personally find it sad that we still dress our babes in colours that have such gender stereotype in them (boys are stronger and worth more than girls etc).

Mind you I happily rebel against this at every chance I get.

[onthefly]

I'm pretty sure it was cooked up by someone trying to make a buck

[Maruschke]

A long but interesting article

The ghettoisation of pink: how it has cornered the little-girl market | Society | The Observer

not the article I read, and has different justification for the blue / pink thing,but fascinating all the same .

[Astrid]

Bit off topic but, I know that wedding dresses used to be light blue until Mary Antoinette got married and she wanted something different so went with a white dress.

Ooh, would have to argue against that one. For the average person, the wedding dress was any colour, as they basically wore their best dress. Clothing was expensive, especially the nicer stuff, looking at a months wages to pay for one. Queen Victoria when she was married opted for a white dress (can't remember the reason why), at that time what ever royalty did the populous followed. Will be interested to look up the Marie Anntoinette reference (sorry historical costuming nerd here, just don't get me started on Vikking clothes )

[Cherished]

beansbeans I'm with you, I happily rebel against the pink/blue thing too. ds has pink blankets and a pink cloth nappy and I dress him in rainbow pants too. Thankfully dh is with me on this one, he couldn't care less if ds was dressed in pink in public either.

Interesting thread to see where it come from and interesting article Marushke, especially the part of disney characters being in blue before a marketing champaign!

[Smoke Jaguar]

I still find it hard to believe that there are people who believe the pink/blue thing is a natural phenomenon! They are the ones who look at me weird when I say DS likes pink but won't wear it anymore as a favourite colour that it once was because of kinder and what the kids in kinder were conditioned for!
His gumboots were chosen in a slightly larger size last year in a pink, so they still fit, and they are still his favourite boots, so it doesn't much make sense to him that he's not supposed to like it
I also have heaps and heaps of mothers who go on about how they didn't used pink much so they don't know where their girls get it from, it must just be natural. Some of these mothers have amnesia, because I DO remember their babies wearing pink as babies and I'd be surprised if there weren't baby photos depicting it. Nothing wrong with that so much, but the denial is very interesting, in itself!
What people discount to much and don't consider is the role of media portrayals. It's not just social circles (like the ones who say their girls never really saw anyone else wear pink...tough call these days!), it's TV depictions of what girls wear that I notice are very prevalent. We don't have TV, so the very few chances I get to see kids' TV means I notice it more - there is such a heavy depiction of pink for girls and blue for girls. No wonder they get to school/kinder thinking there's a 'right' way!
DS had any colour I could get my hands on, and only a smattering of blue. With DD it's harder because we're using a lot of hand me downs and heaps of them are pink - that's considering I culled the 'pinkest' of them to give to op shops. The other pink stuff I've tried to reserve as 'farm clothes', so that she's not associating pink with something she has to be seen in by others so that they know that she's a girl.
Cos that's the other thing - developmentally kids don't care about gender for years. Left to get to that stage themselves, they could easily get to 6 or 7 and have no preconceived notions of what girls and boys can and could do or that there even needs to be a differentiation between the two.
The story I had heard, and I only have a memory of one section of it, was that blue had been associated with boys and pink with girls (for whatever reason I can't remember now) and that during one of the periods of pestilence and even higher infant mortality the colours were switched to confuse 'God' or 'the gods' so that they would take the girls and not the boys. Again, going back to the misogyny of the time where girls were considered extremely inconsequential.
I couldn't believe what I was reading here about the Virgin Mary wearing blue - how on earth do we know that? I think this is why I find religious iconography so bizarre...!
Anyway, I have been treated as a great subvertive for my insistence on not saturating my children with the idea of gender appropriateness and of 'confusing' them. It won't take long for this society to 'correct' my kids of any terrible ideas of equality (not sameness) and predetermined preferences they are supposed to have At least they'll always have the questioning and challenging of assumptions as their foundation I'll just have to ride it out while they tangle with convention and realise it's all artificial and is accepted because it makes thinking less hard for people (people just don't know what to say anymore when they don't have a gender 'marker' for children even the age of my DS, who is 5.5yo!).
ETA: I have been reamed on BB before by people who thought I was doing my DS a disservice by not letting him know blue was the conventional colour for him. I've been questioned for not supplying DD with dolls etc. So, I'm glad this thread hasn't done that to anyone and that it's started from the POV of questioning the same things I did!

[Maruschke]

Awesome post Mayaness .

I think many who participate in this social construct (coloured clothing) are not aware and are not intentionally participating in the underlying meanings that people decades or centuries ago gave those colours. If I had any idea what (some) people once considered why pink was for girls, I wouldn't have bought pink at all. But I had no idea and I guess others don't either .

A bit like how Christmas and Easter have an undeniable pagan origin, which well predates any Christian understanding, but most people are unaware of this and don't actually participate knowingly in pagan activities when they celebrate those holidays.