the origin of pink for girls and blue for boys

[Maruschke]

Wow, so it seems there are at least three competing explanations for the colours?!?

[Beautiful Disaster]

I will try and find it but there was something I read and in my baby shower quiz that said in the very early days pink was for boys

[Astrid]

Seems to be after WII that the pink for girls, blue for boys thing really took hold. Back in the 1800's small children and babies were dressed the same, the main difference was that boys buttoned at the front and girls at the back. Probably something to do with toilet training, as it is easier to TT in a skirt, than having to drop pants. Also could be due to the infant mortality rate, just more sensible to have one type of dress for both genders.

There are parenting articles from the early 1900's advising of pink for boys and blue for girls.

Of course this is a western culture thing, other cultures will have their own ways of dressing children in the past.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Onyx, my son is starting to get "pink if a girl colour" - but thankfully still loves his purple. His pink top is rarely worn these days. And he hasn't even asked to play with dolls for ages - although he does get to dress me, so obviously I'm a real-life barbie to him.

But he plays babies with his soft toys and his cars, so I'm not too upset.

[e_p]

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...!

Mary is consistently depicted in religious iconography to be wearing blue...apparently, she's wearing blue in the artwork/statues etc because the Church, who commissioned the art, had 'verified' several 'apparitions' of Mary - it's reasonable to expect that the Church would want her depicted accurately....although of course we have about as much surety that Mary wore blue as we do that Jesus, an Israeli, was white with dark blonde hair and blue eyes...

[Maruschke]

Mary is consistently depicted in religious iconography to be wearing blue...apparently, she's wearing blue in the artwork/statues etc because the Church, who commissioned the art, had 'verified' several 'apparitions' of Mary - it's reasonable to expect that the Church would want her depicted accurately....although of course we have about as much surety that Mary wore blue as we do that Jesus, an Israeli, was white with dark blonde hair and blue eyes...

Actually they knew that because of the huge social colour stereotypes back then too. If my memory serves me correctly, the women all wore head veils, the virgins were pale blue and the married women darker blue. Because they want to reinforce the virgin aspect of the birth, they usually depict her with light blue headscarf. Someone might know more about the actual shades etc... but that is my understanding of why she wore blue .

[Floweryfields]

that Jesus, an Israeli, was white with dark blonde hair and blue eyes...

I was going to say the same thing before I got to the bottom of your post - no way Jesus was the pale, blonde hair blue eyed man always depicted. More than likely Jesus would have been very dark skinned, dark haired and very swarthy.

But totally off topic.....

[Smoke Jaguar]

I guess my bewilderment IS the preoccupation with getting it 'accurate', like it matters to people's belief systems and how they live their lives that they are looking at a true likeness of someone they believe in. I think it's relevant and not OT because this belief that colours mean something for our kids' position in life has facilitated the current obsession with colour coding, and the discomfort people feel when someone doesn't follow that convention. Like the discomfort people felt in the old days when someone didn't go to church, and when women started to wear pants and even now when boys have long hair (don't get me started on that and the stupid things other kids told DS at kinder this year about his hair!).

[Phteven]

I was going to say the same thing before I got to the bottom of your post - no way Jesus was the pale, blonde hair blue eyed man always depicted. More than likely Jesus would have been very dark skinned, dark haired and very swarthy.

I have friends from Palestine who are very fair. It's entirely possible that he could have been a red head. Although darker colouring is dominant it's actually a fallacy that all Arabs are dark and swarthy.

I gave my boy a buzz cut last night. Although I loved his long hair he wanted a buzz cut and I think that it would be unfair to impose long hair on him now he's decided he doesn't like it anymore

[Smoke Jaguar]

I asked DS why he wanted his hair cut and the only reasons he could give me were that the other kids said he looked like a girl and that he wanted to look like the other boys. I didn't get it cut then and there, despite being told I was being unfair by a few people (and was most likely thought of as unfair by a great many more!), because I know (ya know, as his mother) that he actually likes his hair. His inclination to get it cut was about conforming to what other kids were conditioned to believe about boys and girls. I told him that everyone KNEW he is a boy and they were just repeating stuff that didn't make sense and that they didn't even believe, because some people do that.
Well, a few months later, what happened to the boys who started the year with short, spiky hair that was gelled into mini-mohawks? They were ALL growing their short hair out to longer lengths and finished the kinder year with a much softer look! Not coincidentally, DS wasn't hassling me about a hair cut by then either. He still mentions it from time to time, and only when DP is reefing through his hair to get tangles out (he steadfastly refuses to heed my curly hair advice, because what would I know? I have only had curly hair all my life and DP hasn't!).
When DS had the opportunity to get his hair cut earlier this year, thinking he wanted it really short, he actually refused to get in the chair, I had a hair cut appt so it wasn't a complete loss. The hairdresser has known DS and I since DS was a bump and didn't push it - because he knows what DS is like and was really not wanting to give him a look that went against his nature. I was relieved that he didn't get to cut his hair then, because he was thinking about social pressure. The interesting thing was that when he went for a maintenance cut last month he got really sad that his sunbleached ends were gone! He loves them and said he couldn't wait for them to come back...which means he has to have longer hair The non-kinder circles we move in are much more open-minded, so over summer and term holidays we don't have the same conversations!

[Rouge]

Meh. My son has long hair, his dad has longer hair. My son has had blue and red nail polish on for the past 3 weeks which his sudo cousins put on him along with their little brother the same age. That gets my goat when I see your posts maya I want to give these people a piece of my mind. I'd be more concerned about being small minded than what colour my son likes. Lemme at em.

[e_p]

Actually they knew that because of the huge social colour stereotypes back then too. If my memory serves me correctly, the women all wore head veils, the virgins were pale blue and the married women darker blue. Because they want to reinforce the virgin aspect of the birth, they usually depict her with light blue headscarf. Someone might know more about the actual shades etc... but that is my understanding of why she wore blue .

So true! Just after I posted I thought to myself that those 'apparitions' the artwork is apparently based on would quite likely have been influenced by whatever the gender/colour norm was at the time

[e_p]

I guess my bewilderment IS the preoccupation with getting it 'accurate', like it matters to people's belief systems and how they live their lives that they are looking at a true likeness of someone they believe in. I think it's relevant and not OT because this belief that colours mean something for our kids' position in life has facilitated the current obsession with colour coding, and the discomfort people feel when someone doesn't follow that convention.

Totally agree with you, Mayaness