Pinkification is a concept that every girl will without a doubt be faced with more times than she cares to count. But more than that, many men will also be faced with this theory as well as it affects so much more than just the females it regards. In a nutshell, pinkification is the awful theory that lead to the Labour party thinking that using a pink bus would encourage females to vote for them. It's the concept that colours are gender based, pink being only for girls and blue for males. Ironically, it's a very black and white idea.
"This matters for so many reasons. When people meet a little girl in a pink, sparkly dress, they talk to her about how sweet and pretty she looks. If she's wearing a dress with robots or trains on, they'll talk about them instead- that is, about technology or engineering. That opens up her mind, her world and her future." This ground breaking observation is something that we have all noticed but feared to voice. Speaking from experience I had never felt the pressure to be a girl that was "pretty in pink" until I went to a friends Princess Party. The group of girls sat around me dressed as the classic Disney Belle, Cinderella and Snow White, yet I was sat as Sandy from Grease with curtain hoops as earrings because mom hadn't let me had my ears pierced yet! That day, in my mind, we were all princesses at that party but I couldn't understand why I didn't look like everybody else's ideas of what a princess was. I also went to a princesses and wizards day dressed as a combination of Hermione, Ron and Harry Potter. Only to find the other girls all in dresses looking strangely at my Gryffindor scarf and eyeliner scar on my forehead. To me I was dressed as somebody that I loved and wanted to be but the other girls didn't understand why I wasn't dressed like "all the other girls in dresses." That was the first time in my life that I felt different but the most astounding thing was I really didn't seem to care. 
This idea is something that rocket scientist Elishka Jepson drew upon when she created her graphics for the Princess Awesome dresses that were made by Eva St Clair and Rebecca Melsky. They made these dresses for "a different kind of girly girl because girls shouldn't have to decide between dresses and dinosaurs, or ruffles and robots." But the world is changing as the battle against Pinkification becomes stronger. Even Hamleys have felt the force of the Pinkification party as Mothers complained their blue and pink floors for each aisle of toys that had been gender separated lead to "gender apartheid" that would eventually result in social inequality. This made them reorganise their store completely to eliminate this gender segregation. Well done Hamleys! Even Lego recently launched their first ever set that included a female scientist and Mattel launched a Barbie book entitled "I can be a computer engineer." However there is clearly a long way to go as in the Barbie book she eventually turns to her male colleagues for help after she makes several technical mistakes. Baby steps Barbie, baby steps...
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| Seriously? |
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| Seriously Barbie, seriously? |
Pinkification was something that I always thought only affected girls but recently whilst at work a young boy told me that he liked all of the colours apart from pink because that is a "girly colour." After hearing him say this I questioned his reasoning behind this opinion and "what makes a colour a certain gender?" To this he replied "well everybody knows pink is for girls and blue is for boys, that's what my parents taught me." And this is a crucial part of the development of the opinion, "my parents taught me." I cannot tell you how often I have been in a supermarket and been infuriated by a parent telling their child they cannot have a certain bag of sweets or a certain toy because "that's meant for girls, look at the colour of the packaging." And then continued to identify a gender with the character on the packaging. Children aren't aware of these stereotypes, they are taught them.
It's our jobs as parents and mentors to help them develop and to be their moral compass. Please make sure that it is always aligned and pointing North, so that we can all move forward, together.
Love Liv x
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