Gendered associations of pink and blue
Originating as a trend in the mid-19th century and applying primarily to clothing, gendered associations with pink and blue became more widespread from the 1950s onward.
According to Jo Paoletti, who spent two decades studying the history of pink and blue gender-coding, there were no particular color associations for girls and boys at the turn of the 20th century.
[3] Paoletti summarized the evolution of pink and blue associations with girls and boys: "It is clear that pink-blue gender coding was known in the late 1860s but was not dominant until the 1950s in most parts of the United States and not universal until a generation later.
"[4] In 1927, a chart published in Time magazine summarized the recommended hues at major department stores in the United States: six said pink for boys and blue for girls; four said the opposite.
[5][1][6] A number of personalities and cultural icons of the 1950s and early 1960s had a great influence on the public awareness and use of pink in fashion and decoration, including Mamie Eisenhower,[7] Marilyn Monroe, and Brigitte Bardot.
Her tastes were picked up by the American public, and "Mamie Pink" became an iconic color in decorating in the 1950s, being used in bathroom fixtures, tiles, kitchen appliances, and more.
[8] For infant and children's clothing, ribbons, and other items, the pink for girls, blue for boys associations known in European countries included: the Netherlands (1823),[11] France (1834),[12] Russia (1842),[13] Great Britain (1862),[14] and Spain (1896);[15] and in the Americas: in the United States,[16] and Mexico (1899).
[23] In the United States, girlie-girl culture developed in the 1990s in the wake of a series of successful Disney animated films, starting with The Little Mermaid (1989).
Eighty-six percent of pink toys were marketed as "girls only", and a similar percentage that were bold red, black, brown, or gray were for "boys only".
Props include cakes, balloons, confetti, smoke, fireworks, and other accessories[28] to indicate whether the fetus is male or female, normally by means of a colored signal that is pink or blue.
[29] For example: a cake may be brought out, frosted in white or other neutrally-colored icing, which when cut, reveals a pinkish or blueish filling inside, thus indicating that the baby is expected to be a girl (pink) or a boy (blue).
[37] In a 2017 letter to Archives of Sexual Behavior, researcher Marco Del Giudice commented on earlier claims about a supposed shift in pink–blue color associations or preferences sometime around the 1940s, from pink for boys and blue for girls before that period, to the opposite alignment afterward.
However, he found upon analysis that it was exceptionally difficult to actually document such a shift, and exclaimed upon "the thinness of the evidence presented in support of the PBR".
[39] In his 2012 paper, Del Giudice quoted from four articles published in academic journals which all echoed the claims about PBR theory, many relying on Paoletti, including Chiu et al., 2006: "Prior to that decade, Paoletti ... noted that the sex-dimorphic color coding of pink and blue was inverted, i.e., infant boys were dressed in pink and infant girls were dressed in blue.
[47] In an attempt to test previous research indicating an apparent preference in Britain for blue-green hues among males and pink-purple among females, a 2018 cross-cultural study compared Indian and British students.
Authors reported "a remarkable cross-cultural similarity in men and a subtle but significant cultural difference in women whose origin is yet to be explained".
[51] Despite the lack of cross cultural analysis on this topic, existing research indicates that children's clothing resides on a spectrum that has expectations which fluctuate depending on age, gender, location, class, and many more intersectional markers.
Oftentimes men are marketed clothing and products that are associated with their socially acceptable color scheme of various blues, greens, and dark tones; this is something that can be observed in advertising as well as store fronts.
