“Pink is a girls color”.
“Where did you get that shirt, the women’s section?”
“Why are your nails painted?”
“Are your ears pierced?”
The pink and blue thing has an interesting history. It wasn’t until between 1950 and 1990 that pink was declared a “girl” color. That is relatively recent, and as you can see in the picture below, it was certainly something that this cisgender individual didn’t agree with. The issue really isn’t about the color, its about the expectation.
Our children like to play with legos; own dolls; hoola-hoop; wear make up; play catch; ski; practice martial arts; sing; cook; wrestle; play dress up;
So, what gender would they be described as being?
We had the great privilege of checking out the new Frozen musical last night. Our two youngest children are wonderful humans whose gender identity is still developing, but are for now identified as male based on their own preference. When you looked around the crowd last night, the children in attendance were predominately gender expressing as female. What struck me wasn’t that the play would obviously appeal to these wonderful humans, but a question as to how many parents would not bring their kids to this play because of a preconceived notion that this play was for “girls”. The play was nothing short of fantastic.
We are a society that is just coming into being more gender aware. It is a wonderful thing. And that awareness brings new challenges. As a parent, my wish and dream would be for the adults to embrace and evolve, and then be the change for the children. I love the color pink. And I love all the other colors too…except for perhaps buttercream. Not a big fan of that one.
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