Gendered color

I know "gender" is one of those academic terms that is loaded with meaning, most of which is very postmodern, but I am going to make use of it anyway. Gender is not just "male" or "female." It is, as defined by most historians these days, a social construct. In other words it is a socially defined image of what a man or a woman ought to be. There are a lot of arguments about whether any characteristics are inherent to the biological sex and I have to think that there are. Men and women are wired differently. There are things associated with male or female that I don't think need to be. Color is one of them.

Girls wear pink, boys wear blue. If you are buying a baby gift for someone and you don't know whether they are having a boy or a girl, buy yellow because it is gender neutral. While it can be useful in its application I think it is most unfair to say that pink is feminine and blue is masculine. There is nothing inherently feminine about pink and nothing inherently masculine about blue. They are both perfectly good colors. Maybe it is because I don't particularly care for pink and happen to really like blue that this bothers me. As a woman, however, the engendered colors really have no effect on what I can and cannot wear. A woman can wear red, blue, green, brown or black and nobody questions her. A man wears pink or purple and it is amazing how homophobic some people become. Those are girly colors! No real man would wear them. Come now, let us be reasonable! What makes the colors "girly"? Society does. You should feel free to wear the color if it looks good on you. I am quite pleased at the increased willingness I see in men to wear the pale pink shirts. It takes nothing from their "manhood" to do so. Maybe it's all in my head, but this is one thing I see in society that I just find silly.

(Speaking of gender, I hereby express my great appreciation for all of you men out there who are not afraid of Jane Austen. It has a little romance, true, but men fall in love, too! It has such great commentary on society as well, which is something that anyone should be able to appreciate. Regardless of what some members of my family imply, it is neither effeminate nor emasculating to like her work!)