Blue for boys and pink for girls? Another stereotype to defy!

My daughter wearing a onesie I bought from the boys section.

Pic: Anushka Bhartiya

As we started arguing over the blue onesie I picked for my daughter at the store, my husband reminded me, “This is the boys’ section. Let’s go.”

He simply walked away. I stopped for a second to look around and realized how it didn’t matter to me at all which section I was buying from.

The incident I quote here happened almost seven years back when we were buying clothes for our newborn daughter.

Since then, my husband and I have bought clothes from the boys’ section of Target, Marshalls, Macy’s, H&M and many other stores here in the US. Even on Amazon, I sometimes have to add “boys” to my search to get all colors and styles of clothes for my 7-year-old.

The History

I was reminded of this incident recently as I read about the history of the “blue and pink” gender divide on a website. As I researched more on the subject, I found that owing to the introduction of prenatal screening in the 1970–80s and increasing consumerism, we have come to believe that pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

This stereotyping has been studied extensively by Jo B. Paoletti, a Professor Emerita of American Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park. But the book here.

To sum up, in the early part of the 20th century and in the late 1800s, there wasn’t much difference in the clothes of newborns and toddlers based on gender. Most children wore white frocks until a certain age. See this photograph of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a toddler here:

It was only later in their lives that parents would dress them according to their own dressing style. But as prenatal screening began, manufacturers realized they could take advantage of the knowing the sex of the baby in advance. That’s when the “blue-pink” fad began.

Separate sections for boys and girls started cropping up. It became economically more viable to continue with the gender stereotype and brainwash parents. I want to believe that in 2023, most of us are aware of this divide and yet, we don’t think much about it.

By the way, here’s a “fun” fact:

In 1918, a magazine actually stated that pink was appropriate for boys, as it was a bolder color versus the subtle tones of blue that were better for girls.

Source: https://www.thelist.com/32342/real-reasons-behind-blue-boys-pink-girls/

What’s The Problem?

The problem is that this has led to gender stereotyping that starts as early as the moment a child is born. Actually, even before a baby is born.

As I became more aware of the issue, I saw that apart from the color stereotype, there were also specific prints/designs traditionally associated with boys, not being available for girls. These could be anything from dinosaurs and cars to Math and Science-related prints. It is also hard to find unicorns and butterfly prints for young boys even today.

This has given rise to a separate industry cashing in big time. These are gender-specific brands, more often girls’ brands, that target parents who want to jump on the “feminist” bandwagon.

In the name of being unique and different, they are doing exactly the same thing. Making us believe in a different kind of gender prejudice.

If you think about it, there’s hardly any difference when it comes to how clothes fit a child’s body until they are a certain age. If you look closely, you will also find a difference in the pricing of clothes of girls and boys. Why are the same jogging pants more expensive in the girls’ section than the boys?

What Can We Do?

Coming back to my daughter, I decided early on to end the stereotype in my head first. I continued to buy onesies, T-shirt’s, pants and jackets for my daughter from the boys’ section and even today, I always check out both the sections in any store. Because it doesn’t really matter.

A mother recently shared with me how she can buy clothes for her girl from the boy’s section but she can’t do the same for her boys because girls’ pants and t-shirts have a thinner fit and her boys would look weird in them. Well, I really can’t blame her, you know. Go to any brand’s website and you will see what she means. It is high time we question the brands that continue to add to this divide, instead of working on their prejudices.

As a mother, I also consciously look for unisex brands that don’t stereotype children based on gender. How on earth is a boy onesie different from a girl onesie, somebody please explain.

The prejudices exist in our head thanks to social conditioning and we need to identify them before we can fight them. If we think in terms of boys and girls from the time a child is born, we will end up making most choices based on it unconsciously, time and again.

To get back to my personal experience, after getting so many compliments for my daughter’s dressing style, I revealed to my fellow mommies that I don’t care which section I am in, while buying clothes for my daughter.

One of them bought trendy track pants from the boys’ section for her daughter recently and showed it to me with pride in her eyes.

Well, let’s change the world, one parent at a time. What more can we do to fight against this divide?

Share your ideas with me at writetoanushkab@gmail.com