I own very few pink clothes. In fact, apart from subtle pink eyeshadow (which really is the best neutral for green eyes) I have very few pink things in my life. And for every one of those things I can tell you exactly why I got it despite the fact that it's pink.
My best colours are red and purple, so you'd think I'd have some pink in there as well. But I don't. Why?
Because pink is for girls.
I totally internalized this attitude and haven't even thought about it critically until just now, but my whole life pink has been spoken of disparagingly. It's for girls, it's for babies. Parents throw up their hands in despair when their toddler/preschooler daughter wants to wear girly pink things. People complain of the Barbie aisle being an explosion of pink. If a woman is behaving ditzily and happens to be wearing pink, you can be sure that the pink will be mentioned when the story is retold. Whenever I've been shopping and a salesperson has suggested something pink, I've said without a second thought "No, I'm not really a pink person." Why not? Because I'm not pretty, because I'm not ditzy, because I'm not a dainty blonde.
You know what? Fuck that.
As we all know, dissing or opposing or disparaging or rejecting things because they're allegedly girly leads to a society of assholes. I'm not going to be someone who does that. I don't actively like pink the way I actively like makeup and heels and the other femme trappings I loudly embrace, but my reasons for claiming to dislike it are not valid, so I'm going to give it an equal chance.
I hereby resolve, from now on, I will not relegate pink to a colour of last resort. If I see a suitable clothing item in pink, I'll give it just as much consideration as I would if it were red or purple. I also resolve that to add at least one new pink item to my wardrobe within the next year. (Q: Why such a long timeframe? A: Because I can't reasonably plan on finding a suitable item in any one given colour in any one given season. I'm trying to be realistic.)
If you also find yourself in the position of having automatically and unreflectedly rejected pink because it's for girls, I encourage you to do the same.
4 comments:
I also hate pink and have never worn it for the same reason.
But I don't know if I can go there with you. Please keep us posted on the process.
I've started with a very subtle pink nail polish. I've always been using beige/nude as a neutral nail colour, even though the actual unenhanced colour of my nails is pink. And that's just silly.
How funny, this just came up for me. I only use clear nail polish because my nails are short and I don't like to draw attention to them. I had a manicure recently and the woman tried to use pink. I was like, no way, too girly!
I, too, have never liked pink EXCEPT for a particular shade of pink. A darker, richer shade of pink that almost borders on having a slight purple, or lilac, hue to it. Having thought about what you wrote I don't actually think the reason, for me, is due to it having always been called a "girl" colour but is because I don't like pastels & never have. I prefer bold, bright colours (dark ones as well, like brown & black & dark grey's), primary colours seem to be my forte, lol.
Post a Comment