I'm sure there's no conspiracy involved here, but according to my friend M, her brand new baby Layla (born yesterday) will be clothed entirely in pink as long as she is wearing the gifts they've received so far, with the exception of a cute blue sunsuit our friend Mark bought them. I've heard the same thing from my friend S, who says that when she does laundry for her baby Katie, it looks like a Pepto Bismol explosion. Now, Barbie has nothing against pink and has built a very lucrative empire almost entirely on that colour. But even leaving aside the social message, what kind of fashion message are we sending to our baby girls? You don't see me wearing a pink Canadian Mountie outfit, do you?
Incidentally, I don't blame the gifters. Speaking from experience, you have to deliberately search for non-pink baby girl items. I bought both Layla and Katie two outfits each--one lavender and one blue--to try to offset the pinkness. A girl needs options, right?
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Do these jodphurs make my hips look big?
Do these jodphurs make my hips look big?
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- jordynn
- I'm an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of North Carolina. My research and teaching interests include rhetoric of science, science writing, and women's rhetorics.
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3 comments:
"You don't see me wearing a pink Canadian Mountie outfit, do you?"
i heard yellow is the new pink. ;)
Layla is such a great name. At least the mom is aware that there's a gender bias--some parents are really defensive about the fact that it's hard to tell if the baby is a boy or a girl. That's why you see infants with pierced ears which I think is a crime.
I've heard a lot of what aimee said - they don't want people to have to guess whether it's a boy or a girl, or be uncertain in any way, so they dress them in the appropriate colours, just in case. Then the manufactuers just play into the preference for pink and blue and don't make anything else.
This reminds me of a documentary we saw last week about a boy who was raised as a girl (after a botched circumcision). He was constantly told that "girls don't fight" and things like that. From birth we're raising people to understand that "girls wear pink, boys wear blue". Not subtle at all!
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