Men, embrace your pink bathrooms — there’s historical precedent, it seems, to cast aside the silly notion that this is a color just for girls. Arcalus Bo recently sent me an article that indicates that prior to the turn of the 20th century and possibly through World War II, we gave little credence to the notion so entrenched today that “blue is for boys” and “pink is for girls.” The article in particular cites research from Jo Paoletti of the University of Maryland. Her bio says she has spent 30+ years researching and writing about children’s clothing in America, with a focus on the development of gender differences. The University of Utah Press will publish her monograph, Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America, this year. In a nutshell, the story seems to be that it took a long time for gender differences related to clothing colors to become entrenched and that the pink/blue divide is really pretty recent. Even so, recall that evolutionary biologists now also are weighing in on the subject with some studies indicating that women gravitate toward reds and pinks as the result of natural selection reflecting their hunter/gatherer role. Links: The Straight Dope story about girls and boys and pink and blue, and Jo Paoletti’s blog on ethical fashion and conscious consumption. Image: A very lovely 1954 Kohler ad, woof woof.
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Elizabeth Mary says
Back in the 50’s when I was but a lass in high school, I recall that for some time the favorite outfit of the boys was a pink shirt and black pants. Shirt was often oxford cloth and the pants were cords. I thought it a wonderful “look”. And, they all wore it.
vintage_vantage says
I just moved into a “new” “cool-onial” and have a bright pink bathroom. Let’s just say it got painted first thing! (The walls were pink, not the fixtures. I would never ruin a true pink bathroom.) Pink is very vintage, but only in the right shades. (Let’s hope day-glow never comes back.)
Tut says
Nothing wrong with day-glo. In fact, there were some fantastic looking tanktops with day-glo pink, orange, and yellow stripes I bought for my girlfriend at PacSun last year. Those styles are gone, but there are new ones that are just as fantastic and very ’70s retro.
Tut says
Either I messed up the link, or you only allow 1 link per post. Here’s the other color.
I won’t be sad if you kill both posts, since they’re veering off topic. 🙂
TikiHead says
I must point out the boy has no reflection! Vampires!
custardbydesign says
there’s nothing wrong with a wee bit of pink…
but the pink bathroom suites rank highly with the avocado green in my books…not a fan…
pam kueber says
haha, custardbydesign, you may be in the wrong place, i fear. I am the world’s #1 fan of pink bathrooms. see my sister site http://savethepinkbathrooms.com. and search “avocado bathroom” here and you will find lots of avocado love. different strokes for different folks! 🙂
Tikimama says
This reminds me of an encounter with an old woman from Austria, when my first daughter was a baby. We were outside at a yard sale (you always meet the most interesting people at yard sales!), I was holding my daughter, dressed head to toe in pink. The lady was cooing over her, but kept referring to her as “he” and “him”. Finally, my sister said something about her being a girl, and pointed out that, after all, she was all in pink. The woman looked quite surprised and said that in her country, pink was for boys, not for girls. We thought it was a pretty funny indicator of the difference between cultures.
I have also heard that historically, pink was a color for little boys because it is a lighter version of red, which was considered a strong, masculine color. Funny how things change….
MrsErinD says
I just love pink, and all shades of it, but the warmer tone bubblegum pink of the 50s is my fave, you just don’t see quite that shade now.
I decorate with lots of pink, but temper it with other colors, aqua, black etc. so that it doesn’t look like a little girls room in my home, just very 50s, and Hubby is okay with that, as long as I don’t totally overdo it and he has his turquoise blue too, he is okay with a pretty good bit of pink for which I am grateful, because I don’t know what I’d do in a room without at least a little pink!
That’s what I love about midcentury style, they weren’t afraid of lots of color, and they weren’t afraid of pink!! The husbands weren’t like, oh I’m not a man because my kitchen cupboards are pink, lol!!! You saw lots of pink, especially in the 50s.
Jessica Zee says
Wow–that’s a lot of color in that ad! I wonder what triggered the flip flop of colors.
Shane says
I don’t have a problem with pink. Its just another color of the spectrum. And its just another color in that bathroom. Chances are if I tried to use those exact colors in my bathroom it would look like crap!
Someone mentioned pink and black and anything Fifties can’t go wrong with that. One of my favorite cars is a ’56 Ford in those colors.