Pink. Pink is the current most identifiable symbol for what is
girlie. Pink is nothing in and of itself, but it is the tip of an
iceberg. I have been, on some level, struggling with the color pink in
different ways for most of my life, and I may have finally come to
terms with it. Maybe. But it’s taken accepting some hard truths about
myself to get there.
Anyone with any proximity to someone raising little girls in our
culture knows that pink dominates the girlie girl landscape. For those
who love pink this is wildly convenient. For those buying clothes or
toys for girls who do not care for pink it can be problematic. Then
there are parents like myself who personally have tried to push back
against the avalanche of pink based on our own tastes and preferences,
regardless of what our particular girls want.
My girls have both been through fluffy looking princess phases, and
they both like pink, but they like other things too. We’ve never had a
problem with them insisting on any particular color, so I never felt as
if they had been brainwashed by society to choose one. But I resisted
the onslaught of Disney princess related movies and merchandise as much
as I could, and I was thrown into a mini crisis in my mind one Christmas
when a relative gave my girls Barbies and I debated whether I should
let them keep them.
I have never thought of myself as particularly feminine. I’m always
surprised when other people see me that way, since I don’t wear makeup, I
live in clothes that could double as sleepwear half the time, and I
don’t have pierced ears or interesting shoes or a cute purse.
(Actually, I own one cute vintage purse I found in an antique store, but
I’ve never found a time to use it and I likely never will.) Many of my
interests have put me in environments dominated by men. When I gave a
lecture about violin making to the local Woodworkers’ Guild a man
actually came up to me afterward just to say how jarring it was at first
to listen to a woman talk about tools, but that the longer I talked the
more he got over it. So I’m used to moving in circles where I don’t
feel I’m being judged by particularly feminine standards.
I fretted a little for my girls because I don’t want them to feel
limited in this world. I want them to tackle whatever interests them
and not be held back. The princess stories bothered me because they
struck me as promoting images of women that were passive and weak and
dependent on men for happiness. Barbies seemed overly focused on
physical beauty as a woman’s greatest attribute. Everything wrapped in
pink hit me as mildly distasteful and unhealthy for these reasons.
Then I had a boy. And you know what? He’s a boy who adores his
older sisters and when he was two his favorite shirt was a hand-me-down
that made him feel included. And it was pink. I had to stop and
reassess for bit. Because it started to dawn on me that there was
bigger issue with pink that I hadn’t considered before. The bigger
issue was misogyny, and I was guilty of it.
That may sound extreme, but when I started to look around at the
larger society for cues about how my son would be treated walking out
into the world in a pink shirt I did not like what I saw. Among my
family and friends there was no problem, but once you are attuned to
stories about boys in pink you start hearing some very scary things.
The intolerance in some cases is frightening.
And that’s when I began to come to the defense of pink. Because what
I see all too often now is that girls and the things they like are
considered inferior. If a girl aspires to partake in things more
stereotypically associated with boys–anything to do with weapons, or
sports, or tools–she is viewed by many as taking a step up. Conversely,
if a boy wants to pursue something regarded as feminine–like sewing,
ballet, or organizing a tea party–this can still be controversial. It’s
okay and often encouraged if a girl wants to play with boys’ toys. We
think it’s cool if a girl can throw a football or fire a gun. If a boy
wants to play with girlie things–with pink things–the reaction can be
incredibly negative. It might be tolerated, but seldom encouraged.
I became offended by the idea that somehow the toys my girls liked
were contaminated. Pink was lesser. I was guilty of having thought
that too. I had avoided pink for myself because it lumped me in with
girls. I wanted to be better than girls. That’s misogyny.
I began to really look at things differently. I started with
Cinderella. I had remembered the Disney movie as a sad example of a
woman waiting to be rescued by a prince and not much more. But I sat
and watched it with my kids and that’s not what I saw at all. I saw a
variety of different female characters, from the scary step-mom to the
silly step-sisters, to some industrious mice, to Cinderella herself who
was strong and decent. She was in an impossible situation without real
options and she worked hard and looked for the good in life despite her
circumstances. Yes, she’s eventually rescued by a prince, but he’s more
a symbol of the ultimate prize of love and wish fulfillment. The
prince is part of her reward of the better life she deserves. (I still
can’t stand the Little Mermaid, though. You don’t relinquish your
voice.)
Next I looked at Barbie. I never liked Barbies and my kids aren’t
particularly interested in them either, preferring snuggly stuffed
animals as I did, but when I took a look at the Bratz dolls suddenly
Barbie was looking pretty good. Barbie at least seemed to have an
education and could hold a variety of jobs. The Bratz dolls just looked
trashy. I tried to pinpoint what bothered me about Barbie, and I
realized it was unfair to essentially dislike her because she was many
people’s idea of pretty. Yes, I know the problems associated with
unrealistic body image and emphasizing looks over substance, but isn’t
it wrong to discount people because of their looks either direction? If
I dismiss Barbie the veterinarian because she’s blond and wears heels,
how am I likely to treat a real woman vet who is pretty and wearing
heels? If all I had against Barbie was her looks, well then I’m being
shallow. (I’m still trying to figure out how I came to feel I need to
stick up for Barbie, but there we are.)
When I started looking at any number of female figures from past and
present with the perspective that feminine did not equal less valid I
learned something. What looks like passivity is sometimes really
patience. Being polite and gentle is not the same as weakness. To
blame a woman for being judged by her beauty is to blame the victim.
But where does this sense of the feminine as lesser come from? I
think it’s a power imbalance. The worst insults you can throw at a man
are all some way of calling him a girl. At its core, I believe it comes
down to the fact that typically during sex the woman is the person who
is ‘done to.’ I’m not saying I don’t understand about all the different
varieties of intimate behavior possible between people, but at a basic
level it’s understood that women are at the receiving end of the sex
act, and there is a sense that that is lower. It’s not considered a
position of strength. For the same reason I think for many men the
underlying root of homophobia is really misogyny. The idea of a man
accepting a feminine role is intolerable to some, because it flies in
the face of accepting the masculine role as superior. I don’t think it
is.
But the masculine role can be more threatening. And women are so
disproportionally the victims of violence that I think a lot of misogyny
is not wanting to be vulnerable out of a sense of self-preservation.
When you witness abuse you see two sides–the abuser with the power, and
the victim who suffers. Many people don’t want to identify with victims
because it’s an unsafe place to be. When you choose masculine pursuits
you are choosing power. You are choosing safety. Choosing pink means
needing protection. We don’t respect the vulnerable as equals.
I want all children to have the freedom to choose what interests
them. I don’t believe in girl toys and boy toys. There are just toys.
I don’t think my son’s toys are inherently better than his sisters’.
And I don’t think pink is a sign of something weak simply because girls
like it. I’m not saying it’s wrong to think a tea party game is more
boring than a wrestling match–everyone is entitled to his or her
personal preferences–but it is wrong to use your personal preferences to
judge something as negative. The tea party is different but not less
valid. I may still have no interest in Barbie, but I no longer harbor
any sense of disgust about her either.
Freedom to choose does not make my less-traditional choices better,
it just makes them truly mine. I want my kids to have choices and
sometimes they choose pink. Pink is fine. For anyone. Even me,
finally.
No comments:
Post a Comment