Pink Meat
Ideas about gender and the colors associated with it are social constructions. Today, pink is a color marketed to young girls, however in the early 20th century, pink was considered appropriate for male babies because it was a “…decided and stronger color…” while blue was for girls because it was “…more delicate and dainty…”. Sometime in the 1940s, pink and blue’s sexual identity was reversed (1). Today embracing femininity by being overly “girly”- whether it means buying pink Legos, or emblazing your butt with the word pink - may seem empowering. However, acceptance of what we now regard as “normal” and or “traditional” gender roles only serves to empower heterosexual males. Moreover, this binary way of thinking about gender serves to encourage the sexual objectification of females. Is your daughter, sister, or mother a piece of meat?
