Should we not dress girls in pink?
| By Claire Bates |
How different it was in the early 1900s, when blue was for girls and pink for boys.
 Any colour so long as it's pink |
The Women's Journal explained it thus: "That pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."
DressMaker magazine agreed. "The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red)."
What prompted the switch is unclear, but it had been made by the time Adolf Hitler ordered the classification of homosexuals. Those deemed "curable" were sent to concentration camps and labelled with a pink triangle. This suggests that by then, pink was associated with femininity.
But some commentators now believe pink dominates the upbringing of little girls, and this may be damaging.
Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, says the "total obsession" with pink stunts girls' personalities. "I am very worried about it. You can't find girls over the age of three who aren't obsessed with the colour. It's under their skin from a very early age and severely limits choices, and decisions.
 |  The effect of pink is temporary - it is not the profound negative effect that is being argued  Michael Gurian |
"We have got to get something done about the effect marketeers are having. We are creating little fluffy pink princess, an image of girliness, that is very specific and which some girls don't want to go along with, but due to overwhelming peer pressure, are having to conform to."
So successful have toymakers been in creating a girl's world painted purely pink, that a study by speech therapists in Durham shows children having no problem identifying the colour blue, but saying "Barbie" when shown pink.
Nature not nurture
But therapist and researcher Michael Gurian, who is based in the United States, says too much pink doesn't have a profound effect biologically - because it can't.
 Are girls now less likely to play rough? |
He says humans are programmed in a certain way and no amount of contact with external influences can change that.
"Everyone is hard-wired with four things - gender, a talent set, personality and differing ability to deal with trauma.
"I agree that if you are saying the environment has no affect on these, you go too far the other way, but the effect is negligible."
Mr Gurian, the author of Nurture The Nature, says the only thing that can profoundly change the way a girl is programmed to develop is a chemical imbalance or some kind of serious trauma.
For example, he says images of thin models and actresses does not cause a person to become anorexic - there are more complicated factors at work.
It is the same with over-exposure to pink (or any other single colour that might have been assigned to girls).
"Scientists all argue the same thing - you cannot have a biological organism without having an environment for it to exist in, but that environment does not change the very basic make-up of that organism.
"The effect is more temporary. It is not the profound negative affect that is being argued."
Eye for colour
Enter any toy store or children's clothing department and it's easy to spot the gender divide - one side is floor-to-ceiling pink, the other camouflage shades with the odd dash of orange and blue. Hence discussion boards on parenting websites bemoan the fact it is "impossible" to buy any other colour for girls.
|  My girls love pink - it's their favourite colour, but equally they are happy in the garden wallowing in mud Mum-of-two Maria Dawes |
As girls are more aware of colour than boys - they put more colour in their drawings, for example, and learn colour names more quickly - it is no surprise that toy manufacturers have latched onto a certain shade to pitch at girls. "It could've been any colour," says Mr Gurian.
Boys too have their own stereotypes and colour palette to contend with, but feminists argue that these aren't as marginalising. Girls are already fighting inequality, they say.
Mr Gurian says those who rail against pink think it means "girl, girl, girl, which means not smart, which means oppressed".
But girls believed to have been harmed by too much pink are actually either "traumatised by something, or not given the opportunities to develop their natural talents. That has nothing to do with pink."
Maria Dawes, a mother to two girls aged four and three, says: "My girls love pink - it's their favourite colour, but equally they are happy in the garden wallowing in mud. Surely this is all just about balanced and sensible parenting?
"Exposure to all things pink does bother me a bit, but in the end, they will make their own decisions as they mature."
Mr Gurian himself has two teenage girls. "My daughters love pink, but are very successful young women. Their love of pink and of girl stuff has not held them back."
Ms Palmer, too, has a daughter, and when she was little she played with a pastel-pretty My Little Pony.
"I tried hard for her not to have one, but she did. We were rock bottom broke though, so I couldn't give in to the pink pester power too much, thankfully."
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