coffee.geek.nz

Q: why do baby clothes have pockets, but women's clothes do not?
A: bebe can carry my cellphone for me.

I've had a reason to walk into baby shops - those places that sell prams, cots, breast pumps, and baby clothes.

The boy section has many very cute, very practical, outfits.

The girls section is a retina burn out zone of pink pink pink. There are even pink hipster pants so the nappies show. Sexualisation at 3 months old!

You don't find any pink in the boys section - nothing - not a single piece of pink to be found.

In NZ today, baby boys wear blue, baby girls wear pink.

Pink has only been associated with females since about the 1950s - any genetic or hormonal "girls like pink" claim is bollocks. It's a modern societal constraint.

In the 1900s pink was commonly considered a colour for boys, being a gentler version of the maculine bright red. Light blue was associated with virgin mary, female virgins and baby girls. It should be noted this wasn't nearly as ingrained as todays "pink for girls, and only for girls" culture.

It wasn't until the 1950s that the cololurs swapped. It's often attributed to the Nazi use of an inverted pink triangle to mark male homosexuals in concentration camps.. It was also considered a communits colour (e.g. pinko). Strong willed/masculine women were once called "Pink Ladies", in recognition of their not adhering to their gender roles.

The colours swapped, slowly, so by the 1960s pink had become a feminine colour.