Dresses -- especially with raglan sleeves and necklines and cuffs that could be winched in with a drawstring -- were more economical because they lasted through many growth spurts, starting out as long-sleeved gowns and ending up as half-sleeve blouses. None of this business with having to get (make!) an entirely new wardrobe every 3 months. Clothing used to cost a lot more (compared with income) plus was labor intensive to make by hand. I've read that blue was previously for girl babies in honor of the BVM, who is generally depicted in blue clothing.

Did you, in fact, research The Ladies Home Journal 1918 article? Existed? http://www.mother-god.com/pink-for-boys.html The problem is that if one actually troubles to check the June 1918 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal, one finds that no such article appeared in it. A lot of the "pink for boys" theory rests on an oft-quoted article from the June 1918 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal. Most of the "colors were formerly reversed" articles - presumably copying from other such articles - cite this: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

Dresses are also practical for potty training. I doubt they all had diapers underneath until 6 or 7. As I train my young toddler at 17 months, I'm told that he can't really be considered potty trained because he can't pull his pants down by himself. But if I put him in a dress with nothing underneath, he would be able to accomplish the entire task on his own.

Some years ago, in the 1990s, when my parents and I still lived in the Birmingham, Ala. area, my niece professed an interest an interest in railroads. (I hoped she might take after her uncle in that regard; she didn't, though.)On a trip to the gift shop of a nearby railroad museum, I had the opportunity to buy her a locomotive engineer's cap. I couldn't decide on the traditional blue-and-white stripes and pink-and-white stripes. Knowing how much of an ardent feminist my sister was, I wound up getting both.

I also read that in the 1918 to 1930's period pink was considered more suitable for boys because it was a derivative of red...a strong masculine colour...and blue for girls as it was calming soft pretty and dainty.

It makes sense that the ability to know the baby's gender has caused parent's to start buying 'gender-specific' colors. However, I have never and probably will never understand the logic behind thinking blue is masculine and pink is feminine. Masculinity is often thought of in terms of strong, tough, hard, etc. To me, pink goes more with traditionally masculine traits b/c it is a tint of red. Femininity brings to mind words like 'soft, dainty, fragile, etc.' Blue seems more logical here because it is a pretty and dainty color (especially the soft blue often seen on baby's clothing'. I may buy dark blues are masculine however most baby boys I see are wearing very light blue that looks more dainty than anything. But who knows? Maybe one day it'll be red for boys and pink for girls. Personally, I think that will make much more sense than pink and blue.

When I went to school in the 50's, girls were not allowed to wear pants. Our legs froze in the winter We wore knee socks to keep our feet warm. We wore pants under our skirts, but had to remove them in school

It is my understanding that centuries ago in England the color red was reserved for the King but men of high position could wear a trace of red in their fabric which was of course pink.

I think its not equal that men can't wear anything else just pants and shirts. I mean Im straight but I pretty like leggings they are comfotable. And also I like pink. I dont want to wear skirts but women never wore pants in the middle ages so with that logic I could wore skirts as a man. And of course people would say that Im homosexual if I would go to a street with lrggings of some clothes that I like more than mens clothes. And if a girl wears boys blue color clothes nobody will say they are lesbians but if a man wears pink clothes instantly he will bs believed homosexual.

I have noticed that some African and Indian parents do not buy into this commercialism. It became apparent to me when I admired a young baby girl in a pink outfit. To be informed it was a boy!

This was an extremely interesting article and I quite enjoyed it. However, John Money was debunked and had twins, one of who had been "gender reassigned" and brought up as a girl after a botched circumcision, engage in sex play. He should not be cited as a creditable reference. As far as gender identity, I had 6 kids, 3 of each and let them find their own interests and they tended toward gender stereotypes. Two of my daughters would wear nothing but pink for several years, their decision, and were heavily involved in princess fantasy play.

I am concluding that this story is about little boy in the 1800s and how they dressed like girls and wore dresses until they were about 6-7. Some of this plays a little part in present day too. There are deffinatly some cross dressers and they just like the way they are. But there is nothing wrong with that if you're a boy and you want to wear girls clothes go ahead.

I think it's horrible that society thinks it "wrong" for kids to be or even dress in a neutral or gender nonconformist way. They have to develop they own taste, their own personality. I have a little niece, she is 3. And if I go to the store I have actually NO IDEA what to get for her. If I go to the girls section is all pink and all the toys are mainly dolls. I don't say it's bad for them to like that but there should be more freedom to dress and play with something else, and that goes for the boys too. I wish she and any other kids, or better said any other person, could wear whatever they want. Be who they truly are and I say this as a 16 years old transgender boy, my mom dressed me pretty feminine until I could choose and they even if I sometimes choose something girly I clarify that I was still a boy not matter what I like because gender is in my mind not betwixt my legs or on the clothe I wear.

As a professional colour consultant' I'm all for people wearing the colours that suit their own skin tone. Boys and girls look great in pink. But some look better in different kinds of pinks. In general redheads dont look good in pink at all, because pink is a cool colour and red heads usually have a skin tone that doesn't suit cool colours

Yes, Robert, it's obvious that women devalue themselves by wanting equal opportunities and equal pay for equal work.

My son has a pair of pink slippers. He really likes the colour pink and wanted to wear pink shoes to school. I didn't want him to be made fun of by the other children so in the end we settled on pink slippers for at home and boys shoes for at school. Recently I came across a pink shirt for boys and got it for my son, he was so pleased. I know he would wear a lot of pink if he could(he says it's his favourite colour) and I don't have any problems with it, it's just society does. I don't think anyone wants their kid to be bullied.

Bananas!

Robert, you are right! we always kep the most valuable things in our society locked up and protected. Just as you said; women and criminals. Do you need more examples?

Charles, I couldn't agree more. I think it is awful that women have the option of wearing whatever they want (save the option of going topless and even that is permissible depending on certain factors) whereas men can only wear pants or shorts. Talk about not fair!

When I was a child in the 60s, boys' bikes were always red, and girls' bikes were always blue. It struck me as a clear violation of the pink/blue structure, since pink is a pastel version of red.

Steve, society has never seen women as less "valuable" than men. Quite the contrary. Women were always seen as MORE valuable. That's why they were kept out of battles, kept in the home, etc. You lock your treasures away for safekeeping. Feminism has been one long struggle by women to devalue themselves to the level of men. You will ALWAYS be defined, to some extent, by your sex. Gender differences are real. We can wish they didn't exist, but they do. You would be better off accepting the reality of your life, rather than wishing for a life that can never exist.

In the mid-twentieth-century Disney cartoon movie PETER PAN, the youngest boy (Michael) wore pink "footie" pajamas to bed: his sister Wendy wore a blue nightgown.

In one area ofnchild-training, the pink=girl/blue=boy notion documentable goes back to 1845 at least. Background: Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century etiquette had long recommended/practiced teaching (of all things) different *handwriting* styles to people of different genders and social ranks (so that one could tell at a glance whether a letter came from a woman, from a member of the lower classes, or from someone actually important) — so, as part of this practice, at least one author of handwriting textbooks for the American upper/midle classes actually color-coded the books by gender. "In 1845[,] writing master James French issued two copybooks, a Gentlemen's Writing Book, bound in blue, and a Ladies ' Writing Book, bound in pink. In the former, French's male students practiced their mercantile running hand [a script style used by 18th- and 19th-century American and English businessmen] ... while their female counterparts rehearsed the ladies' epistolary [a more delicate and ornamented writing style, taught to women and girls of the era instead of the styles considered proper for males] ... " Source: Handwriting in America: A Cultural History by historian Tamara Plakins Thornton, 1998, p. 43.

When will people stop saying that transgender people are confusing cultural gender norms with biological sex? It drives me up the wall. They've got it backwards, and when they say things like "dresses and long hair don't make you a woman," they're just presenting a blatant straw-man argument - because we never said that they did. Why do we need to keep explaining to people that we don't think what clothes we like determines our gender - but that the gender that we feel inside determines what clothes we choose to wear to express that. It's not a hard concept, folks. I'm so tired of this older generation of feminists that choose to invalidate our experiences and ignore body dysphoria just because it doesn't fit in with their black and white ideology. Look, I'm glad that it was as simple as looking down at your privates for you, probably made your life pretty easy, in comparison. But that doesn't mean it's that simple for everyone else, so stop making my life harder than it already is by insisting that it be that simple for me, you privileged jerk.

Interesting article.

LOL, a colour that makes me feel half heaven.real feel it since my childhood.keep on praying 4 a day to come and fly in a world full of pink having pink clouds,pink stars,when raining wish it to be a pink rain.hence any bad appearing in a pink way would be given golden chance.HAHAHAHAHA SUCH A PINK IMAGINATION I LOVE YOU PINK

I do not agree there was no pink and frilly clothing for girls in the 70s and 80s. Although yes, it wasn't crazy like today. I was 5 in 1974 and although I had a selection of dresses in a variety of colors, and lots of pants and shorts in colors like brown or red or orange...I had this one satiny pink party dress with ruffles that I loved more than anything. I wore it for my birthday, for Easter, for my kindergarten class photo, I loved it so much! I wore it until it was insanely short on me and was forced to pass it down to my sister. Pink was not forced on me, but I sure was naturally attracted to it!

The article completely ignores the most obvious reason for gender-neutral clothing, and the end of it. Anyone older than 50 remembers that mothers used to have many children, and few people could afford entire new sets of clothing for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th child, unless by the 3rd it was worn out. I bought gender-neutral baby clothes because I didn't know the sex until birth, and kept on when buying the costliest or sturdiest clothing pieces, in case my next child was of the opposite sex. Who needs/wants to buy all new clothes when these are still perfectly usable? The pink and blue became a bigger deal when mothers only had one or two children. They wanted to emphasize their 'motherhood' even if the child was rarely home, and to buy all the clothes that were cute for two reasons: 1) this might be the only chance to shop for and dress a girl/boy, and 2) to show off the child as 'perfect'. People from big families know 'perfect' isn't realistic or even maybe desirable. They know children should get used to not having all new toys, all new clothes, all the best. It tends to make them spoiled and greedy.

I am female. I am straight. I am not "feminine" (or "masculine", for that matter). I have a sex, but I don't have a "gender identity"; I have a personality. I didn't need all those artificial gender props to tell me I was female. I was able to look between my legs and that was quite enough to convince me I was female. It was that simple for me and I don't understand why it's not that simple for other people. Most of the time, we are simply human, and there are very few situations when what sex we are is truly relevant. What sex we are is a biological fact and I don't understand the emphasis of having to constantly "prove" it with these gender props -- having to have everything we think, do, say, wear, etc to have to "match" our sex. I am every bit as female when I'm wearing combat boots and slogging through the mud as when I'm wearing a pink party dress at a tea party. With what the author describes, it's no wonder so many people are confused these days and we have people who think they are one sex born in the "wrong" body of the other sex because they confuse cultural gender roles with biological maleness and femaleness. FWIW, I was born in 1958 at the end of the baby boom and had my only child in 1981. I was quite pleased at the time to find non-sexist child raising books, such as Letty Cottin Pogrebin's "Growing Up Free", which complemented the ideas I have expressed above.

Perhaps when society stops perceiving females as less valuable than males we might have some gender equality. Males would be free to show their feminine side without ridicule. We'll all be treated as persons and valued for our individualism, talents and clothing choices. As individuals you would be free to pursue any career dream you want to. And more importantly... not denied a job based on gender, skin color, ethnicity, clothing choices, etc... After all... there just clothes. No one should be deprived or ridiculed for their clothing choices. What I wear does not hinder or nullify your clothing choices either. Conforming to gender stereo types has been hurtful and limiting doing more harm than good. I should not be defined by what is between my legs.

We hear of girls wanting to climb trees, boys wanting to play with dolls, and parents trying to make them fit a more "appropriate" gender mold. My situation was exactly the reverse. As a girl growing up in the 1970's, I actually wanted to be MORE feminine than my mother encouraged me to be. I was given a gender-neutral name, which I changed as an adult to one more distinctly feminine. As I grew, I was encouraged to wear jeans and t-shirts and go climb trees with my brothers, when I wanted to wear dresses and play with dolls. I realize now that my mother was only trying to make me feel equal to my brothers, but at the time it felt like she didn't accept me as a girl and was trying to make me a boy. The beauty of nowadays is that I can feel equal and still be feminine.

I'm all for gender neutrality too, especially when it comes to toys.

It is lovely! Thanks.

One correction: In the caption for photograph of FDR, that is not "a marabou feather" in his hat. It's almost certainly an ostrich plume. The marabou feathers used in clothing are short and downy; the marabou stork does not have any long fluffy feathers like the one shown.

I imagine I preferred pants as a toddler, I don't remember it. But in early elementary school I liked the whole idea of dresses but only in the form of towels and sheets in the form of wraps and togas and I found high heel shoes marvelous and puzzling and I liked boots with higher than average heels such as cowboy boots. I was a feminine boy and am gay as an adult. I was teased by my brothers and tolerated to a small degree by my parents.

Here's something that most would not have foreseen; as a young adult I pretty much lost interest in feminine clothes in the same way I realized I loved masculine men. I don't dream of dresses, drag, or sex reassignment. I don't own a full length mirror and I don't hide women's clothes under the bed.

I hope it's because I was able to act out that stage to some degree when I wanted to even though it included suffering. My message to parents and grandparents is that dressing up, drag, and homosexuality are not linked automatically and if they occur together they may be a temporary desire. That isn't a judgement of which way is better, my story is my story and not the right story is all I'm saying.

Things are too often attributed to biological determinism when mere social forces are the cause. The pink/blue sex division, which isn't a sex division in any real sense, is of less significance than the trouser/skirt sex division; which demonstrably, is no sex division at all. Horseback riding was the best transportation for long centuries and armies couldn't compete with other armies without horses. Pants originated 95% from equestrian costume and 5% from arctic climates, because very few live there. Women did not start wearing pants till factory work in World War 2. In both cases, a social force--not chromosomes--caused the clothing. Rome ejected men in pants in AD 393. Bulgarians asked the Pope in AD 867 if they could be Christians though they wore trousers. Pants are named for Pantalone, a clown in the middle ages Italian Comedy of the Arts. Colors are sex neutral; so are skirts and trousers, for though they are style differences they are not physiological differences. Dukakis, the 1988 Democrat Presidential candidate, wore a skirt as a boy, and after age 7. Skirts on males are a feature of modern Greek costume, and cops in Fiji wear skirts. People of both sexes should be treated as individuals with individual choices. Currently this egalitarianism is accepted only for female benefit, while males are corralled into what amounts to a uniform.

@Janelle Smith - are you actually arguing that it is important that our children should feel defined by their clothes? Surely this is unhealthy whether it relates to gender or any other area of self-identification. Dressing a child in neutral clothing doesn't make boys feel effeminate or girls feel manly. A good parent should be able to give their child the confidence to be exactly who they are without providing them with external labels. Would you suggest that intelligent children should wear some sort of clothing to identify them as such so as not to confuse them and risk them becoming unintelligent? Maybe children who like sports should be dressed a certain way so as to insure they don't suddenly forget that they like sport? Gender identity is so intrinsically part of each person's sense of self, it does not require clothing to guide it.

I had my daughter in 1981 and my son in 1985. From a very early age, my daughter preferred to wear pants vs. dresses UNLESS it was a special occasion and the dress needed to be purple. She had a wide array of corduroy JCP overalls (including the occasional pink) and I recycled all these overalls (including the pinks, in a pinch) and lo and behold, both children managed to survive with their sex and gender in tact. When my son's friend's older sister painted his nails bright red, he thought it was cool for about 15 minutes until an older boy made an unkind comment about it. I only lost my cool about the kid's comment; it didn't bother me if his nails were painted...any color; it didn't hurt anyone and the kids had fun with it. I think it does a child more harm to make a big deal (negative) about 'differences' which should be celebrated and not condemned or admonished. My daughter is expecting a child in a few months; she doesn't know or want to know the sex until it's born but insists that the nursery be painted in blues because it's HER favorite color. She reasons that the child won't know the difference and it matters to her. She says even if she knew it was a girl, she'd never paint it pink because she doesn't like the color pink.

Comments like those from Jenelle Smith do much more damage to a society than does letting a little boy play dress-up with his sister. Getting hysterical about boys wearing pink or otherwise being "effeminate" is oppressive to the child and comes from a homophobic place in the heart of the adult. My children have been raised to accept everyone regardless of how they identify, and to ignore attitudes like Jenelle Smith's that would tell them how limited they are by their gender. Thankfully for our society, there are many more parents I know who are parenting the same way.

I've seen pictures from the late 19th Century up to about 1920 and yes, the boys did indeed wear dresses and short pants. Older editions of Winnie The Pooh show Christopher Robin in a dress-like outfit.

Interesting... I'm a boy and I would like to wear girl's clothes. I think they are nice and wonderful. I like pink and sometimes I like do girly things... although I'm NOT gay or something. I like soccer and want to be a programmer.

I am female, born in 1969. I remember at about 3 or 4 being dressed in short frilly dresses with ribbons and such and HATING these fussy clothes. I was a tomboy and my desire to play in the sand box, make mud pies and hang upside down on the jungle gym was always a problem because I would "ruin my nice dress". Around the same time, my parents were giving me the modesty rules--no one but parents or doctor can ask to see your private parts etc. So my little child mind put 2+2 together an the next time my grandma or mom offered to buy me a dress I told them “NO I am a boy..” and they should look for some jeans and t-shirts for me. This was a giggle for them for a while but I was serious about getting my way and stuck to my guns, always relying on the modesty rules preventing any further investigation of the subject. I told everyone who asked that I was a boy and they had to take my word for it. I must have kept to it a long time because my parents eventually took me to some specialist. I clearly remember their worried descriptions of my behavior and the Dr. asking me about 5 questions. He had a little chuckle and told them I was more willful than any child he'd seen but this was a case of a child trying to 'snow' the parents. “There is nothing wrong with you daughter, Mr. and Mrs XXXX. I can ‘cure’ her of this today. You stop insisting on dresses and she’ll stop telling everyone she’s a boy. Case closed.” I was in fact a tomboy and always will be. Over the years I slowly came to appreciate dresses, shoes, purses more and more and I wear them often now--as long as I am still allowed to keep my racecar.

Jenelle, "Girls should be distinctively girls and boys should not be encouraged to be effeminate." Or you could just encourage your children to be best people they can be whether they're 'feminine', 'masculine' or nether in their presentation and identity as long as they're happy, kind, courteous, generous and hard-working why does they way they display their personality or what they like doing matter?

As a baby, I was never dressed in pink. Most of my clothes were white, red, yellow, orange or aqua. My mother combed my hair backwards when I was a baby and I was often mistaken for a boy until I was about a year old. As an adult, I am very feminine and pink (as long as it's not bright or gaudy) is one of my favourite colours.

I was born in 1962 and had very little hair until I was 2 years old. My mother would specifically dress me in pink because a lot people thought I was a boy.

After babyhood (varying number of years), children in cultures around the world had clothing designating whether they were a girl or a boy. Whether or not such and such a color has been applied to a girl or a boy in the past in American culture has no bearing on the insistence (trend)to have gender-neutral clothing today. The blurring of gender lines and the push to have a child decide each day whether he or she wants to be male or female on a particular day is horrible and damaging to children. The phrase "girly-girl" is absurd. Girls should be distinctively girls and boys should not be encouraged to be effeminate. What a way to destroy a society.

When i was little my mother had to wear a bonnet, i was a boy when i was 10 i started putting on dresses even though my was i little bit long i still put on a wig i like wearing dresses even today i still chose to wear dresses, skirts, tights, leggings, a wig in which is Blond my favorite toys is dolls, and my favorite color is Pink, i wear women's glasses, my pants, dresses, , and skirts is Pink, and today i still wished i was a girl i would imangine i was a girl, play with girly things, and wear girly things.

Interesting...

I remember a history program on (I think)PBS over 10 years ago. It stated that historicaly in China, boys wore Blue to represent the sky while girls wore brown, to represent earth, or pink to represent flesh and blood. The blue was to represent a superior status. This practice made it's way to the U.S. after WW2 when the soldiers on the Pacific front were exposed to it. While this wasn't mentioned in the article, the time line matches up. It also explains why I was really fond of dressing my kids in green, yellow and orange when I could find it.

It is troubling to see John Money cited as an authority - today his theory that gender is completely determined by environment has fallen from favor; stories have come to light of the tragedies suffered by children with genital abnormalities whose up-bringings he supervised.

I had my first baby in 1978 and there were loads of pink things and pink was definitely a "girl" color. (My mother-in-law was upset when I dressed my pretty little blond girl in blue for fear people would think she was a boy. During my tomboy phase in fifth and sixth grade (1960-1962)I avoided pink and lace at all costs although we had to wear dresses and skirts at that time). All of us tomboy friends turned out to be pretty girly-girl though.

I remember having this conversation with my mother. She assurered me that boys did actually wear dresses for quiet a while. I can remember saying that it was silly and stupid. I was very young, maybe 6-7. And if I remember correctly - I was wearing pants.

VERY interesting to know that the pink/blue standard has flipped. The general arc of recent history, from the industrial revolution forward, seems to be one of specialization that tends to separate us from one another as human beings. How can we show that we are "special" but not "different," and establish a clear identity? This impulse is reinforced, expanded, and exploited for profit in almost every industry. Our insecurities and fears, and need to belong, make us receptive to this exploitation. Our anxieties thus maintained, we focus on trivial external differentiators rather than our internal life, core values and common humanity. If you approach me, I will interact with you as a fellow human being, not as a man or woman, black or white, Jew or Muslim, undocumented immigrant or natural citizen.... whether you wear pink or blue. Peace, and Happy New Year.

My dad was born in 1921 and my grandmother kept a list of all the presents he got for his 1st birthday. Everything he got was pink and the decorations were pink as well.

Thank you for educating me Rachel Maddow. I prefer gender neutral clothing. In fact, one should seriously think of the following: In the state of economy in the U.S.A., and many people are struggling due to poverty; What would a mother/dad do if their child is a boy, it's very cold out (they happen to be homeless), and pink clothing, blankets are all they receive? Would the homeless parents shun the pink clothing? Not I, if it were me, when you're poor and down and out the color coding of the sexes can no longer exist because the need to survive kicks in. Yes, the gender neutral clothing seems (to me) wiser. I detest being color coded as if, "what color file folder do we place you in..."

The author didn't mention that John Money based his ideas on his own "research" on twin boys (one raised as a girl after a freak accident during a circumcision). The research was very poorly done and he ignored what was actually happening to promote his own nurture over nature ideas. Unfortunately, many people picked up on what he was publishing and followed his lead.

And then there were the even earlier times when men wore wigs, tights, frills and various other ornate clothing. There have been times when a man who wore no beard was suspect and other times when wearing a beard was a real no-no. Times change, and I hope it changes enough so that no specific color or style is foisted on us. As for blue and pink, why not green and yellow or red? Seems so arbitrary.

I have all boys, my oldest loves pink, it's one of his favorite colors, has been for years. I neither encourage nor discourage color choices, heck, he looks great in it. All my boys have played with baby dolls, play kitchens, dress up, I encourage it, it's using their imagination. It won't magically turn them into girls. They still love "boy" stuff, sports, rough housing, skateboarding, bugs, dirt, etc. I don't understand the need people have to force children into a roll at such an early age. Let them be who they are and enjoy their childhood, it goes too fast as it is.

CORRECTION

the color switch happened because around WWII nazis marked homosexual men with a pink triangle and so pink became associated with being "anti-masculine" and "effeminate." in order to maintain strong masculine color coding and education blue previously 'girlie' (think virgin mary) colors were traded for pink colors. Parents raised their children with colors according to the connotations that those colors held. once pink became feminized - it was no longer suitable for categorizing masculine boys.

Hayley, but of you say that girls need to be marked as "different", that would mean that masculinity - and not femininity or both genders equally - is perceived as the standard, that girls then "differ" from. And why would, or should, girls' things be off-limits to boys? Why is it so important to draw that line, that boys should be kept out of what is seen as the feminine universe?

I have to say, I think the reason the stronger, brighter colour stuck for girls is because it marks girls are different. Blue is more common and appears more in nature than pink. Parents want to associate the stronger colour with girls so it is clear what things are for girls and, therefore, off limits to their little boys. In shows like power rangers, the girl is pink so she is marked even when wearing a mask. Also, a few years ago, pink for menswear was in, and was considered confident. It seems like boys in pink are decisive, and girls in pink are decisively different.

What I heard from the vlogbrothers is this: as you said, pink was "originally" for boys and blue was "originally" for girls. The switch came, they say, when Hitler identified groups (Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals) with icons of stigma on their clothing. For Jews, it was the star of David; for homosexuals it was a pink triangle, and the rest, as they claim, is history.
Have we really let a murderous madman designate our colors for us? I'm curious.

I just have to say, that earlier comment that talks about pink being "quiet" and blue being "powerful"....guys that's just nuts.

All the personification we apply to colors is socially decided. If you look at them scientifically, blue induces a state of calm and well, pink I don't know much about but I have never considered it "quiet" myself. And saying pink can create physical weakness in people? C'mon. Show me the study for that. That's nonsense.

Otherwise it's been really interesting reading you guyses' perspectives and experiences.

My 3 1/2 year old granddaughter has her pink days, occasionally. Other times she prefers practical, gender-neutral clothing. There is nothing innate in it and she herself seems already to be aware that it is simply a social convention. Dressed in pink she is the constant target of idiot and embarrassing personal comments about "prettiness" and so forth. She makes friends with other children far more easily when she is not strongly gender-identified and seems to be aware of this.

I've got a booklet of crochet lace patterns for babies from about 1930 that includes a couple designed for boys. My favorite is called "The Princeling." It's very ornate and pretty, would really stand out on a collar or hemline. But today it would look too fussy on even a christening dress for a boy, which is a shame. (Actually even a little girl would mess it up, but she'd look great in a portrait wearing it.)

As late as 1937, Carol Ryrie Brink's juvenile novel "Baby Island" included identical twin boy toddlers nicknamed "Pink" and "Blue" for the colors they were dressed in to tell them apart.

Growing up in the 40's and 50's, I wore twin-barred leather shoes from Kindergarten to the 4th grade. Then, entering the 5th grade, my folks bought me another pair (Buster Brown, of course) of brown double tees. Then, when I wore them to school, I was almost laughed out of class, as they were no longer 'boys' shoes! All of those other boys wore the same tee-bars that I did, right up to the 4th grade! Who made that decision to change in the middle of the stream? I had once asked my parents to buy me a white pair, but they declined! As a teen, I did wear pink shirts and socks! Why not?

I think it's interesting that the majority of comments on this article are about girls, and pink clothing, and girls that like pink but still like to climb trees, and girls who shouldn't have their choices dictated, etc etc etc. But hardly anyone is saying "my boy likes pink and I'm okay with that" or "my boy likes tea parties and dresses and I encourage that." Why it is okay for a girl to behave like a boy, but not for a boy to behave like a girl? Is it because, no matter how enlightened we think we are and how much we think we are not dictated by advertising and societal attitudes, we still think that boys are the "stronger" gender and we think that it's okay for a girl to reach "up" to masculinity but not for a boy to reach "down" to femininity. I mean, really, if you saw a little girl walking towards you in a blue shirt and jeans, you would probably think that her mother was doing a really good job of not defining her, but what would you think if a woman pushed a pram towards you with a baby in a frilly pink dress and then you found out it was a boy??

My daughter, now 7, showed a proclivity for pink from the time she turned 4. This, despite our deliberate attempts to keep our household gender-neutral. My son on the other hand wears any colour that takes his fancy, pinks and blues included. I know this is unscientific, and her choices were probably influenced by her (equally young) friends, but I do think there is something elementally chromosomal to this choice of colours.

all i know is after reading all the posts(that are very interesting).i find that most of my hetro friends are under the oppinion that pink is a sissy color.i on the other hand feel that its just a color like all other colors.i guess its all in how you present it.one could make blue a sissy color if they presented it that way.

Well I think gender neutral clothing has come back for a second look. My little girl wears rock in roll t-shirts and I see the same on boys. I'll admit that I love dresses, flowers, and tutus, but my daughter voluntarily puts on pink (even nail polish). It's her favorite color. I didn't teach her that, but it is her favorite color, and who am I to tell her not to like it for the preservation of Women's Lib?

PS, she has a pink motorcycle, pink roller skates, and a pink gymnastics mat to roll on. She loves swimming, ballet, and gymnastics and calls herself a mermaid. She's only two by the way.

While I am on the subject of English sandal and T-strap shoes, I must also say that the most common color of the T-strap leather shoes that I have seen is blue. Although blue is a boys color, I saw lots of little girls wearing blue T-straps or English sandals when I was a little boy back in the mid 1980s, and even up until the mid 1990s. I have very rarely seen T-straps or English sandals or even Mary Janes that were pink; even in the 1980s, it wasn't all that common. The most common colors of T-straps and English sandals I saw were blue and black. I also saw some red ones. Another big color at that time (in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when I was a toddler, at least) was burnt orange, although some people might call it light brown, rust, or even tan, but for me, that would have been what I would called burnt orange or somewhere between reddish and orange. One shoe company, Jumping Jacks, had a lot of burnt orange shoes at that time. I never wore English sandals or T-straps (I was a boy, and although little boys wore English sandals and T-straps on the East Coast in the early 1980s, it was nonexistent here in California).

Nowadays, here in California, little girls don't even wear T-strap shoes or English sandals anymore. They still do sometimes in the South. And little boys wear English sandals with longalls or jon jons or button on pants. Mostly to church, but sometimes to restaurants and other places as well, and a few wear it all the time. There are more little boys wearing longalls/jon jons with saddle shoes though now, rather than T-strap shoes or English sandals.

Thanks and take care

Codi Preston from California
preston1632@yahoo.com

The main difference between longalls and overalls is that longalls have a higher collar that goes around the child's neck, and has buttons on the collar side, rather than suspenders and a bib front like overalls do. Like I was saying, they are very common down in the Deep South, but nearly nonexistent in California and Oregon, where I am from. Most people in the West Coast would say how girly longalls are and would never dress up a little boy in that or a jon jon (a jon jon is basically a short longall, and was named this because John F. Kennedy, Jr. wore them back in the 1960s. Needless to add, he sometimes wore T-strap shoes as well). And West Coasters would never dress up little boys in T-strap shoes/English sandals. But in the South, it's very common. The funniest thing is that although branded as prissy by West Coast people, these little boys that wear these clothes wind up playing on their high school football teams or even college teams. The SEC has the highest rated football teams in the nation, with Alabama and Auburn winning the last two years. How's that for sissyish and girly? Football has to be one of the roughest sports there is.

I see lots of photos of little boys from the 1970s and 1980s wearing T-strap shoes and English sandals actually. I have a huge (115+ pair) collection of 1970s-mid 1990s English sandals, Mary Janes, and T-strap shoes as a hobby. I also have a huge collection of longalls and jon jons, so I know about this stuff. I also have Autism, I'm 35 years old, and I have some other hobbies such as collecting oldies music and soft rock songs and I have 1,200 street maps in my collection.

If you can tell me any stories about little boys wearing longalls and T-strap shoes in the 1970s/80s, I'd love to hear it. Email me at preston1632@yahoo.com

Take care
Preston

The idea that the color or style of one's clothing would make Him/her weak is just ridiculous. My girls love "feminine" pretty clothes, and also love to dig in the dirt and climb trees. Girls are not going to grow up weak because of what they wear. If they want to wear a dress to play in, just put some shorts on them for modesty, and let them go for it!

I'm thinking the color "Pink" because my first grandchild is on the way Aubree Faith Segal in less than 9 weeks give or take of course. Son Mike owner of Lighting Wireless Solutions, a Motorola walkie talkie co. with quality trunk radios for our industry based in Ft. Meyers, Florida and a fireman to boot will be a new Dad with wife Amber. Very exciting! Many blessings for this year in our lives! Marty N Judy

Originally, blue was for girls (it represented the Virgin Mary) and pink was for boys (it was the "younger" shade of red). Even during the Medieval Era, wedding dresses were originally blue.

I was told pink was subduing and blue was more powerful, therefore we want the girls to be subdued and the boys to be powerful.
Pink is a quiet color. studies have shown that large amounts of pink can create physical weakness in people. Perhaps there is a tie-in between this physical reaction and the color's association with the so-called weaker sex. The energy of the color blue - it allows us to look beyond and increase our perspective outward. Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister, hence the blue power suit of the corporate world and the blue uniforms of police officers.
Blue is the least "gender specific" color, having equal appeal to both men and women. Blue is the least "gender specific" color, having equal appeal to both men and women.

It makes one wonder about a subtext in 'Little Boy Blue'.
Two points: first, that although J,Money accepted gender as a purely cultural creation, he believed in it to an inordinate degree and ruined the life of boys accidentally castrated as babies in the 1960s by forcing them into feminine roles far beyond how the typical real girl was growing up.

Second, that feminism changed from belief in equal gender role merger for both sexes against the supremacy of masculinity, to acceptance of 'femininity' as inferior just as much for women as conventionally for men, so from revolution against 'masculine' (corporate-military) values to conservative endorsement for both sexes, thus eliminating Women's Liberation led co-operative and communal ideals threatening military-industrialist values. This came to a height during the 1980s with women as much as men encouraged to value themselves for little more than their place in the Great Economic Machine.

Makes me remember back in the 50s when guys who wore black pants with pink shirts were "COOL"! Pink and black shirts and pants with 'white bucks' for shoes was "REALLLY COOL!"

The lack of colored photographs in the early 1900's and before make it difficult to assess exactly how many boys actually wore pink clothing. Catalogs such as Sears Roebuck do have images of them wearing pink. My daughter and I have been researching closed toe sandals, and we came across a boy wearing them in 1903 with a pink outfit that appeared in the New York Post. Since I cannot include it here, anyone interested in seeing it can e-mail me at bllbolen@netscape.net. We hope to publish the results of our sandal research shortly.

I didn't know that. I thought that the color choice began in the middle ages because my history professor told me that.

Bill D., did you look at the photographs that accompany this article?

Also:

"At one point pink was considered more of a boy's color, (as a watered-down red, which is a fierce color) and blue was more for girls. The associate of pink with bold, dramatic red clearly affected its use for boys. An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." [The Sunday Sentinal, March 29, 1914.]

"As part of this differentiation, there seems to have been an effort to establish characteristic colors for girls and boys. But it took decades to develop a consensus on what those colors were. For years one camp claimed pink was the boys' color and blue the girls'. A 1905 Times article said so, and Parents magazine was still saying it as late as 1939." - from The Straight Dope

I think you're right about a lack of primary research in THIS article, but a quick google search indicates that that primary research is almost certainly out there.

It took me less than 10 minutes on the web to verify that Earnshaw's still exists as a trade publication on children's clothing, and has been around since 1917. So it is not that obscure:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/09/prweb285409.htm
I did not bother to request a copy of the article, I'll leave that to others but I'm not sure that trashing the scholarship is warranted at this point. I look forward to the book that was the subject of the article. It may even have a bibliography!

It's funny how a whole theory that pink was for boys and blue was for girls can never be independently be verified because it refers to a single sentence published 93 years ago in an obscure volume no libraries will have. It's sad the the Smithsonian of all places didn't do the requisite primary reference research.

It may come as a shock to the Smithsonian, but sometimes people writing books make up false references to support their idiological viewpoints.

The reference to Time Magazine is as equally obscure as the "Earnshaw's Infants' Department" publication. Search for that mythical Time Magazine chart and all you see are circular references. Not even a month of publication!

If this were truly the standard, wouldn't we see references to it all over the place? Additionally if this were a truly a societal standard 1) Why would it need to be explicitly stated 2) Where are all the paintings from the late 1800s showing boys in pink and 3) Why is "Little Boy Blue" wearing blue?

Both my girls abhor pink. Purple and green were/are color preferences, along with darker colors. I raised them in as much practical clothing as possible and recycled from my oldest a son to my daughter 2 years younger. My kids think for themselves the girls especially if they like something they like it. If not not. The fact is that a lot of girls "kill" their Barbie type dolls and love their stuffed toys that were deemed for boys.
Manufacturers try to tell us what we "must have". Kids say different simply by what they will play with. Fad toys may be bought then neglected.. Let them play with what they want. Wear what they like and let them be kids. Not small adults.

I walked through Walmart's Children's section yesterday and was amazed at the amount of pink clothing available for girls. Literally every article of clothing had pink somewhere in the pattern or the background or the entire outfit. Does this correlate with the Princess fixation that has collared the young girls' generation right now? What do parents do if their child does not like pink?

As a graphic designer by trade I feel all color should be celebrated. As a mother I always felt specific colored clothing was annoying and overdone when having to choose my daughters clothing. Thank goodness my favorite color is pink.
I am thankful that some men do not have any color hang ups because I have to admit that a real man in a pink shirt turns my head any day.

And I thought it strange till now that Winston Churchill wore pink silk undergarments.

When the human species valued males more than female.....back in the transition from hunter/gatherers, to farming. the male children were wrapped in dark colors to be less visible to wild animals and the females were wrapped in bright colors such as red to be more visible. Females were disposable. Since that time, darker colors have been for males and lighter colors for females..Evidently, it came down to blue for boys and pink for girls.

@Bad Penny--

You seem to have biological sex (male or female genitalia and secondary sex characteristics) confused with gender (what a society permits and encourages as behaviors appropriate to each sex). When the legislature of colonial Virginia decided that white male heads of household would have to pay tithes (taxes) on all black and white males (over 10 years of age, if I recall) and black women (of a certain age) but NOT white women, they created the notion, for the first, time, that white women were not to work in the fields. White women had been doing so, and some would continue to do so. But a new social ideal was put in place (new, at least, for that society). THAT kind of thinking is not about biological sex but about how a society creates gender- and race-specific roles. Dr. Money may have been wrong in the Reimer case, but the essential point is that societies designate gender appropriate behaviors and regulate them. Therefore, the cannot be entirely natural.

After reading this article, I thought of the famous English portraits, "Pinkie" (by Lawrence) and "Blue Boy" (by Gainsborough. These two portraits, not previously linked with each other, became an inseparable pair in the public conscience when railroad magnate Henry Edwards Huntington bought them for his California Museum in 1921. Thereafter, reproductions of "Pinkie" and "Blue Boy" were founds on walls and knickknack tables in homes throughout the land. Surely this had some influence on the colors associated with gender in the U.S.

To the commenter Joshua,
You may be interested in reading Paoletti's book when it comes out and for now seeing her blog entry at www.pinkisforboys.org/2/post/2010/7/pink-for-boys.html. Also the February 1918 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, the “Betty Bonnet’s Valentine” feature (I am not aware of an electronic version of the magazine—I saw it at a public library).

I continue to see the same quotes regarding pink previously being for boys and blue for girls, yet there are no images of these pages available anywhere. Please tell me (and demonstrate) that the Smithsonian has properly sourced these quotes.

For thousands of years in the Middle east the color blue has been for boys because they are deemed closer to God. The color of the blue sky represents God. Even the thresholds of homes with sons is painted blue. Perhaps the research on the colors should look at the influx of immigrants from that part of the world into the US.

"Coded" pink & blue baby clothes were available in the late 60s/early 70s, but so were other colors--red, orange, yellow, green, lavender. And denim was denim--without a choice of flowers or footballs. The coding has rigidified steadily over the years. Also, I doubt girls raised with denims & t-shirts want to buy frills for their daughters--it's the media-gorged tiny tots who insist on their coded colors. And, in my experience, "liberated" men & women of the 60s & 70s have equally liberated children & grandchildren--it's the non-hippies of the 60s & 70s who pass on middle-American marketing values. Moreover, the generation is wrong. "Hippie" children born in 60s & raised in 60s & 70s are now in their 40s--it's not they but their children who are now having children.

When my younger son, who was born in 1982, was about 4 years old, he began asking me almost every day to buy him a dress. I would always give some vague answer such as, "We're not going to town today," or "I don't have the money right now." My husband and I had been very careful not be into rigid gender stereotyping with him and his older brother - we bought them dolls as well as toy trucks. I must admit, the request for a dress kind of threw me for a loop, though. Finally, I asked him why he wanted a dress and he said, "Because it's pretty." I finally satisfied his desire for something "pretty" by letting him have an old night gown of mine, which he wore to bed every night for a while.

He has grown up into a wonderful, sensitive, artistic - but also very masculine (and straight) - man.

Well, I'm nearly 50 & the concept of my son (now nearly 16) wearing anything as "socially marked" as blue or pink attire is strange, to say the least.

Yes, I'll put him in anything that is comfy & makes him happy - the fact that they may be blue, pink, green, black or any combination of the above + anything else is frankly, ridiculous.
Clothing is as right as you (& yours) want it to be.

At our Gender and Sexuality class we were told about those changes in the colour of the children underwear (from pink to blue with boys; from blue to pink with girls) and he used to explain it as a politically induced phenomenon: pink started to be associated with the commies, so a proper American boy shouldn't have dressed them. Though I still feel reserved on this issue, because the colours of baby underwear was the same here in Russia for decades (pink for girls, blue for boys), and to the best of my knowledge no one has ever argued it is political.

In one of Jane Austen's novels ["Persuasion" as I recall], a young mother is discussing behaviour management of infants and toddlers. She uses the word "it and its" to refer to the generic child she is using as an example -- where we would use the words "he-or-she" or "their".
Our modern-day usage requirement to cover both genders is cumbresome compared to the grammatically correct, gender neutral but archaic "it" usage. But the Austen passage adds weight to the assertion that in centuries past, adults did not feel the need to ascribe gender when talking generally about the under-fives. It seems shocking to our ears now, but in those days people could refer to an infant as "it" without giving offence, or appearing to dislike children.

I read somewhere (and I've searched for the source) that in the early 20th century, pink was for boys and blue was for girls. Then an upscale department store window designer switched them in a display to shake things up and increase store traffic and sales. The thinking was that this gender color switch would become the latest fashion, a way for the wealthy to show how fashionable they were. Fast forward to 1949 when hemlines took a dive, and only wealthy women could afford *that* fashion trend, which also required a wardrobe replacement.

When my late father, who was born in 1924, reminisced about his days as a toddler and claimed that each summer he received a new straw hat adorned with a big yellow flower, we really didn't believe him. But based on this article, and the fact that he otherwise seemed to have all his marbles, it must have been so!

All this gender stuff is all a big marketing tool to get us to buy more so they can earn more at the top (believe me, they always aim to exceed the previous year's profits, no one ever says 'I think I've made enough moeny this year')

And one more thing - dont forget how much the media affects your choices in life! Be aware of it all the time.

John Money's theories were thoroughly disproven. Gender identity has to do with the bath of hormones the fetal brain receives, not what kind of clothing you dress your child in. A heartbreaking consequence of Dr. Money's theories is the story of the Reimer twins: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/reimer/

I read once that blue was considered a protective color against malevolent spirits, so it was reserved for the more-valued male babes. Female babies could wear any other color because protection for them was not a priority.

One minor correction: the pink and blue quote supposedly from Ladies' Home Jounal (and almost always misattributed as such) is in fact from an industry magazine called "The Infant's Department" - see "Men and Women, Looking the Part" by Kidwell and Steele, p. 22, published 1989 by the Smithsonian Intitution Press.

I have a very active four year old boy who we have tried to encourage to find his own likes and interests. I have always tried to choose gender neutral clothing and encouraged gift-givers to do the same. So far he's a little kid who likes to pretend every object is a gun to shoot bad guys (even though we don't allow gun toys in the house because we have real ones) but who also likes to pick up his baby doll and cuddle it and take care of it. Some days he wants to wear his Star Wars underwear and pretend he's Darth Vader and other days he wants to wear the pink bracelet that he made at school and pretend he's a princess. I just figure he is who he is and I will love him no matter who he decides to become. He's a pretty incredible kid so far and I am so lucky to be his mom.

There is a picture of my uncle at age 2 looking a good deal like that FDR picture. Fast forward to the right-wing whacko reaction to the adorable picture in the J. Crew catalog of a mother and son laughing together after she has apparently painted his toenails pink -- the cries of transgenderism and parent-induced perversion. Not surprising that the FoxNews types have no sense of history, much less the degree to which gender behavior is culturally constructed and one's internal sense of one's sex and sexuality is immutable.

I was born in 1936. My mother dressed me in gender appropriate blue, as she had dressed my late brother in gender appropriate pink.She always wondered what changed the code. I do too.

A quibble about the photos: in "To Kill a Mockingbird", Scout's overalls are anything but accepted. Her choice of attire provokes friction with her paternal aunt, who wants to turn her into a miniature Southern lady, complete with frilly dresses. Scout's father, Atticus, is more interested in Scout being comfortable with who she is, and he doesn't object to her wearing overalls. Scout refers repeatedly in the book to the arguments her aunt and her father have over her wardrobe. That Atticus defends his daughter's unconventional clothing choice against societal expectation is a nice parallel to his willingness to stand for justice in the Robinson trial, even though most of Maycomb vilifies him for it.

In the movie, the script for which is necessarily compressed from the book, the fight over Scout's clothing is presented in abbreviated form. Scout attends a ladies' tea party in a dress. One of the ladies teases her by asking where her britches are; Scout replies, "Under my dress," and the ladies laugh, which mortifies her.

To claim that Mary Badham wearing overalls in the movie is a sign of gender equality in America is to miss a subtly-drawn detail about the overall theme of outsiders balancing the need to fit in with the choice of taking an unpopular stand on conscience.

I read an interesting tidbit about cultural perceptions of manhood a while back in a friend's sociology textbook. Women just kind of become women when they hit menarche, but manhood is something a boy has to earn. Traditionally, boys have to somehow prove they can provide, protect and perform. If they can't, they don't get to be men; they're failed men. Perhaps this partially explains why it is so hard for men to stray from machismo in many societies. The only thing, in my view, that will drastically change this is a new definition of what makes a man. It's a worthy endeavor, and I'm lucky to know lots of great men that take great strides to achieve this. But our evolutionary predispositions haven't caught up with our ideas, so this is a huge psychological battle for many men.

Whenever I have given gifts to new parents (showers, first birthdays, etc.), I have always avoided both pink and blue. That pale yellow or green blanket will keep the child just as warm.

I actually think one of the other reasons very young children wore white dresses was because of the belief that crawling was an animialistic act of the devil and dresses inhibited the ability to crawl. Thankfully we no longer believe that.

A person's sex is determined by what exists between their legs at birth.

A person's gender is determined by what exists in their heart.

As someone who felt their gender and birth-sex were different as early as 6 and was forced to suppress it for many years, please let your children follow their hearts but at the same time, don't push one gender over another (either way).. but whichever gender they lean towards, please give your children your unconditional love. Even if you don't understand it or if you believe your church will frown on it, they are your child, your flesh and blood and as parents, they deserve that. As someone who was denied that unconditional love when I was a child, I beg every parent to show compassion and understanding towards yours and other kids as well as the adult transgender community.

As our children are now showing us, being transgender is not a choice, it's just the direction our lives have gone.

When one grew up in a large family, i.e., 10 in my case and I was the elder, clothes became hand-me-downs and trades by aunts and cousins. As long as they were clean and tidy no one seemed to care in the 40s and 50s.

I remember when young men and their fathers were forced to wear the nylon pink, blue-green, mint-green, nauseous blue, and puce shirts that were suddenly stylish, though miserably hot and sticky. We attributed that to Mamie Eisenhower and the stores for carrying only those "stylish colors."

I've never understood why the colors were so defining. Couldn't wear blue or green with brown, etc. After all, the mountains meeting the green of the trees and pasture lands merged well with the browns of the earth. I also couldn't understand, and still don't, why women let sissy-boy designers design such ugly clothes for them. It always seemed that these guys must have really hated girls/women or they would not have designed such pukey designs as sack dresses, etc. Oh, well! History will have invented some atrocious facade to explain the 20th century fashion styles and they won't be true either.

Real girls wear stuff with robots on.

Get rid of ALL gender specific stuff. Not just clolthing. Get rid of anything that has a "gender" assigned to it. It means nothing and is pretty stupid if you think about it. It also causes so my mental/emotional problems for kids growing up. Kids who have characteristics or find themselves liking things that are of the other gender aften have a hard time dealing with that when these are all just made up things by society.

I don't raise my kids with any reference to gender. I was raised playing with Tonka trucks and poking bugs with a stick and I am way more mentally stable then "girly girls" who are all out of sorts if they don't fit societies idea of what a female should be.

Just drop gender and lets all be people!

I briefly lived in a very small town in the Northwestern part of Washington State. At the time, I worked at one of the state prisons. One day I was at our only grocery store in town, chatting with a young female photography friend, when one of my male co-workers came in and saw us chatting. The next day at work that co-worker, in front of our other co-workers, made a snide comment about me hitting on such a young woman (I'm in my 40's, she's in her 20's), and then snidely commented about the pink shirt I was wearing. So, of course, in front of our other co-workers, I said, "1. Why can't a man and woman have a COMPLETELY PLATONIC relationship? We are just friends that enjoy nature photography. And 2. What? Are you too masculine to wear pink?" Shut him up REAL fast!

I've always said, hair, clothes and jewelry are NOT gender specific! Why can't a man have long hair, wear jewelry and clothes associated primarily as women's? Panty hose are VERY warm in the winter and dresses are VERY cool in the hot summer. And way can't women have short, or no hair, not wear makeup, and wear clothes associated primarily as men's?

We live in such a close-minded society! Especially compared to many of the European countries.

@Rebecca De La Torre: Why is it so "hurtful" for your son to be mistaken for a girl? Girls aren't such a terrible thing to be.

I think it's because of @Sarah Hoffman's astute observation that masculine girls are socially acceptable, while a feminine boy will be scrutinized or teased.

Marketing, marketing, marketing--it's all about the marketplace, and people do not question enough the messages that we receive through the media, and then are absorbed into the mainstream as "normal." When my son was young (late 80s) and wanted a little 4-legged vehicle, the only choices in the mainstream stores were a tricked-out pink & lavender confection and a rugged navy blue police car, heavy on the macho insignia. I didn't really want him to have either--why couldn't we just have a red car for either gender? It also irritated me that the cost of running two different models through the factory, affixing different decals (and subsequent marketing)was passed along to us. That was also the era of the blue & pink disposable diapers.

I am skeptical about the claim that the primary reason why boys and girls wore white dresses was because it could be easily bleached. Many of those dresses appear to be of a material that would not easily tolerate bleach. Moreover, my understanding was that the use of dresses on small children was a legacy of earlier beliefs that children who crawled were "changelings," closer to animals and less likely to grow up to functional intelligent adults. Therefore dresses, which made crawling on all fours hideously difficult, helped prevent crawling and encouraged immobility until the child was ready to walk.

I grew up in the 40s & 50s when girls were required to wear dresses to school and I loved my school dresses but wore jeans the rest of the time. My mom made party dresses and prom formals,as well as most of my school clothes. In Jr. High the boys wore pink shirts with black slacks and we wore pink and black poodle skirts. As a grown up I wear some dresses for church which I love but I'm just as likely to wear jeans to church as well as every other day. Little girls are trending toward Princess dresses and little boys toward sports. both wear a lot of black. For babies there is lots of pink and blue gender specific items but I also see brown, greens, purple and every combination with lots of jeans with and withiut ruffles.

Boy-Girl gender mashups aside, there is a reference to the "French fashion" of dressing little girls in pink in the book "Little Women". Set in and around the American Civil War, and published shortly thereafter, the practices of blue and pink predate anything mentioned in this article by many, many decades.

I don't even care. The infant's sporting striped onesie with hearts as as we speak.

These comments are both hilarious and self-serving. Sheesh, people, it's an article. There's only so much space in an article, yet most of you fault the article for not including everything that happens to pop into your precious heads or that which conforms to what you know or what you do. No piece of writing will ever cover everything. All that matters is that the author states an argument and sufficiently musters enough evidence to support that argument. Unless you're making a counter argument, save it.

"And now we see girls, preteens and teens, FIGHTING like boys used to. Video taping their beat-downs."

Is this any more appropriate for boys than for girls? Boys are heralded for standing up for themselves (I saw a video lately of a boy beating up another kid who was bullying him and commenters were going on about how he was just doing the right thing by defending himself), but girls are just supposed to stand around and take it? And both boys and girls are foolish and full of hormones at certain periods of their lives and make poor decisions (fighting, etc), but in my opinion, it's inappropriate for any sex to glorify violence.

I'm looking forward to the book. Such gender signifiers are fascinating, and I'm pleased to see that someone has done such an in-depth study of one of them. For personal reasons, I'm curious about the following one -- does anyone have any idea why/when/how cats became associated with girls, and dogs with boys?

One of the things that has become clear to me from raising a gender-nonconforming boy is how easily society accepts tomboys (girls can dress in blue, wear jeans, play soccer, aspire to be lawyers) and how out-of-hand it dismisses--and actively condemns--feminine boys (a boy who likes pink or plays with Barbie? Stop him before he becomes gay or transgender!). It is so important to look critically at how our culture views colors, behaviors, and social roles in terms of what is appropriate for boys and girls.

Sarah Hoffman
www.sarahhoffmanwriter.com

The book will be a great addition to the literature on childhood!

The gender curiouity issue is interesting to ponder. Add mobility and cost to the consideration. Everyone who encountered a child knew its gender early-on because of limited mobility. Gender neutral clothing was economical and only made sense in the earlier centuries because textiles were the most expensive element in a house hold.

A great article! I'd add a caveat to the article's citing John Money's work on "nurture-only" genderedness, readers should note his controversial and perhaps unethical behavior in the science of sex re-assignments (e.g., see http://www.genderpsychology.org/psychology/john_joan.html)

"‘If we dress our girls more like boys and less like frilly little girls . . . they are going to have more options and feel freer to be active.’

And now we see girls, preteens and teens, FIGHTING like boys used to. Video taping their beat-downs.

Posted by bahbdorje on April 9,2011 | 08:43 PM"
Correlation does not imply causation.
(unless you are stuck in your narrow cultural understanding)

Actually, to me the more revealing point would be that males are no longer peacocks - women are. In most modern cultures they are now "allowed" to flaunt whatever they can, any colour, length, style... while males are, to a large extent, subdued to earth colours or black and white, straight lines, etc. I'm definitely waiting for that to change.

Lisa S
-The movement has evolved since then, but the second wave feminists of the 70 -80's were indeed "anti feminine".

Femininity
the set of female qualities attributed specifically to women and girls by a particular culture (at a particular time).

Bravo to Lisa Shaffmaster's comment on the stereotype of the anti-feminine feminist. Feminism is about power, language, objectification, classism, opportunity and so much more than fashion. Within the feminist waves, leaders have ranged from radically unkempt to outright divas, from those who leaned to the masculine in dress and ambition to others who embodied the female ideal. The women of my mother's generation began dressing us in boyish clothes for many reasons--cost efficiency, durability, modesty (no more knickers seen from the jungle gym!) in addition to facilitating physical play.

On a personal note, clothing is not the only frontier to be explored in regards to gendering our kids. For my family, hair length and style has been a sticking point. I have three sons and a daughter. All have long hair (with my second son sporting a cascade of flaxen locks to his mid-back). On a daily basis I am forced to soften the blow from unintentionally hurtful remarks directed to my "pretty blonde daughter" from strangers who are unable to look past the hair and see the boy with the Transformers shirt, khaki cargos and Vans. At those moments I wish gender was more of a non-issue and our kids could grow up as just people with out the pressure of their up-and-coming sexuality defining their identity.

Michele, you make a good point. However, although ultrasound isn't mentioned by name, I believe that's what the author is referring to in this paragraph:
"Prenatal testing was a big reason for the change. Expectant parents learned the sex of their unborn baby and then went shopping for “girl” or “boy” merchandise."

What about the advent of the use of ultrasound to determine the baby's gender? I'm sure that gave marketing and industry a much bigger market for selling gender specific clothing (and other necessities) to parents. It would be interesting to know how many of our holidays have been made big by the ability to market for our children. (Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc)

I don't have children of my own, but when it comes to buying items for my nieces and nephews, I make a point of choosing a color like yellow.

The article left me with the feeling that my generation (Gen Y) has seen the extremities of the baby-boomers and the Gen-Xrs. Seeing the drama of "Woodstock vs Reagan" most of us prefer a more moderate approach.

‘If we dress our girls more like boys and less like frilly little girls . . . they are going to have more options and feel freer to be active.’

And now we see girls, preteens and teens, FIGHTING like boys used to. Video taping their beat-downs.

I'm really glad to see this article, and can't wait to read Prof. Paoletti's book. I've been writing about this on my blog as I work on a family sociology textbook -- it's great material for sociology. (You can my latest color/gender post here: http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/doing-color-with-babies/). The picture of FDR is priceless.

Being a sister of an older brother (by a year and a half) I wore blue. His hand-me-downs. Also to make things worse I had no hair, my mom had to scotch tape a bow to my head because everybody thought I was a boy. I don't know if it had any effect on my life, I am a bit of a tomboy though and would rather wear blue jeans any day of the week over a stupid dress. :)

It's not only baby clothes that have become iconic representations of gender and the expectations attached thereto.
One of the more interesting things I learned as managing editor of a small bridal magazine was that there is an analogous tale about today's white wedding dresses. And they follow almost the same time sequence as niche-marketed gender-skewed baby clothes.
Certainly the idea of the white wedding dress caught on by the 1970s, before color-coding infants was quite so pronounced. But at the turn of the last century, a bride may have worn a tea or light coffee-colored dress. And before that, when the American plains states and midwest were being settled, folks got married when the preacher came riding through so a woman might well transition from Miss to Mrs. in her best calico or a holiday plaid. And as settlers often entered into common law marriages before there were "local" churches, by the time a church official was available, the idea of wearing white for purity was a non-starter.
At the least, it's valuable to look past the white gown or the pink and blue baby buntings to recall how comfortable we once were as distinct and self-defining individuals, at least certainly more so than today.

One thing that isn't mentioned in the article is the reason for dressing both little boys and girls in dresses until age 6 is because they grow really quickly at that age. Dresses/skirts are easier to make and aren't out grown as quickly.

It's absurd to call the feminist movement "anti feminine". The women's movement of the 1970's was deeply and profoundly feminine. What feminists were (and still are) are anti stereotype. It was a popular culture hostile to feminism which promoted the idea of feminists as "anti feminine" and "anti fashion", humorless, hostile, imitators of men with hairy legs and no sense of humor. Shame on you Smithsonian, for failing to differentiate between a movement and the public perception of it. Good article, mostly, about a subject that is worth examining.