Girls in pink, boys in blue?

The discussion has raged, with varying degrees of concern, for decades at least. It was a major issue in the seventies – should girls be brought up as girly-girls in pink and skirts and have doll-centred toys, or did this just perpetuate the (domestic, and lower) position of women in society?

There was less plastic then, of course, so although little girls’ clothes might be pink, at least the wheelbarrows were not. Some girls were hardly allowed more than a teddy bear to cuddle, and were raised almost entirely on toy cars and meccano.

In recent years, with more money about, children have more Things, more Stuff. Manufacturers have realised that if everyone associates girls with pink, and everything is available in pink, and every little girl associates her identity with pinkness, then parents and others will buy everything all over again if the gender of the second child is different from that of the first – as it will be 50% of the time. Gardening sets are in pink or blue, wellington boots are pink with hearts on or have football designs on, and pink fairies and princesses are everywhere.

Does it matter? Probably not, if parents understand what is happening and go no further down the pink path than they wish to, or can afford to. The best way for children to make the most of the advantages of their gender is to have strong and appropriate role models, who are themselves comfortable as people as well as in their gender role. But there can be a valid issue if girls are not encouraged to play in ways which develop those parts of their brain which may lead to an interest in numbers and maths, understanding and science, and its application in technology and engineering. They go off pink in time, and as the desired colour palette broadens, it can be a real loss if they think only boys play football or understand basic engineering.

Parents should not forget that mysteriously, girls in mixed schools (where they are daily unconsciously reminded that they are not boys) are typically less likely to take sciences at A level than are girls in a single-sex school. This may deprive them of careers which on average pay higher salaries, quite apart from possibly making it more likely that they will be employed at all, when times are tough. So parental expectation that all children, regardless of their gender, should be encouraged to play with all sorts of things and do every kind of activity, will make it more likely that girls will be able to develop their science-side as they themselves wish, just as their brothers might learn when very young how to be caring, sharing dads in the future if they have characters of some kind to play with and care for.

So if your household has succumbed to girliness, just check that the pink princess has a toolset stored with her tiara so she can mend it when it is suffering from too much wear, and that she could construct a tower as well as hang her sparkling, braided hair down from it, when thinking of ensnaring a passing prince by her ethereal singing.