THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS!
(pictured above: me and my best friend, my little sister, wearing matching pink outfits!)
The Love of Pink:
I write this post resting on four of my pink pillows with my pink coloured candles to the left, my pink cart next to my bed on top of my pink rug, my pink storage baskets to my right, and a perfect view of the pink bowl and pink spoon that I need to take out to the kitchen where you would find many more pink items. Pink is, and has been, in every single aspect of my life- my pointer colour on my MacBook, my clothes, the cup I would claim at Brownie camp, every single game piece I choose. Even this blog is made up of a predominantly pink colour scheme with varying shades of pinks. Why? Simply, it’s my favourite colour and it has been ever since I could remember.
But it isn’t just that I love pink. I mean, of course I do and I think that is abundantly clear, but for me, pink has always symbolised girlhood. Throughout my childhood, everything has been pink. When I was a little girl I remember my dad telling me that my sister’s (who had passed away) favourite colour was pink and I always felt closer to her through this growing up, our shared love of the colour pink. My favourite shade of pink will forever be the light pink shade of the breast cancer awareness pin that my dad wore on his coat. He wore this not because it was how she passed away but because pink was her colour. The childhood home I grew up in was even pink in honour of my sister. For me and my family, everything has been pink.
And so when I saw a TikTok realising that every single colour, besides pink, could be considered professional in a corporate presentation, I was stunned. In my brain I went through every single presentation I had ever done or seen and could not recount ever seeing pink. I could remember purple, blue, green, yellow, red, orange, any and every colour but I could not even imagine pink.
Why is this?
There’s obvious sexism here from the corporate standpoint.
More notes here on this – research.
Growing up in the patriarchy
Girls not liking pink throughout their own childhoods as a rejection of this. Even though I loved pink, I remember calling myself a “tomboy” and considered myself boyish. I never wore skirts or dresses growing up and was obsessed with the idea of having abs. I had a very close relationship with my dad growing up and seeing him bond with my brother over boy things made me jealous. I was never particularly close with my mother and my sister was the quintessential girly girl with skirts . and so in some ways I wasn’t;t completely rejecting the patriarchy, in others I was not. maybe this is why I became a blackbelt at 8 or 9 years old. so while some girls and boys may have hated pink growing up, perhaps because they simply didnt like it, I wonder how many of them disliked it because of what it represented?
Action
Maybe it seems silly – it’s just a colour. but that is something I have come to realise recently… nothing is ever for the sake of it. every single thing we know and think is shaped by the epistemic knowledge created in our society – norms and believes shaped by the patriarchy. nothing is ever what it seems and these norms we have on pink being an unprofessional colour is not exogenous to our society.
Call me optimistic but, as an aspect of the patriarchy, we must act in order to dismantle it. Action starts with reflection and realisation and then we can take action. What does this look like? …. I saw a perfect example of this when I was taking a class on business and politics in globalisation at Columbia University, made up of predominantly men. One lecture in particular, professor Thrall was giving us a presentation on supply chains and when he was referring to the managers of firms (amongst other professions) with only she/her pronouns. Every hypothetical manager he discussed began with a “she”. this really stuck with me because it was such a small detail, that I doubt was picked up on by many of the men in the class and seemingly went unnoticed, but it meant a lot to me because this was such a small yet important step in normalising our perception of women in management roles.
Best believe, the next presentation I make will consist of pink.
References:
Leave a Reply