Anyone who’s ever had a daughter knows about the Pink Stuff.
No matter how hard you fight against it, it will come at you like a rising tide of sickly-sweet cotton candy.
One mother who was helpless against this plastic tsunami was JeongMee Yoon, who was inspired to start The Pink and Blue Project. It’s series of stylised photographs of young boys and girls, including JeongMee’s daughter Seowoo, proudly showing off their monochromatic possessions.
Check out the gallery here (post continues after the pictures).
But the photographs reveal more than a trend towards boys liking blue and girls liking pink. The comparison between the types of toys that come in pink and those that come in blue is the real story.
In Pink World, little girls play with babies, Barbies and hairbrushes. They learn how to beautify themselves and the sorts of careers they should aspire to: ballerina, princess, stay at home mother. They’re told that their worth comes from being beautiful, being good mothers and being gracious and polite.
In Blue World, little boys play with robots, trains and weapons. They’re groomed for careers as scientists, engineers and superheroes. They’re told that their worth comes from being strong, sometimes violent and intelligent.
Of course there’s nothing objectively wrong with either World, or the values they promote. But there is something wrong with young children thinking that those are the only worlds they’re allowed to live in.
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Top Comments
I have 2 year old twins, a boy and girl. My husband and I have always made a point of not buying pink, girly toys for our daughter and blue boy toys for our son, however of all the joint toys they play with my son will more often than not pick up a stick or some other sort of weapon to hit something with or shoot someone with and my daughter will either read a book or play with a doll. They play so differently which makes me think its partly pre programmed. Even from a very early age they were interested in very different things, it was very marked and quite amazing. Of course it might not have anything to do with them being male and female.
It's the parents who ultimately decide what their kids play with - throw some other colours in there people! There's a whole rainbow of awesome toys out there! And boys like a cross section of toys as much as girls do!