Blue for girls, pink for boys

[snopes]

Comment: I heard about 1900 the colors for boys (blue) and girls (pink)
got reversed to what it they are today. Is this so, why did they change?

[Andrew of Ware]

I heard a talk at an English Heritage event that made this point. Blue was traditionally seen as a girls' colour because the Virgin Mary was often shown in a blue dress (see countless mediaeval stained glass windows). Boys were often dressed in red (as in redcoats), but often this became watered down into pink, although not as much shocking pink as many girls wear today.

[Stoneage Dinosaur]

The power of pink

Towards the end of the great war, in June 1918, America's most authoritative women's magazine, the Ladies' Home Journal (it still exists), had a few wise words of advice for fretting mothers. "There has been a great diversity of debate on the subject," it wrote, "but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

[llewtrah]

Somewhere there's an old Snopes thread on this

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/u...9;t=000356;p=0

[Embra]

Why do girls wear pink and boys wear blue?: a discussion on colour preference differences between the sexes...

But, Ben Goldacre says "pah!" to that...

What shade was the "pink" that these older sources are referring to anyway? Is there any connection to the "hunting pink" (i.e. scarlet) worn by the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable?

[London Wolf]

I remember reading that the colours (the 'wrong' way round) originated with the Ancient Greeks. The same rationale as above - pink is the diluted, children's form of red, the colour of war, blood, passion etc, and therefore for boys. Blue is cool and muted and therefore for girls.

I think at least with adults we're making some progress on the 'your junk will not disappear if you put on a pink shirt' side of things.

I just wish we weren't obsessed with labelling babies and feeding them gender role requirements before they can even say, 'You know what? I prefer earth tones.'