Rose-colored Onesies

A s soon as soon-to-be parents Marcy and Kyle Naismith discovered they were expecting twins — a boy and a girl — in 2012, their world turned pink and blue. A stream of gender-specific clothes, toys, and gifts started arriving, clearly intended for a baby girl or a baby boy.

Rose-colored Onesies

Though Marcy preferred more gender-neutral tones like red and orange, she couldn’t always fight the pastel–hued tide. After Tate and Lucy arrived, Marcy sometimes used color-coding to keep things like bottles straight. “We tried to steer clear of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ things, but often, our options were pink and blue,” she recalls. In other words, some gender symbols were all but impossible to avoid.

Society’s ideas about gender shape how even the tiniest babies are dressed, perceived, and treated. Even parents like Marcy and Kyle who want to avoid gender-themed toys and clothes find that pink and blue have a way of creeping in, along with frilly princess frocks and ubiquitous sports motifs. So what’s the problem with the pink-blue paradigm? What’s the harm in letting grandparents buy the baby a tiara or the truck-themed bedroom set — do these choices really matter when the child in question is still in diapers?

The problem with pink

Jo Paoletti, associate professor of American Studies at University of Maryland and author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America, calls this phenomenon “pinkificiation.” And it matters, she says. Pinkificiation isn’t about pink — indeed, she notes that pink’s history as a feminine color in our culture is less than 100 years old — but about reinforcing a gender binary that validates only certain gender expressions and the people who embody them. Namely, those at either end of the gender spectrum: hyper-masculine macho men or ultra-feminine girly girls.

Paoletti, who writes the Gender Mystique blog at pinkisforboys.org, notes that “pinkificiation” goes beyond the use of pink for girl’s things — it also narrows choices and exclude gender-neutral options. Kids’ clothes and toys are becoming increasingly gendered, and researchers at National Association for the Education of Young Children report that gendered toys are less educational than gender-neutral playthings. “Pinkification” also teaches and reinforces stereotypes and limits the way children perceive themselves and others, she says. And, perhaps most troubling, it excludes children who don’t fit society’s gender mold.

Kids who fall outside the strict frills-or-football gender framework can feel left out in the cold, says Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., director of mental health at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center in Oakland, California. The second of her two grown children was “a very gender-non-confirming” little boy, she says, with little interest in the trucks and other “boy” things she’d bought, while her daughter embraced dolls, pink, and all things girly. “I was committed to gender expansiveness for both my children, with a mixture of all types of toys for them to choose from,” says Ehrensaft, who authored Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children. “They took it from there.”

Free choice

As babies grow into toddlers, they begin choosing their own clothes and toys, often along gender lines. A study by the British Psychological Society found that by nine months of age, babies already prefer gender-specific toys and colors, with girls gravitating toward dolls and stuffed animals and boys choosing balls and cars. Similar results have been seen in studies with monkeys, suggesting that preferences for so-called stereotypical playthings might be innate.

There’s nothing wrong with letting a little girl wear frills and ruffles if she wants to, says Ehrensaft. The problem with the pink “princess culture” isn’t necessarily that it limits girls, she says. It’s that it excludes boys. The fact is, most children love shiny, sparkly things, Ehrensaft adds. Who wouldn’t? Girls should have access to sparkles and frills if they want them, but boys should, too. Parents sometimes cut boys off from this type of self-expression out of the misguided fear that their child will “turn out” gay, says Ehrensaft. It’s nonsense, she adds. “Gender is gender and sex is sex. Think of them as railroad tracks. They’re completely different tracks. Don’t make them be the same track. You’ll be confused and lose focus of your child.”

There’s no way to tell whether a toddler boy who skips Army figures in favor of baby dolls will be gay, says Ehrensaft. “What you have is a gender-creative little boy. It’s not a sexual identity.” Trying to suppress a child’s early gender expressions is a losing battle. “Parents can suppress it but they can’t shake it,” notes Ehrensaft. And doing so can cause lasting psychological harm.

Parent power

The anecdote to limiting gender stereotypes is parent power, says Paoletti. “Parents can insist on more choices for their kids.” For babies and toddlers, more choices mean a more expansive view of themselves and others. “The key is offering a spectrum of options, then standing back and respecting choices kids make,” says Virginia Rutter, PhD senior scholar with Council on Contemporary Families. And understanding that you can only engineer your baby’s social world so much.

“You can’t raise your child in a completely gender-neutral world. Some of those influences are going to come in.”

Marcy Naismith is OK with that. Despite having access to both “boy” and “girl” toys, her twins gravitate toward things associated with their own gender: Lucy loves hairstyles and her stuffed bunny, while Tate’s into trucks.“I want them to know that no matter what gender they are, they can do anything they put their minds to.” 

Reading list

Pink and Blue

• Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from Girls in America by Jo Paoletti
• Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children by Diane Ehrensaft P.D.
• Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son by Lori Duron
• The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls through the Princess-Obsessed Years by Rebecca Hains
• Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps — And What We Can Do About It by Lise Elliot

Malia Jacobson is an award-winning health and parenting journalist and mom of three. Her latest book is Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers and Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades.