Pink Boys

By the age of 2 most children are aware of their own gender and by the age of 3 or 4 children have a notion of their expected sex roles (Campbell, Shirley, & Caygill, 2002) [2]. Around the ages 3 or 4, children start to prefer gender typical toys and same-sex playmates. Even from infancy parents raise their children in a gender-stereotyped environment. If their child is a boy they prefer to decorate the room with blue furniture and if it is a girl they decorate the room with pink furniture. Pink is the only color that is divided along gender lines. Though, what is the reason for this distinction? Why we create gender-stereotyped roles for women and men?

The picture of a boy who is wearing a pink dress and holding a whip is made in 1840s. At that time pink was a color for boys. In 19th century England, small boys often wore pink ribbons or decorations; boys were simply considered small men, and while men in England wore red uniforms, boys wore pink [1]. So, what happened then? Which event had contributed to the notion of pink is for girls? In 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany, people who are accused with homosexuality forced to wear a pink triangle. It was a shame to be a homosexual and it perceived as a mental illness. However, there is nothing wrong about being a “pink boy”. It is just a natural variation of human being. Reasons for gender a-typicality have been studied in many researches and usually two reasons have suggested as a cause to the gender non-conformity: hormonal or genetic and environmental factors.

The largest study was a 2006 Dutch survey of twins, 14,000 at age 7 and 8,500 at age 10. The study concluded that genes account for 70 percent of gender-atypical behavior in both sexes. However, what is inherited still remains unclear [3]. When we look back through history, we can see the development of perception of gender a-typicality. By the mid-20th century, doctors were trying corrective therapies, such as using hormonal medicines to block pubertal development. However, therapeutic approach made people perceive atypical gender as a mental illness that needed to be cured. In fact, it is crucial for people to understand that gender identity isn’t something that we can impose to our kids and expect them to show the gender-stereotyped roles. Instead, we have to admit that, it is who they are and they are not individuals who trapped in the wrong body. They don’t need any therapy and becoming a transgender just because of the social pressure and to avoid from bullies.  If they are happy with their body and also the way they feel themselves, then it is pointless to make them feel as a person who they are not.

There is an on-going assumption that women are nurturing and emotional while men are aggressive and dominant. Gender stereotypes are all over the media, advertisements and even in cartoons and fairy tales. Social media puts much more pressure on to the gender roles and creates certain images for women and men. Feminine traits are generally devalued across cultures and while masculine girls gain more status by moving to the boy space, feminine boys mostly humiliated and bullied by their society.

Although there is still a lack of acceptance for the individuals who are gender atypical, perceptions of some people have started to change in a good manner. Gender identity must be perceived as, “much less a matter of choice and much more a matter of biology” (Coolidge et al., 2002) [4]. We have to remember that gender a-typicality is part of core identity and not an inappropriate behavior that people should get rid of.

References:

[1] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Pink 19^th Century, Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink

[2] Campbell, A. Shirley, & Caygill L., 2002, Sex-typed preferences in three domains: Do two-year-olds need cognitive variables?, British Journal of Psychology, 92, 203-217

[3] Ruth Padawer, What’s so bad about a boy who wants to wear a dress?, The New York Times

[4] Coolidge, F.L., Theda, L.L., and Young, S.E. (2002). The Heritability of Gender Identity Disorder in a Child and Adolescent Sample. Behavior Genetics 32, 251-257.