I hate pink. Practically all shades, bright and subtle. I am hating my life these days, less because exams are waiting round the corner and more because my mom and my Gran mom are busy stuffing my room with pink. When we got this house four years back, two of the bedrooms were painted yellow and blue. The third bedroom however, was painted strictly in obedience to my mother's choice for her daughter. She got the tiny corner of the house drowned in pink for me.
I remember, I had objected. I wanted the navy blue room. The colour is strong and dark. But, this barn of cotton candy would have then gone to my brother and he had sarcastically said he would absolutely love being a pussy. Since then i am living a blessed life in my pink room. I have desperately tried to plaster the walls with Metallica posters but it is still, a long way to my salvation. The pink background makes Metallica, look like Backstreet Boys [I wish Metallica members and fans not read this].
You are now wondering, am I one of those pretending-to-be boys. Well, if you are my friend, you would know, I am a girl and am very proud to be one. But If I am so proud a female, then why do I hate pink so much? I had once leisurely flipped through a book called Colours tell who you are. I found it stacked with other self-helps in a dingy little bookstore. It said, the colour pink, is liked by those who constantly desire to assert their femininity. Pink is a Girl colour.
These days with my Gran mom doing all knitting stitching in pink, for my room and my mom buying exotic variety of linen in pink, I am doing a lot of thinking about pink. If I ever have a daughter, I will be firm about not dressing her in pink before she learns a preference for it. When she is old enough to show desire for pink things, then fine, I'll accommodate her. However, while it's my decision, she will wear neutral stuff and live in rooms painted in neutral colours.
But really, why am I so against pink?
The major pink delivery device for little girls is the Barbie doll. As a feminist, I've been trained to hate Barbie morphing little girls' view of what a woman should look like. I don't like what Barbie has done to the female notion of beauty. That bitch seems to have everything. Looks, fans, boyfriend, nice shoes. Everything, as the only things a girl "should" want.
Fifty or so years ago, men and women were split along a definitive line. Women stayed at home, didn't get educated (or got educated as only teachers, secretaries, or nurses), cooked meals, enjoyed love songs, disliked sex, and were physically weak, nurturing, and unassertive. Men went to work, got degrees, drank martinis, played golf, had sex with secretaries, were buff, gruff and aggressive. Women were viewed as second-class citizens, along with everything associated with women.
Now we have had many women blaze the trail towards equality. Women can now be viewed as workers, assertive, athletic, intelligent – all of those things that men were. We've abandoned those "womanly" things because they were associated with the time when women were considered the weaker. Nowadays, if one wants to be a nurse, people ask why she doesn't want to be a doctor – we know that nurses don't make near as much as doctors, though it is a noble career. When she wants to be a stay-at-home mom to nurture her children, we wonder why she's abandoning her career. We say women are getting to be equal citizens, but we still treat traditionally womanly things as abominable
How often do you hear "cry like a girl" or "throw like a girl?" Girls are weak. How often do you see boys or men wear pink? Pink is a girl's color, therefore symbolic of fragility. In female attempt to attain liberty from oppression, we have broken out of every aspect that is tagged feminine. Now if its a good thing or bad, I have absolutely no idea. I love my femininity but not if that tags me as weak.
If a man uses skin care products, gets a manicure, takes a bubble bath, collects teddy bears, enjoys romance movies, and cooks with an apron, he's considered gay. A man who does not lech at women is a gay. A man who earns less than his girl or practically lives on his girl's money is a loser.
Thinking is stunted to categorization and the definition of liberty is not breaking out of this categorization but merely shifting your place within it. A man needs to do all "man things" to be a man. A woman needs to disregard the womanly things to be liberated like a man.
I hate it when I am asked to cook while my brother is asked to book train tickets. The fact that I am not allowed to ride a bike while he is prematurely given driving lessons, makes me hate my driving license. I hate it when they ask me to listen to softer music instead of the screeching guitar solos and drum thrashings. It is then, I hate my pink room.
It is not that I don't want to do the things that I am told to do. I just hate them because they are labelled as things which are not good enough for my brother, for a boy. I just hate being tagged "the inferior". I want to be a girl and succumb to womanly duties and preferences, too. But I don't because, I don't want them to know me as a girl - A delicate, crying, poor-throwing, Barbie-playing, pink-wearing sub-human.
Shakespeare said in one of his plays, "fraility, they name is woman". I would like to think he had said that in sarcasm.
I wonder if its a man problem or a woman problem. Its true we as women get more choices due to this situation sprouting from this stunted definition of liberty. As a kid I could play with cars and air guns as well as my dolls. I can watch both Die Hard and PS I Love You and no one would care. But if a guy has to watch PS I Love You, he will have to wear that she-dragged-me-here-look throughout the movie. People raise their eyebrows at a male nurse but not at a female doctor.
Then again, if Harry Potter was Harriet potter, would he be as famous? Then again, how do we accept the "womanly" things in life? When will we actually decide that playing house, chick flicks, and dolls aren't bad?
Pink is a wretched colour. Let us hate pink for its a wretched colour.
