For both women and men: Pink, a symbol of femininity
Pink is associated with girls and women, with the feminine – understood as a social and conceptual category or as an essence – and/or with femininity – a set of external attributes (appearances, behaviour, etc.) culturally associated with the feminine. It translates the effects of gender both visually and symbolically. Now firmly established, this contemporary symbolism of pink is nevertheless recent, only really coming into place at the beginning of the twentieth century, first in North America, then in Europe, with the arrival of the layette tradition, which consists in dressing babies in a different colour according to their sex (Paoletti, 2012). Since then, pink as a symbol of femininity has very quickly become established as a social convention: who has never heard, or perhaps even said, that “pink is for girls”? This popular maxim tends to become widespread in people’s imagination, but it is nonetheless based on social realities. Many little girls do indeed wear pink dresses or skirts, the “girls’” sections of toy shops are full of pink items [ill. 1], as are the “girls’” or “women’s” sections of clothing shops. And what can we say about the countless female representations in animated cartoons and video games[1], advertisements, television series and movies[2] and even the ideograms marking “women’s” public toilets, which use pink as a means of signifying the feminine and/or femininity? Conversely, what is considered feminine can also be represented in pink: this is how gender marketing works (Bartow, 2008), offering pink razors, pink tools, a pink car, even pink painkillers, all designed specifically for women and their supposedly special needs.
But if pink connotes femininity, it does not refer to any definition of the term, but rather to the stereotypical one that tells women to wear skirts, heels and make-up, to be beautiful, sexy and seductive, or sweet, candid and naive. Pink thus often reduces femininity to a plastic characteristic, relative to appearances, and which confines the feminine to purely superficial, artificial, accessory and childish considerations. The omnipresence of pink in representations of femininity could be seen as an insignificant aesthetic detail. Yet it also has repercussions on girls and women themselves: on their relationship to expectations of femininity – and their own in particular, in order to construct themselves as individuals –, on their relationship to others – to men as well as to other women –, and more globally on their relation to the world. Gender representations have concrete results on individuals, both on an individual level (construction of a gendered identity) and on a socio-cultural level (gender relations), particularly since the proliferation of mass media such as television (Courbet and Fourquet-Courbet, 2003; Massei, 2015), video games (Sarda, 2017) or internets (Oberst, et al., 2016; Balleys, 2017). Pink is thus a means for girls and women to construct their femininity: by adhesion, to affirm their femininity and their belonging to the “girls/women” category – this is the case of young girls obsessed with pink clothes or toys (Halim, et al., 2014) or of certain transgender girls (Grisard, 2017) –; or by rejection, to emancipate themselves from the socio-cultural constraints imposed on the women with whom it is associated, and this from adolescence onwards (Gleeson and Frith, 2004).
Even when associated with men or boys, pink retains its link to the feminine and femininity. It therefore connotes effeminacy and masculine homosexuality, in the sense that a man with feminine features would be perceived at first sight as homosexual, regardless of his actual sexuality (Hoquet, 2009, p. 104). While pink is the emblematic colour of masculine homosexuality (Tamagne, 2003), it can, however, in some cases signify a man’s ability to exist as an original individual within a constellation of individualities included in the same social category (Grisard, 2018). Wearing pink, dyeing his hair pink [ill. 2] or driving a pink car then become a way for men belonging to dominant groups to show that they are able to distance themselves from social conventions, if not defy them (Lorenzi-Cioldi, 2002). Taking advantage of the attention-grabbing effects of the pink/masculine symbolic incompatibility (Bideaux, 2021, pp. 661-667), men who are mainly from the social, cultural and/or intellectual elites choose to accentuate their individuality, to show their ability to emancipate themselves from “pink is for girls”, without this undermining their masculine privileges[3].
Pink = Feminine: Gender aestheticisation through colour
Pink is thus a form of aestheticisation of gender, i.e. it makes it manifest by its presence – through the trope “pink is for girls” – but also by its absence – through the corollary trope “pink is not for boys”. Pink is thus almost systematically used in the context of stereotyped, even caricatured representations, which contribute to the reproduction and dissemination of simplified representations of the feminine. By associating the feminine and femininity with qualities such as coquetry, sensitivity, fragility or kindness – which are perceived as powerless or superfluous – pink also contributes to making them attractive (Bideaux, pp. 362-365). The ability of colour to translate the effects of gender – particularly on girls and women – is all the more effective because it is a plastic sign, as defined by the semioticians of the Groupe µ, i.e. a tool that allows both the shaping of the image and the production of meaning[4] (1992, p. 118). The plasticity of pink thus gives it the possibility of adapting to a vast range of uses: not only in painting, fashion or marketing, but also in a non-visible way in song, literature or poetry.
The association of pink with femininity also extends across cultural areas, spreading internationally through the prism of economic globalisation and marketing (Koller, 2008)[5], as well as through that of cultural globalisation (Tardif, 2008): first via fashion (Blacszyck, 2018), then above all via cinema, television (Nadoolman Landis, 2018), video games and social networks. The association between pink and femininity seems to be more widely spread across time, which tends to naturalise the symbolism (Sparke, 1995, p. 198). The most compelling example is the recurrence of the pink aesthetic characteristic of the visual and decorative arts in the eighteenth century (Mantz, 1880, pp. 20-21): this was the case with the craze for pastel colours in Parisian (and by extension American) fashion at the end of the nineteenth century (Blacszyck, 2018), as well as in the interior decoration of the United States in the 1950s, where the combination of pink and gold evoked the rococo style of aristocratic salons (Sparke, 1995, p. 196) [ill. 3]. It is thus the whole of culture – and visual culture in particular – that seems to be targeted by this aestheticisation of gender through pink. Within this globalised visual regime, colour is one of the most easily perceptible signs in various cultural contexts. The colour researcher Jose Luis Caivano reminds us that “from semiotics, color is an element belonging to a certain universe which can substitute elements of other universes” (1996). Pink is therefore presented as an internationally understood symbol, encoding femininity regardless of the fact that the colour has local meanings specific to the history of a culture, such as youth and life in Japan (Monden, 2018)[6], or cultural and national identity in Mexico (Melendez-Escalante, 2018)[7].
Facilitating the dissemination of commercial and/or cultural products, the universalisation over the last few decades of the symbolism of femininity of pink has also contributed to the construction of the uniform stereotype of “the woman” associated with it. Pink can thus be understood as a technology of gender, as defined by Teresa de Lauretis, who states that “[t]he representation of gender is its construction” and that “all of Western Art and high culture is the engraving of the history of that construction” (1987, p. 3). Gender studies researcher Mary Celeste Kearney sees pink as one of the technologies that contribute to the construction of gender through culture, marketing, media, fashion or art: “pink’s ubiquitous use as a signifier of female-ness and femininity over the past fifty years means that it now operates on a secondary level of signification that upholds gender essentialism and, more broadly, heterocentric patriarchy” (2010).
The meanings of femininity differ, however, depending on whether pink is found on the aristocrat Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764) [ill. 4] or the loyal spouse and model housewife Mamie Eisenhower (1896-1979)[8], on the wealthy heiress Paris Hilton [ill. 5] or the famous romantic novelist Barbara Cartland (1901-2000), on the Barbie doll or the video game character Princess Peach[9], on the rapper Cam’ron or the drag queen Trixie Mattel. Pink is “mutant”, to quote lexicographer Annie Mollard-Desfour (2002, p. 39), and should therefore be seen more as a symbol of femininities, not of an univocal femininity. It is associated alternatively and/or simultaneously with various gender stereotypes: “housewife” and “devoted bride[10]”, “woman-child” or “hypersexualised girl[11]”, “seductive woman” or “naive woman”, “aristocrat” or “princess”, “cat lady[12]” or “ditzy girl”, “faggot” or “drag queen”, etc. This capacity for adaptation of colour is thus perfectly in line with the transformative processes of the symbol, which are themselves linked to the processes of gender transformation.
A pink trap: In/visibilisation of gender
Transcultural and transhistorical, pink understood as the ultimate symbol of femininity tends in reality to an impression of a-culturality and a-historicity, erasing all social and cultural shaping of the colour, and thus also of gender (Bideaux, 2021, pp. 823-825). The recurrent use of pink as a signifier of femininity in different places and times has naturalised the symbol, making it almost impossible to associate the colour with anything other than women or femininity (Kearney, 2010). Pink thus complicates the effort to deconstruct gender: it makes us believe that if pink has always and everywhere been associated with the feminine, it is because there is a feminine essence invariably associated with colour, regardless of its forms of expression. In this sense, pink is a particularly formidable gender technology, since it actively participates in the categorisation and hierarchy of gender, while at the same time making this process invisible. This is because we are not wary enough of colour and its omnipresence makes it invisible, as art theorist David Batchelor explains, reminding us that “colour is everywhere: around and in and of us, a part of everything we see every day in our every waking moment” (2000b, p. 70), and it is even present when we do not see it – through words, concepts and symbolic and social categories. Batchelor points out that this invisibilisation is reinforced by a chromophobic cultural and philosophical heritage that “manifests itself in the many and varied attempts to purge colour from culture, to devalue colour, to diminish its significance, to deny its complexity” (p. 22). Pink thus achieves this feat of in/visibilisation of gender, i.e. it makes it visible by marking the distinction between what is feminine and what is not (including within the category ‘man’), and, at the same time, it makes it invisible by making this distinction seem natural, but also anecdotal, relegating it to a mere aesthetic detail (Bideaux, 2021, p. 826).
As a result, any attempt to change the feminine meanings of pink seems futile, and neither the arts nor feminist and/or queer discourses ultimately succeed in de-signifying or re-signifying the colour. When feminists wear pink as a sign of “feminine power”[13] (Serano, 2007, p. 181), they are certainly reappropriating the colour, consciously, playing with the stereotypical and sexualised femininity associated with it, but they are not changing the meaning of pink; worse, they are validating and reinforcing it. Similarly, when drag performers use pink to caricature and deconstruct femininity, they also naturalise its symbolism of femininity (Newton, 1972, p. 103), while confirming its other meanings: pink is artificial and superficial (it is a disguise), or frivolous because it serves as entertainment. Sociologist Jo B. Paoletti writes in this sense: “Whether used traditionally, humorously, or ironically, pink is still a symbol of femininity and likely to remain so for time” (2012, p. 99). At most, these plastic and theoretical manipulations of colour make apparent the processes of construction of the symbolism of pink, in relation to gender, but always participating in this construction. This is completely in line with what Lauretis says about the technologies of gender, namely that “[t]he construction of gender also goes on, if less obviously, in the academy, in the intellectual community, in avant-garde artistic practices and radical theories, even, and indeed especially, in feminism” (1987, p. 3).
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[1] See the long list of examples in the “Pink means feminine” section of TV Tropes website.
[2] On the series side, we can mention: Chanel Oberlin in Scream Queens (20th Century Fox Television, 2015-2016) or Candice Renoir in the eponymous French police series (France 2, since 2013), both often dressed in pink; and on the movie side: Elle Woods in Robert Luketic’s Legally blonde (2001) or the Plastics in Mark Waters’ Mean Girls (2004).
[3] Examples include singer Elvis Presley (1935-1977), boxer Sugar Ray Robinson (1921-1989), rappers Lil Peep (1996-2017) and Lil Nas X, and the fictional character Jay Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940).
[4] Groupe µ proposed to break down visual signs by separating, on the one hand, iconic signs (figurative elements) which maintain an analogous relationship with the object they represent, and on the other, plastic signs. With this distinction, Group µ made it possible to interpret colours independently of the icons to which they refer.
[5] See in particular the case of the Japanese Hello Kitty licence (Yano, 2013).
[6] Associated with the flowering of the ornamental cherry trees (sakura) that hold a central place in Japanese culture, pink then symbolises beauty and the delicate balance between death and life, in reference to the petals of the flowers that open and fade quickly (Atsushi, 2007).
[7] Popularised in the 1930s and 1940s, the association of pink with “Mexicanity” has its origins both in the bougainvillea flowers – widespread in Mexico – and in the use of pink in Mexican crafts, particularly in the Tehuantepec region. Since 1968, pink has been used by Mexico to communicate its national identity, and since 2015 it has become the official colour of Mexico City (Melendez-Escalante, 2018).
[8] Pink was undoubtedly the favourite colour of Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961. She regularly wore pink dresses, her family home had a pink bathroom and kitchen, and the shades of pink she liked were even nicknamed “First Lady Pink” or “Mamie Pink” (Marling, 1994, p. 38).
[9] See also the “Princesses Prefer Pink” section of TV Tropes website
[10] See in particular the case of Mamie Eisenhower (Grisard, 2018).
[11] See Liotard and Jamain-Samson, 2011.
[12] A pejorative term for a single woman, aged fifty or more, who defers her loneliness to the company of cats (McKay Johnson, 2008). For example, the character Dolores Umbridge from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter saga of books – adapted to the cinema –, dressed entirely in pink, fits this stereotype.
[13] To name but a few: the aforementioned Paris Hilton, the porn actress Alicia Amira and the pop singer Nicki Minaj.