Pink is for women.
My first romper as a kid (obviously) was a yellow coloured romper. It was not the general baby pink. For my mom, colour and gender were two different things.
Recently, I was researching on why Pink is associated to a particular sex and not all humans, and turns out that it was nothing but a marketing ploy. Yes, your entire life was a lie if you believed it otherwise. Pink is a colour that I grew up liking until I was mocked for liking it and sleeping in a room that was pink and white. It felt normal to me, because I connected with pink. It is an easy colour, makes my skin and eyes pop and it’s comforting. A shade so versatile, I couldn’t have imagined a colour I connected so much while growing up.
In college, I remember my brother wore a oink shirt, and someone commented, “Pink is for girls!” and I cringed at the statement, the thought, mindset and the person who said it out loud. The first question that crossed my mind was— WHY??? Why is it so restricted, why can’t we leave colours alone? Do we really need to label them too, aren’t we humans enough? Brings me back to my research, that the colour Pink was also worn by men unless a marketing person with a devil’s workshop on his head and couldron full of sexism, decided to make it all about women trying to make women and men feel bad about choosing PINK for their clothing, font, or even a sock.
Pink is not just a colour for women, but a colour that does represent power, empathy, compassion, versatility and strength. And I believe nobody should be ashamed of owning this colour, be it men or women or anyone else ho connects with pink.
The constant discrimination through various platforms put me off completely. With International Women’s Day coming up, I couldn’t help myself but indulged into reading how advertising f*#@ed it up for women in the past years.
I came across socialmediadissect’s instagram post on advertising targeting women. Some of the comments put me off. I mean how can one not see how wrong they are!
We millennials are fighting each day to bring down patriarchy but women centric brands like USHA and Fair n Lovely (or shall I say “Glow” n Lovely) are the ones feeding this thought. I can’t blame a woman to expect me to know sewing or household work because USHA’s target audience believes in this ad and follows it. Or I can’t blame mothers who rejected me for being dark skinned for their son because I can’t keep up with Fair n Lovely’s standards of fair beauty. Neither can I blame a mother who chooses to dress up her daughter in a dress and take her off of football lessons because she is a girl because Hindustan Times Cafe promotes it, calling the outfit “chic”. And Nando’s, it’s an invite for abusers who clearly will not understand the wit and instead, take the add literally. It’s disgusting to see what adversting and marketing has done for women in the past. Jack n Jones, with two sister companies— ONLY and VeroModa (both for women) still managed to get away!
I have been watching a show on Netflix called The Bold Type (with a nice serif font and Pink banner) that talks about three young women in media and about their daily struggles in and out of the field. Pink really caught my attention, again. It talks a lot about how women support instead of bringing each other down. How two best-friends who started out together are still proud of each other’s successes and how girls always have one and other’s back.
I remember walking into a room full of men for a presentation at the second best pharma company in the country and not only was I interrupted by phone calls for chai-biscuit but also by constant texting, internal discussion and jokes. But only when my founder (a man)stood up to speak, he had all the attention. I wonder, if that team is led by a young lady, how is it that they have forgotten how to behave other around women.
PS: These were men in their 40s or 50s with almost no respect for women speakers or whatever impression they have about women co-workers.
I still blame marketing and advertising for starting this but I also thank the newer generation to fight it, remember Ariel’s ad— Share the load. It’s thoughtful. It’s a message that we all need to use and inject ourselves with…
To keep marketing and adversting gender neutral. Let’s keep it clean.
As a marketeer, I want to create this space a safe space. Design and copy ahve a larger impact than numbers and facts. That helps you derive your facts and numbers, sitting in offices. Tapping onto the emotion is one thing, but toying with it is totally unethical. Create ads that inspire, provoke, disrupt, the ongoing mindset. Create a startegy that involves everyone and not just one part of the world. Build a brand that in inclusive of gender and sex and colour and everything. Your audience may be women/men, but there is always a certain percentage of the opposite sex that’s consuming your content too. Be sensitive towards things that are not supposed to be normal. Period.
Let’s make marketing clean!
