[BadWolf]

Don't mean to start a big flame war here but I'm having an argument with a friend...

He's quite a liberal guy, he thinks the idea that boys prefer blue and girls prefer pink is a schema or societal construct... I'm not sure if I agree or disagree but I fvcking hate the colour pink on anything other than a girl.
Theres something about a dude wearing pink that disgusts me.

I love all the colours of the rainbow save for pink...and I love pink on women. When I see guys walking around in pink tshirts and they try and pass it off as 'salmon'... I mean, I want to wretch, seriously... I think it looks like the dude is trying to be like a woman. For some reason, I always feel excited and agressive when I look at neon blues and reds, I love them... yellow to actually but neon pink is the colour of women.
I've honestly never seen a piece of clothing I could wear with pink in it that would make me feel good. I just find the colour fvcking ugly on men. That also goes for most pastels... they just look like sh1t in comparison to deep blues or reds... weird right... well no amount of telling me gender constructs is going to change it... I fvcking hate pink on men.

[BadWolf]

some more garbage... sorry... I just... it offends my eyes. It just makes guys look weak IMO.

[thegmanifesto]

Some cats can pull it off...

[BadWolf]

I think they'd look better in white or a lighter shade of blue.

[Menace]

It's not a construct. Girls generally like pink (and purple). Most girls start out liking those colors, then can shift to different ones in adulthood. When my daughter was a baby she was dressed in fairly neutral colored clothes like pale yellows and greens. Her room was not pink, it was actually mango orange. None of her toys were pink. Once she got a bit older she had a strong prefernce for pink/purple without it being forced on her. Also, she used to like princess everything, but now doesn't. They just go through phases, and I think people waste a tremendous amounts of time worrying about this crap. What young children really need is for parents to spend lots of time with them and give them lots of attention.

[BadWolf]

I'm actually being honest in my opinion... not worried about what it says politically, just when I meet a guy on the street and hes wearing pink, I usually don't feel like shaking hands with him. Like a bad taste or looking at a sick person. I sometimes have a feeling he's going to be one of these new age 'in touch with your feelings' types...and I'm usually right.

[bacon]

pink is best avoided as its damn near impossible to pull off. if you ask me men should stay clear of purple and yellow most of the time too.

[Caligula]

Boys used to be put in dresses until they were about eight years old. Being put in trousers ('breeches') was considered a rite of passage, part of growing up; a step towards becoming a man. I'm pretty sure it didn't make them more likely to become transvestites or effeminate, suggesting it's not all socially constructed - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)

I regularly pull off pink, yellow and damn near any colour I like with no problems or accusations of effeminacy. It's all about how you wear it. Sharp blazer, white shirt with pink trousers

[_GQ_]

Pink looks best on guys with darker skin, as do most 'bright' colors. Simple color coordination.

[GBG]

I'm wearing a pink button down and charcoal slacks right now, I look shawp.

[_GQ_]

(02-21-2013 05:46 PM)GBG Wrote:  

I'm wearing a pink button down and charcoal slacks right now, I look shawp.

What color shoes? I'm a big fan of charcoal and pink together, I wear it often.

[GBG]

Black shoes.

I see 50's wearing some brown wingtips. What do you think about that?

[_GQ_]

Yep, I wear brown oxfords.

[Teedub]

Pink on men was huge in Britain around 2004. I don't really think it matters. If Beckham wore pink tomorrow, women across the globe would still faint over him.

[LooTa]

(02-21-2013 05:09 PM)BadWolf Wrote:  

Don't mean to start a big flame war here but I'm having an argument with a friend...

He's quite a liberal guy, he thinks the idea that boys prefer blue and girls prefer pink is a schema or societal construct...

In this instance, I think your friend is right.

a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti.

And it ain't just colours that have changed.

Quote:

Little Franklin Delano Roosevelt sits primly on a stool, his white skirt spread smoothly over his lap, his hands clasping a hat trimmed with a marabou feather. Shoulder-length hair and patent leather party shoes complete the ensemble.

We find the look unsettling today, yet social convention of 1884, when FDR was photographed at age 2 1/2, dictated that boys wore dresses until age 6 or 7, also the time of their first haircut. Franklin’s outfit was considered gender-neutral.

[scorpion]

Pink and blue are just colors along the visible spectrum of light. They are not inherently masculine or feminine any more than certain radio frequencies or temperatures would be.

Your friend is right, this is entirely cultural. If for some reason you had grown up in an environment where the most masculine men preferred to wear pink, and women blue, your preference would be totally shifted.

This is another example of guys getting carried away in an effort to appear masculine. "I'm so manly that I can't even stand the color pink if it isn't on a woman." It reeks of insecurity. It's a fucking color, get a grip. Don't pretend like you feel the need to vomit because you see a man in a pink shirt. What are you, 11 years old? You want to be a man? Start by not giving a shit what color shirts other men are wearing.

[Caligula]

(02-21-2013 06:28 PM)Teedub Wrote:  

Pink on men was huge in Britain around 2004. I don't really think it matters. If Beckham wore pink tomorrow, women across the globe would still faint over him.

Pink, yellow, lime-green, all kinds of pastels remain a big part of the summertime preppy look. None of that looks particularly if pulled off right.

[Blaster]

I think color associations are highly socially constructed BUT that they are primarily inspired and reinforced by very natural associations. For example:

People associate Blue with sky and water. Green, with plants (sometimes also water). White: milk, purity, snow. Yellow: sunlight. Tan: wood and sand. Red: Blood and fire. And so on. Pink is associated with lips, blushing, and the vagina. Also maybe the mouth and internal organs but mostly the vagina.

In other words: if you think you can pull off a vagina-colored shirt then by all means go for it. Some guys will look awesome, like Lebron in that GQ picture. It helps a lot of the rest of the clothes (and the wearer) are very sleek and masculine. But many guys will just look gay, silly, or hipster-try-hard.

[TheKantian]

I think a pastel pink, or whatever you call it, most guys can pull it off.

[Cincinnatus]

(02-21-2013 05:32 PM)Caligula Wrote:  

Boys used to be put in dresses until they were about eight years old. Being put in trousers ('breeches') was considered a rite of passage, part of growing up; a step towards becoming a man. I'm pretty sure it didn't make them more likely to become transvestites or effeminate, suggesting it's not all socially constructed - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)

I have family pictures dating back 100+ years showing my grandfathers and great-grandfathers as babies and young children, and as things appear, this was quite the norm, even in the southern United States.

It also makes economic sense. I have spent years working in the tailoring industry and I can tell you that cutting the fabric for and sewing pants (which require a particular patterning) is much more complex than putting together dress-like apparel.

I have a picture of one of my grandfathers wearing what looks to be a dress as a young child. In his 40's he married a woman almost 20 years younger than himself, and sired six children. I doubt anyone would've questioned his sexuality or manliness on simple account of economically-produced clothes he wore as a child.

Shit, consider the ancient tribesmen of Ireland and Scotland for instance - possibly some of the manliest men wore kilts, which are often teased for resembling a skirt.

[Mage]

While most usually when a liberal talks about something being just a social construct, that liberal is full of bullshit, but this time this is really a social construct.

It was actually in reverse in the old times. If you asked a person 100 years ago which color is for boys and which for girls - blue or pink, he would wonder about such a strange question but in the end he would probably say that pink is for boys and blue is for girls. For two reasons

1.Pink is a shade of red and therefore more aggressive, associated with fire . Should go for boys.

2.Blue is more calm and passive and is associated with water and virgin Mary. Should go for girls.

I believe people today have this in inverse because they experience women to be the more sexual, agressive go girrrrl powerrrr sex. While they expect boys to be more in the background chivalrously opening doors type.

You will know that the world is right again when women will be associated with a calm color like blue rather than with this obnoxiously irritatingly not-in-you-face-aggressive-red but passive aggressive color that is pink. Men should be associated with red as the bold aggressive risk loving sex they are.

Take the red pill my friends!

[Titan]

Pink (in a preppy way as another user said) has a very strong sex appeal.

I just saw one guy rocking these type of shorts with a fitted white v neck.



Dude looked sharp as a razor and had girls staring at him like he was a model or some shit. Bet he got laid.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I don't really care, because the historical sources about what color was popular at what point in time are a bit confused. It could be either way.

I do get annoyed when feminists claim that the current distribution is somehow offensive or patriarchal. First of all, wearing a certain color doesn't equate oppression. A color is not relevant to your quality of life. Second, if somehow it is oppression, aren't boys suffering from being "made" to wear blue as well, making the problem clearly not patriarchal?

[Blaster]

What annoys feminists (apart from thought leaders telling them they should be annoyed at this) at is the way all the toys are divided. The colors are more or less incidental. It's that there's a huge "boy section" with "boy toys" and a huge "girl section" with "girl toys" instead of a more subtle and gender-neutral arrangement of just "toys."

And frankly I think they have a point. Although there are some obvious differences between boys and girls even at young ages, I don't think we need fucking Wal Mart or Target deciding which toys are for boys and which ones are for girls.

[RouteBackwards]

This is all fine and such, but don't women have a natural deviation (neurologically and thus biologically) for red or shades of red (pink), and boys have a natural deviation towards blues and shades of blue?

I recall reading that in a psych text years ago, so whether or not this was at one point opposite, the biology still rings true.