Colour Stereotypes

I often wonder when we developed the concept of stereotyping. While we seem to have always had a tendency to categorize people, places, and events, stereotyping has really exploded in the past century or so. All you have to do is look at history to see how things have changed.

Take colours for example. Although we have been trying to move away from stereotypes, certain colours are still thought of as gender specific choices. Pink is still a girl's colour and blue is still a boy's colour. Yet, there are more fashions utilizing blue as a colour of choice in female clothing than pink in male clothing.

Certain colour combinations make sense. I don't and never will like pink on a redhead. To me the colours clash. Yet I've seen some shades of pink that can work well with certain shades of red hair. So I will never tell a redhead not to wear pink. It simply isn't my choice.

There are few colours I don't like, mostly sickly looking colours or neons. I'm not a big fan of pink but I like little touches of it. My favourites tend to blues, greens, copper and golds. So my house decor tends more to those shades than any others. But if you look around, you'll find almost every colour represented someplace.

Colour preferences are very personal but I've known people who won't wear certain colours because they aren't "girl colours" or "boy colours". Kind of silly, in my opinion, but it's something they take seriously. So I try to remember that.

But, still, I wonder how the current stereotypes got set in place. Pink used to be a popular colour worn by men before it became known as a "dandy's choice" and eventually became acceptable for women only. Blue has always been popular for both sexes yet somehow it became a boy's colour.

I can understand certain shades becoming associated with the two genders as well as they are extensions of the colour chart from the base colour. Yet red has been considered a boy's colour more than a girl's despite how close to pink it is. Which simply shows once again that logic does not apply to the actions of humans.

Personally, I like the fact that we're moving away from at least one stereotype in life. Although, it still is a bit of a surprise to see men wearing pink it is also nice to see it happening more often. Especially since some of the shades being produced are so gorgeous. It almost makes me willing to wear pink shades. Almost.