"It's always been like this", claim people who draw their knowledge from habit, for whom the familiar is naturally "true". Relationships take place between men and women simply because their genitals fit together so well. Men like building sites and cheat. Women like children and are obsessed with clothes. Boys like light blue, girls like pink. Anything that deviates from this is unnatural. But what if it used to be the other way around? Is this a mistake in history, or is the present wrong?

ROSA for the favorite boys

"An 1893 New York Times article on baby clothes laid down the rule that "a boy should always be dressed in pink, a girl in blue". Neither the author nor the saleswoman she interviewed was sure why, but the author ventured a tongue-in-cheek explanation: 'The prospects of boys are so much rosier than those of girls,' she wrote, 'that it is enough to dress a girl in baby blue to prepare her for life as a woman in the world. In 1918, a trade magazine confirmed the "generally accepted rule", because pink was a "much more decisive, stronger color", whereas blue was "more delicate and cuter"." (Kassia St Clair, The World of Colors)

BLUE for the Virgin Mary

Pink is delicate strength, and masculine - like that! After all, it is reminiscent of bloodstains (of returning soldiers) - yes, yes. And it's so much more determined than light blue.

"After all, pink is just pale red, which was the most masculine color of all in the era when soldiers wore scarlet coats and cardinals wore red robes; blue, on the other hand, was unmistakably associated with the Virgin Mary." (Kassia St Clair, The World of Colors)

At some point, pink must have been declared the weaker color and this probably happened gradually. The turnaround probably began in the 1940s, but the reasons for this are not entirely clear. It probably has something to do with sailor suits, jeans, Barbie and possibly also with the branding of homosexuals during the Hitler era.

As a child, I had no Barbie and no pink clothes. Only my brother wore pink socks because he had washed all his white ones with a pair of red ones. We didn't have a TV either, Disney didn't exist for us. Nevertheless, I think pink is pretty, a beautiful color. Get rid of politics, you might say. Because it's not that easy, I create a refuge for myself at home where the colors are free. This also has an effect on my other relationships with colors. I'm learning to like purple and I'm already working on my relationship with mustard yellow.