女孩穿粉色，男孩穿蓝色，不是很常见么？但这两种颜色为何成了区分性别的常用色，这个问题倒是值得探究。

By Jeanne Maglaty

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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.[1] Shoulder-length hair and patent leather party shoes complete the ensemble.[2]

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.[3] Franklin’s outfit was considered gender-neutral.[4]

But nowadays people just have to know the sex of a baby or young child at first glance. Thus we see, for example, a pink headband encircling the bald head of an infant girl.[5]

Why have young children’s clothing styles changed so dramatically[6]? How did we end up with two “teams”—boys in blue and girls in pink?

It’s really a story of what happened to neutral clothing. For centuries children wore dainty[7] white dresses up to age 6. What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached.[8]

The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid.[9] Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the two colors were not promoted as gender signifiers until just before World War I—and even then, it took time for popular culture to sort things out.[10]

For example, a Ladies’ Home Journal article in June 1918 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.”[11] Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes;[12] or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies.

In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate[13] colors for girls and boys according to leading US stores. In Boston, Filene’s[14] told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.

Today’s color dictate wasn’t established until the 1940s, as a result of Americans’ preferences as interpreted by manufacturers and retailers.[15] It could have gone the other way.

So the baby boomers[16] were raised in gender-specific clothing. Boys dressed like their fathers, girls like their mothers. Girls had to wear dresses to school, though unadorned styles and tomboy play clothes were acceptable.[17]

When the women’s liberation movement arrived in the mid-1960s, with its anti-feminine, anti-fashion message, the unisex look became the rage—but completely reversed from the time of young Franklin Roosevelt.[18] Now young girls were dressing in masculine—or at least unfeminine—styles, devoid of[19] gender hints.

One of the ways [feminists] thought that girls were kind of lured into subservient roles as women were through clothing.[20] If we dress our girls more like boys and less like frilly[21] little girls, they are going to have more options and feel freer to be active.

Gender-neutral clothing remained popular until about 1985. All of a sudden it wasn’t just a blue overall; it was a blue overall with a teddy bear holding a football. Disposable diapers[22] were manufactured in pink and blue.

Another important factor has been the rise of consumerism[23] among children in recent decades. According to child development experts, children are just becoming conscious of their gender between ages 3 and 4, and they do not realize it’s permanent until age 6 or 7.[24] At the same time, however, they are the subjects of sophisticated and pervasive advertising that tends to reinforce social conventions.[25] So they think, for example, that what makes someone female is having long hair and a dress.

While the fashion world may have divided children into pink and blue, but in the world of real individuals, not all is black and white[26].

Vocabulary

1. 小富兰克林端正地坐在凳子上，白色的裙子平整地盖在膝上，两支小手抓着一顶帽子，帽子边沿镶着秃鹳的羽毛。Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 富兰克林•德拉诺•罗斯福（1882—1945），美国第32任总统 [1933—1945]，就任总统后推行“新政”，二战时对建立反法斯西同盟作出重大贡献。

2. patent leather: 漆皮；party shoes: 宴会鞋，通常为高跟鞋；ensemble: 整体效果，也指全套配合协调的女装。

3. unsettling: 令人不安的；social convention: 社会习俗；dictate: 规定，命令，也用作名词；dress: 连衣裙，套裙。

4. outfit:（尤指在特殊场合穿的）全套服装；gender-neutral: 中性的。

5. headband: 束发带；encircle: 围绕，环绕；infant: 婴儿（期）的。

6. dramatically: 戏剧化地，剧烈地。

7. dainty: 小巧的，精致的。

8. practicality: 实用性；diaper: 尿布；bleach: 漂白。

9. the march: 进展，形成；gender-specific: 针对某一性别的；linear: 连续的。

10. pastel: 柔和的淡色彩；promote: 推广；gender signifier: 性别标识物；sort out: 弄清楚。

11. decided: 坚定的，坚决的；delicate: 精美的，雅致的。

12. flattering: 悦人的，此处指“适合与……搭配”；blond: 白肤金发碧眼的人（男的一般称为blond，女的一般称为blonde）；brunette: 具黑（或深褐）色头发和浅黑色皮肤的女子，此类男子称为brunet。

13. sex-appropriate: 适合某种性别的。

14. Filene’s: 位于波士顿的老牌百货商店，于2005年倒闭。下文的Best & Co.为儿童服饰商店，Halle’s和Marshall Field为百货商店。

15. preference: 喜爱或偏爱的事物；interpret: 阐释；manufacturer: 制造商，制造厂；retailer: 零售商。

16. baby boomer: 生育高峰期出生的一代人（之一员），生育高峰期是指二战后1947至1961年间出生的一代美国人。

17. unadorned: 未经装饰的，朴素的；tomboy play clothes:“假小子”式的轻便装。

18. anti-feminine: 反女性特征的，feminine（具有女性特征的）的反义词为masculine（具有男性特征的）；unisex: 不分男女的；the rage: 时尚，风靡一时的事物；reversed: 反向的，相反的。

19. devoid of: 毫无的，没有的。

20. feminist: 女权主义者；lure: 引诱，诱惑；subservient: 恭顺的，低声下气的。

21. frilly: （衣物等）饰有褶边的。

22. disposable diaper: 纸尿裤。

23. consumerism: 消费主义。

24. conscious: 意识到的；permanent: 常在的。

25. 然而与此同时，儿童也是处心积虑、无处不在的广告的目标对象，这些广告也在强化社会习惯。

26. black and white: 泾渭分明。

（来源：英语学习杂志）