Pink&Blue

      This week I wanted to write about something less serious than the last time, namely music. But about an hour ago I came across a video on Youtube that made me change my mind. I’m going to be quite serious again. Let’s talk about stereotypes and gender.

      While I was listening to music on Youtube, a video called “Pink&Blue” appeared in my page (I'm going to add a link to it under the post. However, the strong language and maybe for someone images included there may be controversial, so I don't want to force you to watch it). I watched it and that reminded me of what my 12-year-old cousin said couple of weeks ago. She is hitting puberty and starts to think more about her image and appearance. And what she said was: I like to wear black and blue things and girls say I’m weird. She’s considered “weird” because she doesn’t wear make up at the age of 12 and just simply doesn’t like pink colour. Then she added: Why is only pink a girl’s colour? Am I not a girl if I like black accessories?”. Not honey, that is what society makes you think.

      I'm at that awkward age where half of my friends are getting married and having babies and the other half are too drunk to type a comprehensible message on their phones. I don’t really focus on social media and when I get on Facebook it is probably because I need to check if my study group uploaded something important for classes. But I have days when I involuntary scroll down the Facebook page and I get to see a lot of photos of babies. Yes, my friends have babies while I still consider myself a baby. But that’s not the topic of this monologue. If the baby on a photo happens to be the girl, they are usually dressed all in pink or violet, when they are boys – blue. “It’s a boy!” says the description under the photo of proud pregnant woman holding a pair of blue socks and blue balloons. Why only blue? Is it the only way to determine the sex of your baby? Choosing pink for girls and blue for boys in such an early age doesn’t seem to really matter. And I agree, that may not be the biggest problem. Not at that moment. The real issue comes a little bit later.

      While a young lady or young gentlemen is growing, they tend to hear a lot of things related to their gender. “Why are you playing with dolls, Ryan? Those are for girls!”, “You’re a girl, you need to look pretty and behave like a lady”. Crying is not for boys, that makes them weak. Girls shouldn’t climb trees and cut their hair. Boys can’t show their emotions and be sensitive. Girls should learn to take care of a baby because they will sooner or later become a mother. Well, there it is. Not every girl will be a mother, not every boy needs to be tough and strong. People are different. That sentence seems to be obvious and yet the society still divide us in half. Those things are for girls, the others for boys. How is that we consider ourselves a highly developed society, the smartest organisms that live on Earth and we still can’t accept that simple fact. Everyone is different and the length of their hair or the way they dress don’t define their gender nor who they really are.

      I personally learned about the issue I’m writing about few times. As long as I remember my hair was  long. And after I came back from United States, the condition of my hair was just terrible. So I decided to cut them short. First of all, to give them a new lease of life, and also because I wanted to try something new with my look. And shortly after that I started to hear questions like: “Did you cut them because you want to look like a boy?”, “Are you a lesbian? That’s your manifesto?”, “Shouldn’t girls at your age have long hair?”. So with short hair I automatically look like a boy. In the eyes of the society a simple change of hairstyle made me gay and not girly enough for my age. I’m sorry I wanted to try something new. And then I started to think about other situations like that. When I was around 14, I wanted to be a pilot. “Pilots are men, that’s not a job for girls. You can be… I don’t know, a stewardess?”. That’s what I heard from boys and some adults. I’m lucky to have a wonderful, open-minded mother so whatever idea I came up with, she supported me. But why do kid even need to hear that kind of stuff? It shouldn’t be a thing.

      So, at the end, I want to say again: not only a gender defines you as a human being. You don’t need to act in the way people expect you to just because you’re a boy or a girl. You don’t need to be ashamed of your feelings, your taste, your interests just because they don’t fit in the stereotype. Be yourself so that you can be happy.

Pink&Blue by Jake Dypka and Hollie McNish