Pink has many connotations (Fletcher, 2022). Since the very first day of our lives, a color is assigned at birth by society depending on the baby’s sex (Uncu, G., & Çalışır, G., 2018). The dichotomy of pink and blue can date back to the 1950s when pink embodied ideas of femininity and female childhood (Fletcher, 2022). As the division of genders by color grew more prominent, many objects fell under this gendered separation (Elsesser, 2023).
Pink has even earned a place in popular culture as mentioned in the movie Mean Girls, with the famously acclaimed phrase: “On Wednesday we wear pink”. It has also been the color of feminist protests and social media trends (Fletcher, 2022). But this color is highly associated with all things related to Barbie and the doll itself (Elsesser, 2023). Today, pink is the main color present in advertisements and marketing directed to girls reinforcing gender stereotyping in girlhood while boys are not restricted to just one color (Uncu, G., & Çalışır, G., 2018).
To conclude, it is important to mention the link between consumption and gender stereotypes. The association between them lies in the need of capitalism for more consumption (Uncu, G., & Çalışır, G., 2018) which in turn generates trends and leads to the commodification of people’s social struggles creating a misguided feeling of success (Bideaux, 2019). One of the examples of this is the use of pink in advertisements that reinforces gender stereotypes as well as the pink tax.