It doesn’t take more than one commercial break on any given television station to see that there is a prominent divide between the portrayal of men and women and the marketing techniques target towards them. While I recognize that gender is a spectrum, I will mostly be discussing men and women for the purposes of this article. However, it is important to note that gender roles are harmful to everyone, regardless of what’s in your pants.

In today’s society the color is pink is associated with femininity and the color blue, or any dark colors for that matter, is associated as being masculine. Advertising is so gendered, it isn’t even funny. Sell the same project to children, let’s use those super fun toy cars you can drive, and you’ll see one commercial targeted at girls that is almost entirely pink, I’m talking the Barbie Jeep, the background, even the music feels pink. The commercial targeted at boys is either a blue or black Jeep driving on the road, racing, having fun, probably some rock-type music in the background. I don’t know about you, but it seems like the boys are always having more fun.

One thing that’s really interesting about the color divide of gender roles is that it used to be the opposite. In England in the 1800’s, boys used to wear pink because they were considered small men, and the men wore red uniforms. It wasn’t until World War II when men accused of homosexuality were forced to wear a pink triangle that pink began being known as a more feminine color.

So, you may ask yourself, why does it matter if boys and girls toys are different colors? I wish it were only that simple. Gender roles go essentially into everything in society. The overall idea is that women should be soft, fragile, aesthetically pleasing, submissive, and be focused on the home and the family, while men should be strong, assertive, rough, active, and know how to do things like fix cars, chop wood, and make money.

Some people say, well men and women are different, so why is it a problem if we act differently? The problem is not that we act differently, the problem is that society expects us to act according to our gender. This hurts women who may naturally be more assertive and active, it hurts men who may be more in touch with their emotions, and it hurts people on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum who may not fit the category they’re assigned at birth, or who don’t identify with either category.

Gender roles matter because they hurt everyone. This doesn’t mean that enjoying some of the things that categorize your gender in this society is a bad thing. What it does mean, is that as a society we need to be more understanding of individual differences instead of trying to make every one of each sex be the same.