During Easter dinner with dear family & friends, all of us were around the table chatting. The youngest member of the party (who is 4 mind you) was going on his fourth yogurt of the day and needed a spoon. No problem right? I'll just go to the drawer where my mom has acquired almost 500 plastic spoons for just this sort of occasion, and grab him a spoon...Right? WRONG. He follows me to the drawer where I grab a biodegradable plastic PINK spoon, solely because it was the first one I grabbed and tried to hand it to the kid. He vehemently screeched out that pink is a "no color" and that it is "for girls". Excuse me? It's a spoon. His dad explained to me that he taught his youngest son that pink is for girls and that blue is for boys. I couldn't help but wonder if he really knew that pink was originally a man's color. Probably not is what I surmised from the situation as the kid proceeded to shout that he was to high-five boys and hug girls (which there is nothing wrong with that).

I am not, by any means, knocking someone's parenting style. I am just saying to get your facts straight before telling your kid what he can and can't have based off of a particular color. I mean a spoon (or any cutlery) is supposed to help you to eat, why on earth would you have a color bias about it? I could see it potentially if there was another kid around his age and they wanted to have the same or different color "whatever" that he had, but a spoon?

This got me thinking: is just one person in this great big wide world misinformed about the color pink? Or are there others out there?

Pink is not just a girls color, and here's why:

According to NPR , back in the 1700s both men and women wore the color pink. There have been numerous paintings and art pieces in which both girls and boys wore pink and the only way to truly distinguish their gender was to look at the accessories they wore. Particular shoes and hats were only worn by boys, making the distinction between male and female children.

In a book published in 1794 by a French writer Xavier de Maistre (A Journey Around My Room), he recommends that men have pink and white bedrooms to brighten and promote uplifting moods. Pretty nifty right?

Even in 1925 when "The Great Gatsby" was published, the characters speculated his past, "An oxford man?!... Like hell he is. He wears a pink suit!" Ralph Lauren designed Robert Redford's pink suit for the 1970s classic.

However, what truly solidified the fact that pink was indeed a man's color, came from a trade catalog in 1918, which is the same year my grandfather was born, God rest his soul. They said that it was in fact blue that was the more dainty and delicate color for women, and pink was recommended for boys/gentlemen because it was a stronger, more passionate color, and it was derived from red.

In the 1920s, Macy's Department Store pushed pink as a man's color, trying to discourage the use of hand-me-downs. Go Macy's!

It was also said that blue mimicked the Blessed Mother Mary in femininity because of most of the pictures and depictions of her have her wearing blue.

During World War II, the Japanese kamikaze planes had Cherry Blossoms painted on to them.

After World War II, pink started to become more of the feminine color.

It began with Rosie the Riveter trading in her factory blues for a pink apron. Men reclaimed the workplace, and women became stay at home moms with shiny new appliances. That's where femininity started to become engulfed in pink.

In the 1970s, Feminists with their backlash against pink, actually cemented it as the "color for women". Way to propel us backwards.

I'm not suggesting we need to have an uprising on colors of the world here, but be informed on the color's history. And don't let your kid refuse a utensil that will help him/her eat food properly. Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that what's truly important here?

Information was used from:

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