WEBVTT - In the Pink 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.640 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.400 my My My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:21.360 Valentine's a day fast approaching, so of course we have 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.400 decided here to devote a few different episodes too, you 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.720 could say Valentine's Day content or maybe anti Valentine's Day content. Yeah, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.760 Usually Valentine's Day comes around and we sort of begrudgingly 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.599 do an anti Valentine'sday just to be like, yeah, it's 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.519 coming up terrible. But I've noticed this time we have 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.479 like five or six topics that we have planned to 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.279 really plumb the depths of different aspects of Valentine's Day 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.000 and to really attack it from four different fronts and 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.840 just take it out. Ye, take it out, take it out. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.200 You know what we're talking about here. We're really going 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.200 to get into Valentine's Day. We're going to dust it 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.280 and put it away, and we're gonna start by exploring 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.640 the color pink. Yes, because pink and red are the 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:12.440 predominant color scheme for Valentine's Day. It's the colors that 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.760 just assault you come pretty much the end of January, 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.800 maybe even right after Christmas. These days, you start seeing 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.440 it popping up everywhere, trying to sell you that candy, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:23.959 try to sell you those flowers, try to sell you 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.679 god knows what else, all in the name of this 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.120 big commercial holiday. Yeah, I call it the pink menace. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.360 And I call it that for a couple of different reasons. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.880 Some you know, the associations with Valentine's Day, which is 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.080 the sort of treacle that we we cling to, these 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.120 notions of idealized love and so on and so forth. 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.680 But also because I just don't enjoy the color pink, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.280 and I never have. So you don't like looking at it, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.480 you don't like wearing it. It makes me feel unsettled. Okay, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.560 And this is something I'm going to point out. I 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.080 think some of our female listeners will understand what I'm 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.680 talking about here. There is a certain hue of pink 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.400 that you will find in a gynecologist office, and it's 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.280 usually this kind of mauve pink hue that you find 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.520 in literature about the reproductive system, or you even see 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.360 in the models of the reproductive system. Okay, I know 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.320 what you're talking about. That that that shade of pink. 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.720 You also see on the translucent pages that go over 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.919 anatomical illustrations. You see it like nice and shiny there. Yeah, 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.640 but you particularly will see it in a gynecologiest office. 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.919 And I call it vegonna pink. And it's just it's 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.920 just that kind of shade of pink. That's just it 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.760 doesn't have a lot of verve to it. It's a 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:40.720 bit of a depressing pink. And also I feel like 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.000 I'm in the ganna coologist office. I don't necessarily need 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.440 to be um, you know, walloped over the head with 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:48.280 this color. I know what I'm there for, you know 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.040 what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean in our culture, pink 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.440 has become this huge gender thing. It's become the color 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.400 for females, right, It's become fetishized, I think. I mean, 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:05.079 think about out pink diamonds, pink firearms, pink legos, which 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.040 we'll talk about a little bit. Pink salt Does that count? Uh? 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.280 I feel like that is the natural colored salt, right, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.919 hillily and salt, And it's very tasty. So I will 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.880 put that to the side. Beautiful cracked over a freshly 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.440 baked pizza. Okay, So in this episode we're going to 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:24.639 We're going to discuss pink. We're gonna talk about pink 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.480 from a cultural and historic standpoint. We're gonna break down 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.400 some of the science of pink and uh, you know, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.440 and at the end of it, we're gonna reach out 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.320 to the rest of you and get your input on 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.680 pink as a color, as a color that appears in 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.760 her surroundings, is the color that we we take on 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.360 on for ourselves. How do we feel about it and 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.840 how does it make others feel? Yeah, I'd like to 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.920 read this quote from Elizabeth Camp. She's writing for a 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.760 on magazine, and she says, pink matters because it is 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.160 bound up with ways of being in the world that 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.440 are partially aesthetic but also personal and political colors and 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.880 code aesthetic norms that run straight through to style, personality, culture, 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:12.560 and class. You know. Growing up, I feel that pink 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.840 was never like a huge deal. Like I wasn't one 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.680 of those kids that was raised with this idea like 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.000 just beaten into you do not wear pink because pink 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.039 is a girl's color. But on the other hand, I 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.760 don't remember having a lot of paint clothes, except perhaps 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.280 around Easter, you know, where you would have to have 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.240 dressed and sort of pastor pastel colors and go everybody 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.799 goes to church, and you get this horrible picture made 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.680 and it's you know, and your your your kid, it's 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.960 it's kind of sunny out. You just all you want 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:42.920 to do is get out of those church clothes, and 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.320 then instead you have to stand around and stay in 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.719 them and and wait for everybody to get together. Yeah. So, 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.679 so I have kind of those connotations with with pink 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.400 and some of its pastel colors, not so much that 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.479 it's I guess a little bit that it would that 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.040 it is feminine as well, because you end up going 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.760 to you know, two junior high and then it's it's 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.599 the issue of gender is huge, to the point where 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.880 I remember being made fun of because my legs weren't 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.440 hairy enough and therefore it was a sign of femininity 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.600 and man was there, and I remember feeling bad about it, like, oh, 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.080 I guess like I have to wear long pants all 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.480 the time. So I was gonna talk to you about that. Um, 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.600 but let me ask you this, does the color pink 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:29.000 ever evoke associations with calmness or peacefulness? Well, I will 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.040 say when it comes to pepto bismol. There is the 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.400 there is the promise of possible peace with the color. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.680 But with that I also have a strong memory of 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.159 it was either me or one of my sisters taking 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.640 pepto bismol for an unsettled stomach as a kid, and 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.000 then vomiting it up against the wall and onto the floor. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:48.720 And the floor was white carpet, so he had a 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.200 nice pink stain there from where someone had had vomited. Okay, 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:58.200 well that ties in lovely to a color called drunk 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.520 tank pink. And why does a tie in so well, Well, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.839 it is a color that was used and actually I 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.640 believe it's still used in some holding cells in jails. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.599 It's a bubblegum pink color. And think about a sort 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.440 of maybe an unruly intoxicated person they're locked up, the 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.359 cell they're put in, is that's drunk pink pink. What 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.479 are the effects? Well, the idea here is that the 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.039 pink is going to have a calming effect, a soothing effect, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.919 because you have not a you know, necessarily a delightful 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.000 TV drunk like otis on the Andy Griffith's Show, but 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.360 rather somebody who might be a little a little violent, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.839 a little a little out of it and a little perturbed. 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.159 They've been apprehended and placed inside of a cell. So 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.360 if there is a promise of potential calming from this color, 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.839 in fact, if you have some studies that back this 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.039 up as well, all the more reason to just throw 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.240 a bunch of pink paint at the problem. And I 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.480 hope that it's kind of a magic bullet, right, Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.359 And this was discovered in n by psychologists who figure 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.839 it out that this hue of pink could really calm 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.279 people down, and they used it on buses, school buses. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.560 They painted the seats pink, and they discovered that vandalism 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.120 rates declined. Uh. Door to do door to door charity 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.520 workers wore pink shirts in their donations rose threefold and 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.880 um some some very clever football coaches even introduced the 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:27.000 color into locker rooms. Yeah, in particular, the visitors locker 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.400 room at the University of Iowa was painted pink back 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.600 in seventy nine, and it was it was heavily criticized 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.040 for for being you know this this means of demoralizing 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.160 and also trying to to to use colors to manipulate 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.440 the effectiveness of your opponents. Um. One of the key 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.239 individuals that pops up in these studies is Alexander Schauss, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.080 and that's why you sometimes see the pink. This particular 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.840 mode of pink referred to as shause pink, also known 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.720 as Baker Miller pink, also known as passive pink, also 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.080 known as p s which I like that because it 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.800 sounds even more nefarious, like you're gonna use p six 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.640 one eighteen against your enemies. Well, and that has sort 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.840 of incarcerated sound to it as well. Right bring up 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.840 the shouts is quoted as saying, even if a person 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.680 tries to be angry or aggressive in the presence of pink, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.960 he can't. The heart muscles can't race fast enough. It's 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.960 a tranquilizing color that SAPs your energy. Even the color 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:29.560 bind are tranquilized by pink rooms. UM very much playing 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.280 into this idea that it's it's it's like a vampire 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.120 of colors. It's just SAPs your soul out of you. Um. 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.080 He He conducted a couple of different studies. The most 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.800 notable one was posted in the final issue of Ortho 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.360 Molecular Psychiatry in nineteen this when he took a hundred 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.680 and fifty three healthy men exposed them to cardboard squares 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.040 one of them blew one of them pink, And after 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.160 a full minute of staring at these, they were asked 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.160 to hold their arms out in front of their bodies, 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.520 you know, like a like a like a horror movie 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.000 zombie or mummy or something, and you know, and see 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:03.240 how long they could hold them out. And then their 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.960 arms were put down. They were given a few seconds 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.640 to recover, and then they did a second test, same thing, 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.320 and he found all but two men were dramatically weaker 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.800 after staring at the pink, while blue left the strength 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.880 in the test intact in both the first and the 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.280 second strength test. He ended up following this up in 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.760 another study thirty eight men squeezing a measuring device, and 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.880 again found found that they were weaker after exposure to 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.719 the pink. Now, the amount of time that you're exposed 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.600 to the pink is really key here, because Adam Altar, 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.400 who wrote the book Drunk Tank Pink, has said that 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.760 there's pretty good evidence that over a nine month period, 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.800 the very aggressive prisoners at a naval prison in Seattle 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.240 were much better behaved when they emerged fifteen minutes after 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.319 being put in the pink drunk tank. After that fifteen 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.640 minute exposure, if you go up to thirty minutes, you 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.400 have the reverse effects of that calming suit and color. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:06.320 All of a sudden, that color becomes distracting, it becomes angering. Yeah, 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.360 there's also the o this idea that you're you're tamping 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.080 everything down, You're you're kind of repressing stuff, and it's 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:18.320 going to eventually explode, Like paint cannot constrain the beastly 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.200 heart for too long, it cannot. The mary Kay of 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.760 it all will just fall apart, and the beast within 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.480 all of us, even mary Kay, will emerge. So we 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.080 were talking about this after we we looked at some 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.040 of these studies, instantly thinking about the use of pink 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:38.240 in sport and in physical combat, Like you would think 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.120 you would see more usage of pink on the playing 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.520 field um and and even on the battlefield UM in 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:48.280 lieu with some of these colors, that it wouldn't just 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.080 be a matter of all, let's paint the visitor locker 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.440 room pink and hopes that will will mess with their head, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.960 Like why not? Why not just full on pink uniforms 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.200 and let your opponents try and play against that. You 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.880 get a thirty minute advantage, right, and then they're gonna 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:04.960 start to become aggressive. But maybe they'll be a little 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.480 over aggressive. I don't know much about sports, but maybe 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.040 it's like a judo thing where you know they're they're 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.400 they're only ramping it up. Then you can adjust accordingly 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.000 and use their aggression against it. Well, we were also 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.000 talking about Dennis Rodman, who were saying seems to have 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.720 co opted a lot of the more uh, the more 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:30.040 feminine aspects of of his dress and his portrayal of himself. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.720 I mean, just think about this guy. He's a big guy. 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.280 He is um. You know, if I were to be 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.199 a basketball player and met him on the court, I 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:41.920 might be like, wow, okay, this guy is formidable. But 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:47.280 now think of Dennis Rodman wearing lipstick, or his hair 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.920 is a very feminine color, or he's wearing makeup, and 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.679 all of a sudden, it's like you're playing against a 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.839 ground queen. And this becomes an entirely different proposition because 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:00.280 now Dennis Rodman is playing with coda, with gender and 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.200 with hetero norms. And we know, and we'll talk about 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.960 this more, that nothing could be more unsettling in a 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.839 society that really ascribes to gender norms than someone crossing 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.960 those boundaries and playing with it, and it becomes a 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.880 bit of a threat. You're turning our established symbols and 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.560 motifs on their head, and it's essentially playing mind games 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.600 with me. Like, suddenly I have to do a whole 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.720 lot of extra computing to make sense of you on 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.440 the basketball court, whereas before you were just just a 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.760 big dude. And there I'm surrounded by big dudes. I'm 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.720 a basketball player out there, I'm probably a big dude myself. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.760 But then this, this just throws everything in its head. Yeah. 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.200 So what we're saying is make sports more interesting. Put 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.120 the drag element in there. Yeah, RuPaul coaches, this is 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.800 this is going to really amp up the psychological aspect 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:52.480 of it. I would I mean, I say this a 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.280 lot that I would be pretty much into any sport 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.040 if it could itself be more like pro wrestling. So 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.680 in pro wrestling you see lots of craze, the outfits 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.920 and face paint. If if you saw more crazy outfits 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.880 and face paint and say professional basketball, I would be 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.840 more tempted to watch. I would be there with you 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.520 I gotta tell you now, one of the things that 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.360 we talked about these archetypes, uh, that that you could 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.079 turn your head, is this idea that women like pink. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.920 It's completely ingrained, it's hardwired. And this, of course is 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:28.280 an erroneous idea out there that women are inherently gravitating 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.040 towards pink. And we start touched on this a bit, 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.440 albeit indirectly, and when we did our episode on the 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.800 color blue, because it turns out that most people prefer 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.440 blue overall than any other color. That's right. I remember 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.400 in that episode I mentioned that, UM that my son, uh, 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.679 my wife and I we UM. We didn't say, all right, 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:50.520 here's blue, this is the boy's color, this is the 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.880 one you should like, stay away from pink. But he 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.480 ends up gravitating towards blue. Yeah. And I believe that study. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.040 I know it was a paint company that funded it, UM, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.200 but I want to say it was the thirty countries 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.400 that they surveyed, and it was blue first, and then 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.360 I believe it was green, and then yellow was maybe 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.400 the last color that that people preferred or didn't prefer 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.240 very much. Pink didn't even make it onto that list, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.400 is my point. Um, So if you delve into this 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:23.320 a little bit more, you'll see that there's a two 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:28.040 thousand eleven study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.040 and they had one year old girls and boys that 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.960 were shown pairs of identical objects like bracelets, pill boxes, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.040 and picture frames, but with one of those objects being 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.040 pink and the other being a second color. Now, they 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.520 were no more likely to choose pink than any other color. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.960 But after the age of two, the girls started to 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.440 like pink and buy four boys were determined in their 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.640 rejection of pink. And the point of this is that 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.840 it is not hardwired. It is a cultural script that 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.800 kids began to sworb via all of the media around them, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.960 via the ways in which their parents may address them 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.200 or direct them toward things. Plus, you're growing up in 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.240 an age of TV abundance. You're just constantly marketed to 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.520 with products the pink for the girls, the blue or 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.400 some of the color for the boys, and it's just 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.080 just beaten down into your head. Um. That being said, 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.920 it's weird to look back in my own childhood and 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.280 having been raised very much in this age of just 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.600 all the television you can stand uh and and then 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.000 all the messages that are that they're on those airwaves. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.240 I distinctly remember Kinkishi muscle figures. I don't know if 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.600 you remember these at all. Um, they're like little a 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.160 Japanese product. I remember correctly. Uh, And it was Knkisi 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.720 in Japan and in the US it was muscle men um. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.000 And they were all these kind of wild, sort of 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.760 pro wrestler characters, but they had like, you know, crazy 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.000 animal heads or extra limbs. They were just elaborate comic 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.040 book type characters. But they were all this They are 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.960 all made out of this pink binda bowl material and 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.440 there was nothing, you know, you just completely accepted that 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:06.800 they're pink. I guess they're kind of fleshy. I don't know. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:10.480 They were called muscle men. Yeah, the muscles and muscles 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.480 are pink. We weren't called squishy non musli women. I 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.280 guess maybe maybe that's the thing. Maybe there was a 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.520 discussion where someone said, all right, uh, these these Knkichi 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.440 guys are pretty cool, but if we're going to market 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.720 him in the US, we need to name him something 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.720 really mask go in to make up for the pink color. 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.080 I don't know, Yeah, that's some gender performance terms. They're 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.800 like musclemen. Yeah, alright, we're gonna take a quick break, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.240 and when we get back, we're going to talk about 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.320 the color pink and how it actually hung with the 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:50.200 guys for a long time. All Right, we're back. We're 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.720 talking about pink. We've already talked about some of the 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.760 psychology of pink in the Science of pink. Uh. Now 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.200 we're talking about ginger and pink and then specifically how 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.760 it's become coded into our culture, especially here in the West. Yeah, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.439 because we think about pink is just being squarely for 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.080 girls and women, but in fact, um up until the 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:15.040 nineteen hundreds, it was just as equally worn among men 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.719 and women. In the seventeen hundreds too, you can you 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.040 look back at old plates and you will see that 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.440 men were just as likely to wear shades of lilac 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:29.320 and pink as a woman. So what's interesting is you 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.719 get to the nineteen hundreds and you get to children, right, 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.639 and this is where the coding begins. And largely in 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.280 the early nineteen hundreds, you have white clothing for children, 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.640 and the reason for that is because when they're very young, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.000 what do they do? They spill things all over themselves, 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.600 the urinate on themselves. There's a lot of washing of clothes, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.840 and so you don't want dyes in there. But as 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:58.200 the chemical process gets um a little bit easier for 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.680 for clothes to retain die than you begin to see 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.399 more colors bring up in children's clothing. Okay, so we 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.880 go from basically not having colors for the children and 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:09.520 now we have them. So yeah, suddenly colors are in 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.160 play for the the young children. And uh, it's left 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.200 to the fashion authorities to tell you what colors you 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:19.080 should dress. Here are your children in? And uh, interestingly enough, 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.960 since there's not an established culture of pink for girls 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.920 blue for boys, and in fact, pink is historically had 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.480 been used by men and it had been a masculine color. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.360 In many instances you saw advice such as the following 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:38.080 from a June article in the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.600 department said, the generally accepted rule is pink for boys 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.600 and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.240 being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.400 for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.719 is prettier for the girl. The complete reversal of of 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.800 what ends up becoming the gender color standard, right, because 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.760 pink is associated with red, and red is a more virile, 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.080 sanguine color, like the color of blood. It's robust. Indeed, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:08.000 I mean you're familiar with the Game of Thrones, Yes 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.720 I am. You know House Bolton, of course, yes, vicious, 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:16.080 vicious House. Their their sickle is the flayed man. And 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.639 the colors of that signal red and pink. That's the 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.280 colors of taking a person's skin off. I was just 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.800 about to say that's what you would find, right, little pink, 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:30.119 little red. Now it didn't. The color of pink didn't 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:36.280 become co opted for women until after World War Two. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.320 Now think about this, this is important. During World War Two, 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.320 you have Rosie the Riveter. You have a pretty stark 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.440 reversal of gender roles, right because you have now women 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.199 that are in factories and they are working and they 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.359 are making income because the men are having to go 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.080 overseas and fight in the war exactly. So what happens 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.800 after that is men return, and then there's this really 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:04.280 intense movement for heteronormatizing the gender roles, for essentially putting 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.560 women back in their place and You see that in 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.560 the fashion the day, right, because you see post World 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:14.399 War two, Um, no longer is Rosie wearing her dungarees, right, 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.760 her blue dungarees. You see women in ads with nipped 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.159 in waiste and they're wearing a lot of pink and 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.560 a lot of product plays coming in. You see a 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.199 lot of shades of pink and the products that are 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.800 being offered, and the message is that the woman's house 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.240 is her demain. So it's no longer like Rosie the riveter. 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.199 It's more like tend to your roses. Yea. And instead 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.480 of and instead of working on the machinery, suddenly you 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.360 have the benefit all of all this new futuristic machinery 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.439 that's coming into your kitchen and into your household for 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:51.440 you to utilize in your traditional feminine role in the house. Yeah, 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:53.159 and hey, why not get some of that stuff in 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.640 the shade of pink, especially new beauty products too. Right, 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.360 you've got a pink brush to come on your hair 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.359 on times a day. Um. Now, in the seventies, you 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.280 do see pink taking a backseat, and some of that 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.360 is because of the more feminist oriented ideas that colors 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:15.040 should be unisex um. But then the big eighties return, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.160 and with the eighties neon colors fuchia, and you see 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.959 pink kind of trickling in again as a hyper gender 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.720 performing color. Yeah, because on one hand, you get the 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:28.840 idea that you know what, well, you know, women can 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.520 be scientists. Of course, women can have all these different 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.640 roles in society. But not only are they strong enough 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:35.960 to do that, they're strong enough to wear pink if 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.320 they want to. Yeah. Yes, But I think I feel 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.320 like some of this was really just a marketing juggernaut. 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:47.000 And we've seen those you know of late and say legos, 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:49.680 because no longer is that just you know, here's these 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:54.080 primary colored legos. Now you have more girly hues of 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.840 legos and pink and purple and other pastels that are 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.200 being marketed. It's pretty brilliant, is now. If you have 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.639 a two child family, two different genders, you don't have 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:08.399 just one set of legos, you have to Yeah, and 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.040 the same thing with like an easy bake oven type devices. 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.160 I've seen those where you have the existing one, which 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.240 is generally some sort of a pink kind of color scheme, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.040 and you just change it to black or blue or 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.960