Pink: The Color for Boys?

Pink equals girl, blue equals boy. That’s the widespread association with those two colors, but it wasn’t always that way. In the early 1900s, blue was for girls and pink was for boys. Back then, the British magazine Women’s Journal explained: “That pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” DressMaker magazine agreed. “The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red).” No one knows when the change took place, but by the time Adolf Hitler was in power, the switch had been made, as he labeled homosexuals with a pink triangle, which associated them with femininity. [BBC]