So I could write an entire manifesto against the pink aisle in the toy store. There are major problems with this. One of them is seizures. I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you are all with me on the absurdity that girls only get this one color. At least in my day, we were allowed to like purple as well. But that's not what I am here to talk about today.
You see, it's not true that girls only get one color. The fact is that they get 1/2 a color! Pink is not even a color. It is a tint of a color. It is one value of red. Your mind is not blown. I know this. Let me go on. When someone (let's say, for the sake of argument, it is your 83 year old grandfather) tells you their favorite color is pink, you are like "cool, ok, that's a color." If your favorite color is red, you think that this is not something you have in common. If you see a toddler dressed all in pink and his mother is dressed all in red you do not think they are trying to match. Visually they do not register as matching, in fact red and pink clash badly. This would be jarring.
No so of all other colors! Imagine asking deal ol' gramps his favorite color and he says "light blue." You think Wow, can't you be specific?! Haha, crazy old man! And if your favorite is blue (even if you really only like a dark blue) you say "Cool, my favorite color is blue too! This whole grandpa quizzing scenario gets even crazier if he tells you "light yellow" or "light orange." Who can even tell the difference between light and dark yellow?!
This who thing really bothers the part of my brain that craves fairness, balance, equality. I want red to be treated the same way other colors are.
Here's the next problem: Red doesn't always lighten to pink. Try to make pink with watercolors. If you take pure red and water it down you really do get a sort of "light red" color. You actually need a cool red hue to tint it to pink. This makes the color pink extremely specific. But we let it have equal footing with other colors. Think of the red-free colors people could give as their favorite color:
- blue: Blue ranges from teal to indigo. It is defined to be a pure, primary hue, but encompasses a very wide variety.
- yellow: Just listen to the song from Sweeney Todd about all the yellow hair colors. We've got some options here, but at its basis. This is another primary color.
- green: 50% yellow, 50% blue. Green has a nice clear definition and also encompasses all other blends of these primaries. Also, green is a little primary if you are a computer type human. I never "got" this, but I accept that this quasi-primary status is why toys always include green along with the three primaries. (Food coloring manufacturers are not forgiven, however. You can mix green very easily with the blue and yellow given, but you CANNOT make a really sharp purple.
This infuriates me.) - black: Everything/nothing, depending on whether you use paints or pixels. Either way, pretty clear and easy to define. White also includes anything with very little pigment in it UNLESS you put in only red.
- white: Nothing/everything, depending on whether you use paints or pixels. Again, pretty clear and easy to define. Includes grey from charcoal on up.
- grey: I think the only person whose favorite color is grey is that guy from the Counting Crows. Anyway, easily defined, wide range of possibilities.
- red: Red is a pure primary color. We include in its definition tints and shades of that exact color, blends of pure red with trace amounts of yellow and tints and shades of this blend. Near invisible addition of blue is allowed and this blend may be used in shades but not tints.
- purple: Blends of red and blue, shades of this blend, tints of blends wherein the proportion of blue is reasonably high.
- orange: The new black.
- orange: Just kidding. Orange is a mix of red and yellow in which the proportion of yellow is reasonably high. Mild shading is allowed. Tints of these hues are still orange as long as the proportion of yellows is above some threshold defined in terms of the amount of tinting.
- brown: deep shades of orange, warm reds and warm purples.
- pink: tints of red after being mixed with trace amounts of blue, extreme tints of red or red mixed with grey or yellow.
When you look at this, it looks like everything was fine and balanced in color world until pink came along and carved out a chunk of space. This is when things got crazy and brown moved in to take what is left. Of course no one loves brown, so we don't worry about it as much, but really it's just as bad as pink. Red just doesn't get the freedom and space of other colors.
It's just not fair.
