This week i went around and asked members of my friends and family about colors. I know colors are something that is very broad but the colors that people associate certain things with is very interesting to me. First I asked what their favorite color was; starting with the girls : 3 said pink, 2 said purple, 1 said green and 4 said blue; then the boys: 2 said red, 1 said green 3 said pink 2 said orange and 2 said blue. I found this very interesting. Usually when people think about girls, they automatically think pink, but in my survey, the most common color was blue. Similarly, when people think of boys they think of darker colors such as blue and green, but the same number of boys said that pink was their favorite color as did the girls. Then i asked the group collectively what color they think of when they think about boys 80 percent said blue, 10 percent said green and 10 percent said red. I did the same thing for girls with the group, 70 percent said pink, 10 percent said purple, 15 percent said yellow and 5 percent said green.
When people associate certain colors with a certain gender it is an example of a gender stereotype. They are stereotyping that specific gender with a color they think best describes that gender. In my survey i found the results to be very interesting. The information was almost completely flipped from what the majority of the group thought. I think that in today's society the colors are not as closely related as they used to be. For example when i was a baby my mom painted my room yellow because she did not know if i was going to be a boy or a girl but when i came she added a lot of pink things to my room. I think if i was born 10 years later my room would look very different the more neutral colors are being used for babies rooms instead of pink and blue, people are choosing green or yellow. I learned a lot doing this survey and i thought my results were very interesting.
Great job, your survey was so interesting to read about. I also found the results from your survey very interesting because of the results you got from the boys and the girls. I think you are right in concluding that the stereotype has in a way diminished and even deviated from the typical girls= pink and boys= blue. I think that it is a good thing moving away from relating colors to genders.
ReplyDeleteI think your survey was very interesting! To be honest, I wasn't really shocked that boys said they liked pink, but I was surprised that the same number of girls and boys liked pink! I think that if you did this survey when we were younger, it wouldn't have been like that. I agree and I think that our society is actually becoming more accustomed to boys liking pink, and girls liking blue. When I was younger, my mom did the same as yours. She didn't know if I was a boy or a girl so my room was white. When I was born, there was a lot of pink and purple added. In contrast, when my younger cousin was born recently, they didn't know if she was a boy or girl, so they painted her room green. They never added much pink, just a lot of stuffed animals! I don't think we're at the point where a baby boy's room would be pink just yet, but I think we're making a step in the right direction!
ReplyDeleteI also found this post very intriguing! I liked how you were able to illustrate what we learned in class into real life situations. i was shocked to see so many girls choose blue and the same for boys with pink. but nevertheless i liked seeing this change. its good to see children and parents branching their horizons. its a good feeling knowing that gender stereotyping isnt going on everywhere.
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