September 9, 2022
Lately I’ve been revisiting my relationship with the color pink.
I never liked the color pink. I rarely wore it and, for the most part, did not allow it into my life. I’ve only recently started to question why that is.
Society links the color pink with girls and girlishness. From the earliest time I can remember, I was, what we called back then, a Tomboy. Traditional notions of girlishness did not appeal to me.
Later in life, I rejected the color pink because I wanted to be taken seriously. Girlishness, I apparently thought, did not fit in with that agenda.
I’m not exactly sure what prompted me to begin inviting the color pink into my life. It was probably the fact that I’d blocked it for so long and harbored such negative feelings toward it that I realized it’s probably something worth exploring. Such strong feelings about something as innocent as a color must be coming from somewhere important, right?
Or maybe, on this personal development journey of mine, I just wanted to try something radically new. So I started wearing pink. If I’m being honest, it made me uncomfortable. Which puts me where I am today, finally questioning why that is.
When I think about the feelings the color pink evokes, it’s something akin to vulnerability. The color itself, to me, looks vulnerable. I get a visual image of a soft, fleshy, wet, gelatinous blob. No defenses. Sort of like an earthworm, only pinker, softer, blobbier—and unable to move. The color pink has no escape from the attack.
The very color that everyone associates with girls and girlishness, to me, is akin to vulnerability. Which means that femininity equals vulnerability. Which means that the very nature of being female, makes you vulnerable. That sounds about right.
Time to dive next into what it means to be vulnerable…