Baby Boys Are Blue, Little Girls Like Pink, But Gender is More Complicated Than One Might Think

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Gender is a binary term that assigns someone to either being male or female. Though the word assign here is strong, there are some who truly believe that, much as we are assigned a seat in grade school without any say, gender works the same way—doctors generally have control, much like a teacher controls who sits where, in assigning male/female labels to newborn children. In Riki Wilchins’ piece Queerer Bodies, Wilchins discusses this binary by asserting that we have “’centered’ all such knowledge” of masculinity and femininity over the idea of the binary. When it comes to bodies, “Body hair must mean masculine. Breasts must be feminine and passive. Hips are maternal, muscles masculine. An erect clitoris is vulnerable, an erect penis is commanding and strong” (Wilchins 39). By following these “guidelines,” society, as Wilchins discusses, turns a blind eye to difference, or to anyone who falls outside of the “norm.” A similar rhetoric is discussed in Susan Stryker’s piece, Transgender History, where Stryker suggests that though “gender is not the same as sex, the two terms are often used interchangeably, even in technical or scholarly literature, creating a great deal of confusion” (11). Most importantly, Stryker asserts that “gender is the social organization of different kinds of bodies into different categories of people” (11). I realize this categorization system varies culturally, however, from my experience growing up in the United States, the binary model is arguably what is most accepted.

  The ideas presented in both pieces interested me in particular in the context of Gender Reveal Parties (GRP), where parents-to-be reveal the gender of their newborn child via the slicing of a cake or the popping of a balloon—light pink signifies a girl, while baby blue welcomes a boy. Just as Wilchins wrote that body hair must be masculine, and breasts must be feminine, among other things, blue and pink are signifiers of gender from the moment we are born. Though they are just colors, they represent a plethora of meaning as to how people categorize newborn children the second they take their first breath. Stryker also mentions secondary sex characteristics, which “constitute perhaps the most socially significant part of morphology—taken together, they are the bodily ‘signs’ that others read to guess at our sex, attribute gender to us, and assign us to the social category they understand to be most appropriate for us” (10). During a GRP, the moment that “neutrally” colored balloon is popped, and guest’s eyes widen with the anticipation of seeing blue or pink confetti fall to the ground, classifications are already being made in terms of what to expect out of the child. The same classifications are made when a cake is sliced into—the first glimpse of blue signifies to the entire room of guests that the parents-to-be will have a bouncing baby boy who enjoys trucks and getting into mischief. But if the slice is pink? The parents have nothing to worry about; girls are not typically “bouncing” like their boy counterparts, and instead the parents will be able to enjoy a more passive, “cute” child who giggles a lot and enjoys finger painting.

  After searching the term “gender reveal party” I came upon a Pinterest page with a number of ideas aimed at helping couples plan the best party possible for the exciting release of their baby’s gender, which can be viewed here. There were over one thousand results, and that was restricted to just Pinterest. What I noticed is that while there are the obvious color schemes to represent a boy or girl, there is also specific language used with each color, whether it’s to label the food or persuade party-goers to guess which gender they think the baby will be. For example, in one image, two glass jars are sitting on a countertop, one containing a pink drink and the other containing blue. The sign above each reads, “sweet pink lemonade” and “bouncing blue punch” which suggests that baby girls are “sweet” while boys are “bouncing” and have a lot of excess energy that is hard to control. This is a way in which people assign secondary the sex characteristics that Stryker talked about in her essay. By marking the punches as “sweet” and “bouncing” the language allows the guests—and more broadly society—to understand and guess how the baby will act before it’s even born. If the child doesn't adhere to these "norms," then according to society, something is obviously wrong with it and an intervention must be made.  

Many of us are guilty of assuming how someone should and will act once their gender is discovered. We have been conditioned to apply this specific language to girls and boys, and later, to women and men. When someone comes across as “different,” i.e. not fitting into the gender binary, it often makes society uncomfortable because as a society, we generally like to label things to make them as easy as possible to understand. As Stryker puts it, "our culture today tries to reduce the wide range of livable body types into two and only two genders, one of which is subject to greater social control than the other, with both genders being based on genital sex. Lives that do not conform to this dominant pattern are generally treated as human garbage” (12). Society usually does not look at people who fall into the “different” category as being socially acceptable, thus the reason for trying to fit everyone comfortably into a binary. Coming from the Pinterest page, boys are to like touchdowns and girls are to show interest in tutus—any deviance from this would be to suggest a crossing over of genders which is arguably always seen as freakish. What these essays have brought to light is the idea that there is difference, and it might not even be “difference” necessarily, but something that is simply not easily categorized. In a world that loves categorization, it might be difficult to stray away from labeling everything and fitting it into a set model, however, authors and scholars like Wilchins and Stryker are paving the pathway to embracing this change.  

References

Stryker, Susan. "An Introduction to Transgender." Transgender History. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 1-29. Print. 

Wilchins, Riki Anne. "Queerer Bodies." GenderQueer: Voices from beyond the Sexual Binary. Los Angeles: Alyson, 2002. 33-46. Print.