Thinking Pink:

You want to know something weird?

As a little girl, I hated being white. Well, that's not precisely the case. I hated being a white *girl*.

See, I was born in 1983, which means the era of cartoons and comics and television shows and comics I remember from my childhood stems from the late 80s and early 90s.

The thing about that period of time that I mostly recall is multi-ethnicity. Which is great, don't get me wrong.

But you know, they were almost always the same.

Let me break a random group down for you:

One (1) Boy, White, subclassification: "jock" (Athletic, capable in sports, a fighter)
One (1) Boy, White, subclassification: "geek" (The group intellectual, glasses, socially inept)
One (1) Girl, White, subclassification: "pretty" (Usually not terribly intelligent, defined by her physical attractiveness)
One (1) Miscellaneous, Black, subtype: "tough but sensible" (Not as athletic as the white boy, but with more common sense/street smarts)
One (1) Miscellaneous, Asian, subtype: "smart and calm" (Not as intelligent as the white boy, but more socially adept)

That was always the way it was. Sometimes the black kid was the boy and the asian was a girl sometimes it was the other way around. I'm not going to try to claim that the racial stereotypes weren't obnoxious or even harmful. I have to admit, it's not something I ever really considered. (I am, in terms of race, a member of the privileged majority and thus didn't really have to notice those things growing up)

But I know one thing, if we neighborhood children were ever pretending to be those characters...I always wanted to play the black or asian girl. Or the boy geek. But I was weird like that. (I prefered Tygra to Cheetara in Thundercats anyday. :-P)

I mean, yeah, it also wasn't fair to those other girls that the white girl was automatically the "pretty one". (It was also blatantly untrue in some cases where the black or asian girl was actually equally as physically attractive as the white girl), but at least the other girls could be skilled and competent.

The white girl was only there to be flirted with or a girlfriend. And she was often associated with the color pink. And I hated pink.

Yeah, yeah, people change. Deal. :-P

Anyway, yeah, usually the white girl was supposed to recognize some pure spirit or pure heart sort of bullshit and be the token love interest/crush object.

But what I always wanted to know was why couldn't the white girl be the "tough one" or the "calm one". Why couldn't the black girl, or the asian girl, be the token pretty thing to look at? Why couldn't the white girl be the jock or the geek?

For that matter, why couldn't one of the boys be "the pretty one".

(I mean, if it works for Kyle Rayner. :-P)

I just really hated growing up that the character that I was supposed to identify the most with because of similarities of race, sex, and socio-economic standing couldn't be anything more than the local bimbo. Only worth anything because of looks.

Heh, it probably helped that I was a decidedly unattractive child. (I have the sort of features that needed to be grown into, shall we say. :-)) Even though my appearanced improved a lot in later adolescence (if I do say so myself), that was much later on and didn't really help during the time when these characters were supposed to be identifiable.

Or god forbid role models.

See, I never thought Barbie was that bad. Yeah, the body standard was a little unrealistic, but I never particularly felt like I didn't measure up. Barbie was about the clothes. (and I hated clothes shopping for myself)...of course I was the sort of child that considered ball gowns "Sorceress dresses", (screw "Princess", my doll was a fucking *Queen* thank you), and broke off a ski-pole to be a sword and called paintbrushes lances... Yeah, it took a bit of imagination to turn stretch pants, knee high cowboy boots, and a motorcycle helmet into a "warrior's outfit", but well...if you're determined enough...

But those female characters...*they* were harmful growing up. Those shows convinced me that "feminity" (dresses, pink, flirting with boys and liking clothes) was mutually exclusive from intelligence and competence and being taken seriously.

Those shows created artificial hierarchies of competence, ability and attractiveness based on race and gender that were subtly re-enforced everywhere.

I think that's changing now. I do. I think there's a lot more emphasis on character first, with race and gender as aspects of the character but not the sole defining characteristics. I think people are making a conscious effort to go beyond stereotypes and have, god forbid geeks that are black or female, asians that are into sports that aren't martial arts, where being "the pretty one" doesn't mean you can't be black or asian or male and it doesn't mean you have to be incompetent or stupid either. Hell, even white boys don't have to be so strictly categorized into boxes like "the jock" or "the geek".

We're learning, I think, that labels are self imposed and that people are who they are, good at some things, not good at others, and those talents and faults are based individually not racially or sexually.

And we're learning that femininity has nothing to do with intelligence or competence.

We're learning that just because something is pink, doesn't mean that it's substance-free.