Thanks to the Arts blog Chicqero for alerting me to this brilliant project by Korean photographer JeongMee Yoon exploring the gender preferences for the colours pink and blue.
It began when his daughter started to only want to wear pink clothes and play with pink toys at 5 years old, he discovered the universal truth that no matter what their ethnicity so did many other girls and boys only wanted or preferred blue and so began the project in 2005 which is still ongoing today.
The pictures are an amazing exploration of what is available in today’s world and not only show the gender colour preference but just how many things today’s consumerist children acquire in their young lives.
Alexandra and her Pink Things 2006 by JongMee Yoon
Haewook and his Blue Things 2007
Dayeun and her Pink Things 2007
Jake and his Blue Things 2006
SeaWoo and her Pink Things 2006
Hojun and his Blue Things 2007
Lauren and Carolyn and their Pink Things 2006
Sunjae and Seungjae and their Blue Things 2008
Copyright and Photo license @ JeongMee Yoon – all rights reserved
Love this! Initially we tried to steer clear of obvious pinks and blues when buying for our site but we find these are actually the best-selling colours.
I’ll second Louise on this gender nonsense. The color gender stereotypes forced on us so skillfully are entrenched deeply and show no signs of weakness despite of our efforts;)
It is bizarre but I do notice on shoots that the girls go straight for the pinks even without parental guidance, I guess it starts at the baby ages but I think boys and blue is by default, most boy’s couldn’t care less if its blue, black, brown or green as long as its not pink!