YSU professor: Rethink pink

As a proud dad of three sons, I hear various things about raising them.

Most frequent is, “Be glad you’re not raising girls.”

It usually comes from a parent of girls.

It’s one of those lines where you’re not too sure how to react. Agree too much, and the other parent might whack you.

I’m sure raising girls presents challenges.

But so does raising boys.

A new hole in our wall is some proof. That hole came from a chair. The chair got there from a push. That push came from a son. That son bumped into the chair in the dark — and catapulting it was the best reaction to bumping into it.

But ... if I had to raise girls, I might want to take a page — or 10 — from a new paper published by Youngstown State professor Nicole Mullins.

She calls it “Rethink Pink.”

“My whole life, I’ve been exposed to this problem. I just never knew it had a name.”

The problem she sees, as do others, is actually many individual actions and incidents that result in a larger overall societal problem.

Ask yourself these questions:

Have you helped a young girl finish a task that a young boy would be allowed to finish on his own — such as making a basketball shot?

Did you buy toys for young boys that encourage rigorous activity and toys for young girls that suggest more-sedentary play (makeup? dolls? tea sets? cooking? etc.)

Ever said to a child in a critical tone, “You throw it like a girl”?

It’s called gender socialization. Mullins published a 20-page study in the professional periodical Physical Educator. Her work won’t appear for general reading, but she shared it with a few of us this week.

It’s a pretty fascinating look at our subtle (and not so subtle) gender segregation that crosses races and riches and starts virtually at birth.

Almost from the first moments of life, with blue for boys and pink for girls, men and women are segregated into roles that impact them years later, Mullins said.

Years later, with things such as Title IX and workplace regulations and legislation, society aims to balance the gender scales.

But if you consider Mullins’ work, you might come to a similar conclusion as hers: Later in life is too late and cannot undo traits that start as early as age 2.

“I’m not the first to talk about this,’’ said Mullins. Where she wants her work to differ, though, is who it targets.

“By being in Physical Educator, I want it to reach our fitness leaders. If we can stop perpetuating the stereotypes at that level, we can have an impact.”

If you think it’s all bunk, well, first, I dare you to tell that to Mullins. Her style (at times) could mentor Marine Corps drill sergeants.

But second, the studies she uses are awakening. Consider:

A study of 192 children age 7 months to 5 years divided them by age and provided them with identical objects to handle. The objects were of varying colors, including pink.

In the groups under age 2, there was no preference for pink by girls nor avoidance of pink by boys. But in the groups with kids older than 2, the pink object began to be preferred by girls and avoided by boys.

Why?

In the first two years of life, our gender socialization habits that girls wear a certain color and do certain things has not set in on them. And the same for boys. But after two years of socializing, the inevitable sinks in.

Pink is not just a color. Some experts believe it conveys a role and a life.

“If pink were merely a color,” writes Mullins, “boys would be similarly surrounded by it. Instead, boys are blanketed in blue and steered away from anything pink and its soft significance.”

If you want to dismiss Mullins’ interest as simply ultra-feminist or pursuit of an equal access-rights agenda, pause for a second.

There’s a deeper impact of our gender socializing that affects women later in life, experts believe.

That’s also an interest of hers.

“There is much to learn on gender-stereotyped behaviors that render girls less active than boys,” she writes.

Reports she uses in her work point to a direct connection between the reduced physical activity in preschool girls and the profound impact on activity levels, fitness and health in adult women.

In one 2010 report, just 27 percent of teen girls attained recommended weekly physical activity, compared with 43 percent of boys.

She traces it back to pink.

“Essentially, as girls rehearse engaging in child- and self-care, they also learn to spend less time in physically active, healthful play,” she wrote.

Mental health is as much a concern.

A 2007 study Mullins uses ponders job competency, self-esteem and actual work performance of women raised in a life of pink. “Benevolent sexism,” which she calls a life of having things made easier for girls, might actually be worse than hostile sexism.

This is her first published work on the topic. In November, she spoke at a conference and was thrilled that after 50 minutes of lecturing, people stayed for an additional 20 minutes afterward discussing the issue.

Once the door is opened for people to talk about this, she said it’s healthy dialogue. She said her YSU students say it’s often the first time in their lives they’ve had such a talk.

“People are stunned of the greater repercussions of buying certain toys,” she said.

Rethink pink?

Not a bad thought.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.