Pink!

When I was about 8 my mother bought me and my two sisters pink pyjamas - “i don't want to were them i sobbed, I hate pink, pink is for girls” My mother sighed, frustrated, she’d had 3 kids in 2 and a half years, she didn't have time to readdress social norms regarding colour and gender, besides the pyjamas were on sale in Dunnes stores and i was a girl.

If teachers gossip about there students, which i know they do, because I am one. Most of the teachers in my primary school could have happily remortgaged their houses on the strength of the 8 year old me growing up to be a lesbian, I cried when i put on my first holy communion dress, I had my hair cut short and shaved at the back in a “step” with a number 2. I was stuck to my tractors but most of all I hated the colour pink. pink was girly pink was week, pink was for princesses with pretty faces and long hair.I didn't feel pretty, I rejected that. if anyone asked “whats your favourite colour?” I responded “green for Ireland, or black or brown or, if I was feeling particularly militant poo coloured. That shut them up.

My sister on the other hand adored pink - she was the youngest and she had a pink coat which matched my mothers pink coat. it was defiantly a coincidence, part of my mothers tolerance of my tomboyishness was its low maintenance. I was secretly jealous of the pink coat.

Aoife ate slept and dreamed pink - on her first day of school she was presented with a pink colour and she just ate it after that my mother would check her stools religiously and often bye horrified by the rainbow of colours, pink was the first choice and if she were desperate any of the pastels. I suppose she loved pink so much she wanted to be pink on the inside too

Pink wasn't always associated exclusively with femininity, in the 19th century both light blue and pink were associated with childhood. pink, being a diluted version of military red therefore evoked masculinity

it wasn't until the popularity of the sailor suit for little boys that this changed. In nazi concentration camps, those accused of homosexuality were forced to wear a pink triangle on their uniforms, a sign which has now become adopted by gay rights activists today.

when a man wears pink its such a sign of femininity that its actually a sign of masculinity, that you're so masculine that your masculinity burst through the supposed fluffy femininity of pink- it is therefore men who wear pink are masculine, everyone knows this, feminine men know this, they then start to wear pink so that they seem masculine, then masculine men learn of this, they have to stop wearing pink because its too feminine, then everyone knows its feminine again, then the masculine men start wearing it again so that they can show that they have masculinity jumping out of them - its the cycle of life - the pink circle

Ive started to wear pink myself - i found that it actually has nothing to do with sexuality, more to do with shade. shocking pink makes a freckly girl like me look like I've got AIDS. but a more muted salmon colour actually suits the Irish skin. That will get the boys to wink

therefore I've learned nothing about pink, maybe I should’ve written this about pink the singer instead.