When I was a little girl, I hated the color pink. Being seventeen now, I almost always have my nails painted pink, some sort of jewelry on, and like having my hair feel pretty. Being a girl, I always hate saying that I love pink as I can almost see the stereotypical thoughts that flash through people’s heads. Whenever I say this, people look at my blonde hair, blue eyes, and goofy smile and assume three things: I’m ditsy, dumb, and an airhead. All this because of what I look like and how my favorite color is pink. I grew up thinking that being female, being feminine, was being fragile, so from a very young age I hated the color pink. It triggered the self hatred in me, as I made an effort to collect heaps of dirt under my fingernails, deny anything with bows, and anything that would make me seem feminine, or as I perceived: weak.

As a child I was a total tomboy. You wouldn’t catch me dead in a pink frilly dress, or any dress at all. I would wear long black workout shorts (maybe black leggings if I had to be fancy), with an athletic shirt of some kind, normally blue. When I was little my favorite color was always blue. I liked how my classmates would remark that blue was a “boys color”, and that girls had to like pink. I liked breaking the stereotypes. I liked being different from the girls who only cared about boys and makeup. I spoke with the same, if not more, aggression as the boys in my class, being loud, being rough, being anything to avoid being dainty.

I have always had a strong passion for equality and looking back I wonder if this was the start of that passion. I could not understand for the life of me why, just because I was a girl, my favorite color was expected to be pink, and wasn’t treated with as much respect as the boys in my class. Whenever the teacher would ask for someone to carry chairs or help with lifting something, it was always a boy, and I could never understand why. I was strong and I longed for a chance to prove myself, to prove that I was equal. I hated myself for not being girly enough to fit in with the girls, but not being tomboyish enough to fit in with the boys.

One day, I started wearing clothes that people would deem as “girly”, I started doing my makeup, and fixing my hair. I started getting my nails done and every time I felt like I was betraying the little girl who promised to always stick to athletic clothes and never become a “girly” girl. I learned this was not me becoming weak or frail, but to be feminine can also mean to be strong. I learned that I can go to the gym everyday, lift more than most boys in my class, get better grades on exams, all while being feminine. While I grew into my femininity, my favorite color was not pink. It was a blue or purple, reminding me of my younger self as I grew. As I grew and changed, so did the world around me. One moment engraved in my brain of my world changing forever is the day I heard my mom say, “I have cancer.” I fought, cried, and struggled with this diagnosis for days on end, pushing everyone away who wanted to help. How could my mom, my only parent, my lifeline, have a life-threatening illness? What if she wouldn’t be okay? My mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in October of 2022, and I am ecstatic to say that she is cancer free now. For those who are unaware, the Breast Cancer ribbon is drawn with the color pink. My mom is the strongest woman I know, so if something so significant in her life’s symbol is pink, does that make it weak or fragile? The answer is no. The color pink itself has no association with weakness or fragility, but rather the gender stereotypes have made it be seen this way.  Sometimes I remember me as a little girl, and I wish I could make her understand that you can be feminine without it being all that you are, that you can be stereotypically feminine, but be strong, courageous, outgoing, and kind. So I don’t hate the color pink anymore, I don’t hate it at all, for it reminds me of who I am and how far I have come, it reminds me of my mom and the women who have made me who I am today, and of the strength I have inside me, the strength that people who assume me to be ditsy, dumb, and an airhead would never get to see.