Back in the day, baby girls were always wrapped in pink, and baby boys in blue. I’ve never been a pink kind of gal myself, always leaning toward the cooler side of the color wheel, towards the greens and blues and purples.
I wonder if that’s because I was wrapped in a baby blue blanket at birth. (And how come there’s a “baby blue” and not a “baby pink” anyway?)
Being a Gemini, the sign of the twins, I’ve always figured that meant I could have at least two “favorite colors,” so I picked purple and green, since blue seemed to be unalterably reserved for boys.
Famed (and local!) watercolor artist Charles Mulvey reinforced the gender bias of color when he came to do a demonstration for the sixth graders. As he painted the familiar “couple walking on the beach” scene, he told us how the taller one always wore a blue jacket and the shorter one wore red.
“What would happen if you switched the colors?” I asked.
Charles laughed. “I tried that,” he replied. “The painting didn’t sell.”
I found that observation very interesting, but also rather disturbing. Is our color comfort zone automatically restricted by societal conditioning?
With this question in mind, I did a little investigative research. Undeniably, the color favorites of men and women seem to follow the pattern. The majority of females I queried leaned toward the warmer size of the wheel, predominantly red, while the men strongly favored blue, and the colors closest to it.
Which then led me to consider that perhaps I have a higher testosterone level than most women—or maybe it explains why I have so many more men than women friends. (YEs, it’s weird stuff like this that keeps me awake at night!)
One notable exception in my survey was a guy who insisted that his favorite color was “rainbow.”
“I like them all,” he said. “I never met color I didn’t like.” And when pressed to choose just one, he stubbornly refused. “It’s either rainbow—or darkness.”
I am most grateful for friends like that—friends who push me to think outside the box. Or better yet, those who tell me there is no box, and that I should immediately stop putting limitations on my thinking.
So now I ask you—what’s YOUR favorite color—and why?