FOCUS: Gender Stereotype Linking Pink with Women Persists

Tokyo, March 31 (Jiji Press)--The stereotype of associating pink with women remains deeply entrenched in society, appearing in products such as toys and household goods, as well as in the female characters of the "Power Rangers" superhero series.

The trend is often cited as an example of gender bias.

"I hope we can create a society in which everyone is free to choose their favorite color without being constrained by gender," said Kunio Ishii, an associate professor of social psychology at Tokyo Kasei University.

According to Ishii, the association of certain colors with gender emerged in the first half of the 20th century. One possible origin can be traced to two paintings exhibited in the 1920s at the Huntington Library, an educational and research institution in California.

The paintings portrayed a boy dressed in blue and a girl wearing a dress adorned with a pink ribbon. One theory suggests that the exhibition was well received, prompting department stores to adopt gender-specific colors as a marketing strategy. Over time, the pairing of blue with boys and pink with girls became firmly established in Western countries before eventually spreading to Japan.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]