White Weddings and the Pink Aisle

In the Chrys Ingraham article "One is Not Born a Bride" the argument was made that society perpetuates the heterosexual "norm" of wanting a white wedding, specifically in little girls, based on media and toys. This article immediately reminded me of a viral video I'd once seen, in which a young girl has a minor meltdown in the toy department, questioning the fairness of the "pink aisle."



What I love about this video is that her father isn't necessarily reenforcing the gender stereotypes. He's encouraging her to express her frustration and discuss what it is about the situation that is bothering her so much. The video also does a lot to explain how much of the stereotype is created by adults. As the little girl points out: some girls want princesses AND superhereos, and some boys want superheroes AND princesses. She's absolutely correct. On a basic level, children only want to play with what they find interesting and stimulating. It's their parents, relatives, or adult strangers who enforce ideas like "Boys shouldn't wear pink."  To illustrate this point, I want to mention another article I stumbled on recently, in which a little boy named Chester (age 4) was invited to a "princess" themed birthday party.
Chester's mother, at the boy's request, let him wear a princess dress (and who can blame him, he wanted to go with the theme!)

When they arrived at the party, she was stunned by the malicious comments directed at her and her son by the adults present. Many of them tried to correct what they viewed as a social faux pas, pointing out that Chester's parents were doing him a disservice by not forcing gender stereotypes on him. 
This is a fantastic illustration of the point Ingraham makes in the "One is Not Born a Bride" article when she says that only women are meant to show a lifelong interest in planning the perfect wedding, and if men were to show the same level of interest it would mark them as different and somehow wrong. 
As the article about Chester's party costume points out, none of the children at the party saw anything wrong with a little boy dressing up as a princess.  None of the children attempted to correct the perceived "wrong" behaviour, because to the children there was no wrong. Only the adults viewed it as going against societal norms and attempted to correct the behaviour in a heteronormative way.
On a personal level, stories like this make me think a great deal of my niece and how her parents are choosing to raise her. At 4 years old, she owns as many shirts from the boys department as the girls, because she likes things like dinosaurs and construction. She is adamant she wants to either be a firefighter or an "explorer" when she grows up. She watches superhero cartoons with great enjoyment, but she often changes the gender identity of masked heroes. Iron Man became Iron Girl. She craves female representation in areas outside princess movies, something she can vocalized even at her young age. But instead of society fostering this desire by creating shows and movies about female superheroes, they try to push my niece towards the pink aisle. They suggest superheroes are for boys and princesses are for girls, end of story. 
But what if my niece would rather save the world than plan a perfect white wedding? The ongoing reenforcement of gender stereotypes is something we were all raised with. Pink clothes for girls, blue for boys. Perhaps there is something essential in this, as it allows little boys and girls to understand what society expects from gender roles. But children have such an incredible capacity to accept what they are taught. Perhaps, rather than enforcing stereotypical roles, we should let children like what they're going to like, and not tell them it's wrong. Take, as a final example, the parent on Reddit who said "To avoid perpetuating gender stereotypes, I gave my daughter a mix of dolls and toy cars to play with. This is what happened."

Maybe there's room for everyone in the pink aisle. Or better yet, maybe there should just be a toy department undivided by colour.
Sources:
Ingraham, Chrys. "“One is Not Born a Bride: How Weddings Regulate Sexuality"." The New Sexuality Studies: A Reader, 2e, edited by Seidman, Meeks, and Fisher. London: Routledge, 2011.
Adorable 4-Year-Old Boy Shamed For Wearing A Gown To A “Princess” Party Don't Try to Buy This Girl a Princess Doll Reddit Post