If ever there was a color that stereotypically symbolized the feminine, it’s pink. But the history of the girly shade hasn’t always been so ladylike. Slate takes a look back:
- Financial Times: Its salmon-pink pages have turned “salmon press” into British shorthand for any newspaper business section.
- Boys' rowing: Teams at Eton and Westminster competed for the right to claim pink as their school color in the 19th century.
- Nantucket Red: The shade, which looks a lot like pink, became popular for preppy men and women in 1945.
- Macy's: Department stores started color-coding by gender in the late 1920s to discourage the use of hand-me-downs; Macy’s pushed pink as the boys’ color.
- World War II: Japanese kamikaze planes featured cherry blossoms on their sides.
- Cycling: The leader of Italy’s Giro d’Italia race wears a pink jersey.
- Stocks: Pink-sheet stocks are thus named because their quotes were once printed on pink paper.
- Feminists: Their 1970s backlash against pink actually cemented it as a “girl’s” color.
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