“I worked at a putt-putt place over the summer and observed multiple times how gender ‘rules’ and roles played into choices people made regarding a small thing : golf ball color. For example, many times, not just once, a parent told their son they could not play with a pink golf ball, because that’s ‘not right.’ I also saw many times that adult males would joke about using a pink ball before throwing it back into the container, laughing. To contrast that, it was always fine for a female, young or old, to use either pink or blue for their ball. It wasn’t just with golf balls, though. I also had a few young boys who did not want to use red batting helmets (I also worked batting cages) because the blue was the “right” color, and red was too “girly.” It’s a seemingly little thing, the color of an object, but these things happened so frequently that it turned into a bigger and bigger thing, because they kept associating ‘pink’ with both ‘weak/lose’ and ‘girl,’ which says something about the society and gender ‘rules’ and roles we have.”
(Little doo-dad from something I’m throwing together for Sociology. I just wanted to share this observation with Tumblr, because I think it goes unnoticed by many. Since I was bored at work, I did a lot of Sociological observations and “experiments,” especially regarding gender.)
