Girls, Sports, “Lady” and Pink
When you go to the store these days looking for shirts and gear with your favorite team’s logo on it, you may notice something a little troubling in the womens and girls sections. They have the regular team colors often enough, but then there are the pink versions!
Quite honestly, this drives me nuts. It’s not just that not all girls and women love pink. It’s the idea that something must be color coded to show that it’s for girls or women at all.
It’s particularly annoying when you’re talking about fan gear, shirts and such that have the team logo, but all in pink and white rather than the team colors. Frankly, if I’m going to buy such things I’d rather be showing the team colors. I don’t need to be all pink about it.
Encourage girls to enjoy sports and they won’t need to have it all pinkified for it to be fun for them. They’ll love it because they love the sport, whichever sport it is. The color of the equipment, team logos and so forth won’t enter into it so much.
Calling a girls’ team the “Lady Whatevers” is annoying too. Girls in sports probably aren’t too concerned with being “ladies”. They’re girls having fun doing something they love. Their team name doesn’t need to identify their gender. You’re not going to see a boys’ team name the “Gentlemen Whatevers” or anything like that.
I know that in many cases the boys’ team is effectively considered the default. After all, for a long time girls were very limited in the sports they could play. That doesn’t mean we need to continue separating the girls by adding “Lady” to their team name. It’s hard enough for women in sports to be taken seriously without the team name adding to the problem.
Tags: pink, team colors
