Pinky and My Brain
Okay, the fact that they held an essay contest for schoolchildren to decide what color the new CTA line should be is one of those fucked-up Chicago things that makes me love it here so much. And the fact that they chose pink makes me never, ever want to leave.
The hostility toward the whole fucking concept of a pink line, though, makes me just as weary and pissed-off as I usually am.
Much like the word “shrill,” the color pink simply can’t be separated from femininity in this culture. (Hence my being so enraged at Pottery Barn for selling pink washing machines as toys.) And you know, I would be totally fine with that, if the association with “girliness” didn’t also automatically conflate the color with weakness and frivolity. People’s reactions to the idea of a pink line say so much about how we still see women. Feminine things are embarrassing, period. Ditka, deep dish and beer, of course, are good, strong Chicago values–organized sports and empty calories are the farthest thing from frivolous! But a pink-trimmed train? Ludicrous!
I am so fucking sick of the way so many men find being associated with anything feminine the height of humiliation, and the way the culture just accepts that. The Chicagoist posting and the Trib article, both of which lead with the absurdity of pink trains in Chicago!!!, were written by women. Um, girls, can I have a word? The reason people find this weird and embarrassing is that they find women weird and embarrassing. Really, I’m not making a huge fucking leap here. The quickest way to take a man down a notch, to metaphorically strip him of power, status and confidence, is still to call him a goddamn woman. To dress him in pink.
Doesn’t anyone find that more outrageous than the idea of a pink train?
Hear hear!!
You don’t see men getting all bent out of shape about the goddamn ROSE BOWL, though!
More and more the misogyny of the United States scares the shit out of me.
Oh, and if you want to get even more mad, you can take a look at the link on Drudgereport today to a blurb on Laura Bush’s book, in which she accues Hillary of being …. worse than shrill … A BAD HOUSEKEEPER WHO DECORATED THE WHITE HOUSE IN … GAUDY COLORS!!! Heavens for-fucking-fend!
xo L
GASP! A bad housekeeper?? Now, that’s the last straw.