Just a Rose Blush

Cynthia Ge

Before it was mine, pink belonged to men. It was a diluted red—a war color—masculine and proud, worthy of accolades and aristocrats and testosterone. Important people wore pink in their portraits. They wanted to live forever, bathed in a soft, dignified, and honorable light. How disappointed would they be now, to see themselves in a museum, draped in a woman’s color? To be scanty and promiscuous and feminine?   

But it is not my fault—people like him forced pink down the throats of people like me. They ran from Freud’s disturbingly sexual child development theories, towards dark and somber blue and called it gender. Pink was the color of my cheeks, the flush of my body, the oversimplification of a woman . . . so it became mine. It became magenta and cheap and vulgar, synonymous with prostitutes and housewives. Even when women bled red and died as soldiers, pink was dirty. But it was mine, so I loved it. 

I loved it so much that I hated it. When people like me tried to throw pink away just as people like him did so many years ago, I followed. Turning to the sky and indignation and feminism, I cut my hair, dyed it an electric blue and wore pants exclusively for a year. My daughter only played with trucks, and I bought my son Barbie dolls. I escaped, running along the color wheel towards supposed deliverance, abandoning all semblance of youth and hope. I ran so far away that I ended up right where I started. 

Mine. 

Pink is mine. Pink reminds me of love, lost and found. Of conviction and commitment forged through blood bonds and loss. I see the soft strength of kindness, the unwavering courage of forgiveness, and I learn to open. Again and again. 

Pink is mine. I find her in my son’s humility and my daughter’s quiet confidence, in giggles and bedtime stories and all the memories that will remain when they leave. 

She is mine. Pink is my history and liberation. It is the color on my cheeks when the wind blows a little too hard, the flush of my body when I talk to someone I like, the stains on women that make us so much more than just beautiful. 

In all of the best ways, pink is a testament to life.