Circa 2008, a small version of me sat nestled in my room accompanied by my favourite stuffed dog – Rosie – named after the blush colour of her fur. I pulled my fluffy pink diary and matching pen out from the drawer of my nightstand, flipped to a fresh page, and prepared to document the thoughts that were eating away at my young mind. “i LOV PNK,” I scribbled on the page. Admiring my work, I decided it wasn’t yet complete, and one sentence was not enough to encapsulate exactly how much I loved pink. I copied the sentence down again, then again, until I had a page full of statements proclaiming my favourite colour. Satisfied, I gave Rosie a squeeze to celebrate having finished my masterpiece. 

Like many little girls, I had a love for pink that developed into obsessive fascination by the age of five. Walls? Clothes? Nintendo DS? All pink! So, you can imagine the confusion from my parents as they watched my love of pink fade as I got older, eventually curdling into hatred by second grade. Or at least, what I projected as hatred. I secretly still loved pink. I painted over my walls, but the fact that my Nintendo DS remained pink brought me joy; it became a piece of femininity I could preserve, but pretend I hate anyway! 

To  understand why I hated pink, I have to first pinpoint what pink meant to me. The shame stems not from the colour itself, but from what it represents. Liking pink is an obvious giveaway that someone may be a girly girl. To be girly was to be fragile, sensitive, unserious. Negative connotations with girliness were further enforced by daily exposure to shaming of the girls who dared to wear tiaras to school and tie their sneakers with ribbon. How could I not want to disassociate myself with pink? I was willing to do anything to prove that I was strong and worthy, including repressing a piece of myself. If I had to pretend to hate sweet Rosie to be thought of as tough, then that’s what I would do.

I spent the rest of elementary school and early high school whispering and snickering with my friends at the “girly girls” who insisted on braiding their hair and wearing skirts.We didn’t dare waste our time on such feminine idiocies. We used our time much more wisely… sitting behind a tree and talking poorly about the other girls in our grade. 

“Did you hear Emma in gym class!?” a friend once brought to my attention. “She was crying over a broken nail.” We scoffed at Emma’s weakness.

I continued the conversation with my friend, eyes fixed on the ground, plucking blades of grass. “She is a bit of a girly girl… she whines about those kinds of things all the time.” 

My friend agreed and we both laughed, grateful that we were above worrying about the state of our nails. The laughter died down, and we sat in an awkward silence as our smiles faded. I hypothesised that, just like I did, my friend wished she felt secure enough to paint her nails. 

Through social media, a new seed was planted in my brain: “girlboss.” The word exists to empower femininity and provides a quick way to address congratulations. Admittedly, I think the popularity of the term “girlboss” really helped me realize how much internalized misogyny I had.  To me, you could be a girl and be a “boss”, but you could not identify with both words simultaneously. If you wanted to be a female boss, you had to first separate yourself from girlhood. It wasn’t until I found discomfort with the word that it occurred to me that I may have a problem. 

From the time I had this revelation onwards, I rediscovered the love of pink I had spent a decade burying. I am now a proud owner of a dozen dresses, floral print bedsheets, and as much pink as I can get my hands on. I put glitter on my eyelids before I leave the house, I wear the same rose quartz necklace everyday, and my backpack is a shade of blush similar to Rosie that I am proud to sport. 

I’m making up for the years I spent resenting pink and embracing the power of femininity, and the result has left me with a better self-esteem. I look in the mirror and smile at the acne on my cheeks, because to me, it is a natural blush; I love my thighs because of the way my dresses and skirts rest on them; my exercise of choice will always be ballet because I get to wear tulle skirts and ribbons in my hair. My friends will describe me with words like “soft”, “gentle”, and “wholesome”, but I think they would also describe me as “secure”, “strong”, and “independent” – something younger me never was.