Before the late nineteenth century, boys and girls were dressed identically—like little girls, in loose-fitting dresses. Eventually, shorts and trousers were introduced, and by the early twentieth...

Before the late nineteenth century, boys and girls were dressed identically—like little girls, in loose-fitting dresses. Eventually, shorts and trousers were introduced, and by the early twentieth century, clothing became color coded. When children began to wear color-coded clothing, the rule was: pink for boys and blue for girls. An editorial in a popular magazine explained that pink was “a more decided and stronger color” and thus more suitable for boys, while blue was “more delicate and dainty” and therefore better for girls. You can look it up! A debate in the 1910s and 1920s began to reverse that trend, and blue became the boy color and pink the girl color. And today we dress little girls more like little boys—in overalls, T-shirts, and sneakers (Paoletti, 1987, 1989, 1997). But we still avoid like the plague doing the opposite.