A facebook group has emerged urging men and women to paint their nails pink this Friday.
As written about by fellow PT blogger Tyger Latham (see here), a recent J.Crew catalog image caused quite a stir. If you haven't heard about it yet, please take a moment to imagine some images that could be offensive. Ok, so there is like a 95% chance that none of those things you just considered were in the image!
The image depicted a young boy with his real-life mother (a J.Crew executive). She was, wait for it, painting his nails pink!
A wide range of (mostly conservative) news outlets took this story and ran with it. Fox News, for instance, (see here) ran a piece on how the mother should reserve some money for psychotherapy, because the boy is going to have a confused gender identity.
Jon Stewart (masterfully) captured the absurdity of this on his show, The Daily Show with John Stewart (see here).
The Facebook group is urging everyone to paint their nails pink on Friday, to support the advertisement ran by J.Crew. So far, over 4,500 people have signed up.
Research by a variety of psychologists demonstrates that some people have a strong need for certainty, structure and coherance. In other words, they like things clear cut, black and white. So boys should do "boy things," and if they don't, these people react negatively.
This personality trait is typically associated with political conservatism, so it is probably no coincidence that these news outlets tend to be having the most outrage.
Boys can like "girl things." Girls can like "boy things." Not everything comes in a nice, well structured, packaged box.
It is time people realized this.
