Published by: Airene Nicole Q. Pamintuan
Date Published: March 2, 2022
Time Published: 10:32 AM
Theme: Womanhood
Category: Prose
Synopsis: Pink had always been the color for women, it was a societal norm, as clear as day. But, was it really the only color that defined what it was like to be a woman?
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Pink
Even before you were born into this world, you were already assigned a color for something you didn’t quite choose for yourself: pink for a girl and blue for a boy. When you had asked your parents why you had a boring dress-up doll instead of the fun toy car your brother had, they answered like almost everyone else: “Because you’re a girl.”
“But didn’t mom drive a car, too? Didn’t dad dress himself up for work every morning, too? I want the toy car. I want to play with my brother. He looks like he’s having so much fun. "Why can’t I play with the same toys as him?" You had complained and complained, over and over again, like a broken alarm clock that refused to turn off. You had asked them questions; you had wondered why the dolls just kept on piling up in your room while your brother got all these comic books, the robots, the guns. You remembered all the cool toys you had picked up for yourself at the toy store but got put back on the shelves by your parents—only to see them by the cabinet in your brother’s room, days after.
It felt like you were being conditioned like you were being handed something that you didn’t even ask for. At school, at church, even at your own house, it had always been like this: ”Get the pink one because you’re a girl; wear the pink shirt because that’s for girls; oh, do you want the pink cupcake? We have enough of those for the girls.”
But, you didn’t even want any of those.
You had looked at your bedroom walls and wished they were white instead. At least white didn’t hurt your eyes, unlike the bright pink that’s plastered everywhere in your own space, unwarranted.
Blue
At nine years old, you had found yourself straying away from what society had wanted of you.
Your parents were furious, but they’d never tell. You had asked for a big shirt instead of a blouse, but they’d just buy both for you. You had asked for your bedroom walls to be repainted white and they complied—but they’d left the large cabinet in the corner of your room painted pink. They weren’t loud, but it had been things like these that reminded you of their hopes for you, their hopes for the girl you’d turn out to be. Their perfect image of you had been shattered once you refused to wear a dress.
Your brother had asked once, “tomboy ka ba?” just for refusing to wear a piece of clothing.
“No,” you had replied, fists clenched tightly by your sides.
“Then, why do you dress like that?”
Why do you? Was it because the boys in class praised you for liking the things they did?
Was it because when they asked you for your favorite color, you had uttered the word ‘blue’, and they all looked at you with eyes of wonder? Did you actually like blue? Yes, of course, you liked blue—because it was the color of the ocean that occupied the largest area in the world; because it took up space and wasn’t forced to be small like how you were taught to cower when you were young; because it was associated with masculinity, and in turn, associated with strongness, boldness, and loudness. Everything a girl wasn’t supposed to be—everything you wanted to be.
“Because blue is my favorite color.” You were wearing a blue shirt.
Red
Red had been the color of the blanket that wrapped around you in your teenage years, so tightly, that it frayed and fell once you had rid yourself of it.
Life wasn’t necessarily kind to you if you were a woman. It wouldn’t slow down for you and wait for you to flourish and grow and shine because that’s what’s anticipated of you as a woman. It had expected you to accomplish twice as much in fleeting days, because if you didn’t—then you were not a woman, but merely a failure.
With so little time, you had learned to be more sentimental. Wearing your heart on your sleeve, you had felt a little deeper than others, fallen in love a little stronger. It came with the fear of being left behind and life catching up to you, you supposed. Once a woman turned a little bit older than eighteen, she was as good as the overgrown shirts you had worn when you were nine—forgotten somewhere, out of use.
So, you loved and you felt and you cried. In between, you had felt your chest bursting into little pieces—because you had so many emotions that didn’t know where to go except for the stark lines in your red palms; you found that they had tucked themselves into it. Red was for intensity. Red was for the anger you had felt when you watched that male student get away from trouble, while your friend had to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness for something that wasn’t proven to be done by her.
Red was for intensity. Red was for the unwavering passion you had for your ambitions, even if society had repeatedly told you not to dream so big because you were just a woman. Red was for intensity. Red was for the love you had poured onto the people that thought you were too much, severe, and potent. Perhaps, it was because they never understood the limited time that came with womanhood, for if you were not intense enough—no one would dare bat an eye at you.
To be a woman was to be intense—because if you were any lesser, they would not have had the heart to listen.
Green
Just as how the red blanket unraveled itself from your body as it became disheveled with time, you had learned to keep a green handkerchief right inside your breast pocket, above your heart. It was there, but not quite. It was something only people who actually knew, noticed.
“Learn to live a little!” Kai, who was one of the few people who had asked about your handkerchief on the first day of meeting each other, exclaimed.
“I mean,” you scoffed. “I am alive.”
“There’s a distinct difference between being alive and actually living,” she said, downing another cup of water.
It was quite true that the glamour of womanhood only lasted for so long—because as soon as you had graduated college, it felt like the whole world was against you, somehow. There was no time for ‘living’ if you were born into a body that was designated as the punching bag of society. There was no time for ‘living’ if the world you resided in catered to everyone else but your kind. You had to double the effort of everything, you had to be the one to open up the opportunities for yourself—and yet, sometimes, the results of these efforts weren’t enough for people to actually see you as someone who was competent. Because you’re a woman, they would say, like being one was such a shame.
Even so, the green handkerchief served as a charm—no, a reminder for yourself that you were okay, you were fine, and that it was okay to take a step back and breathe on top of a hill until you felt like working and facing the world again. Green was for relaxing—it was a reminder that you had all the time in the world to feel your emotions, even if the world had set a timer on your success. Green was for a living—because even as a woman, you had the right to live.
You didn’t have to prove yourself to anyone but you.
So, live and live, until it hurts to breathe. Live, for the society that made it hard for you to do so. Live, for the little girls in school who had no one to look up to. Live, for your mother, for the strong women that had brought you up.
Live, for yourself.
Pink
When you were still a child, pink was the color associated with femininity and weakness. For as long as you could remember, you had thought of it as something that took away almost everything from you. It was a nudge that followed you everywhere, making sure that it made itself
seen wherever you went.
But now that you laid in your childhood room’s floor, you looked at the pink closet that was already chipping; you looked at the walls you had asked to be painted white, in order to hide the symbol for weakness; you looked at all the dresses that were scattered across the bed mattress that you had never worn.
Perhaps, pink was not always for weakness.
Pink could be so many things—it could be the blush that had spread on your cheeks when you had gotten accepted to your dream university; it could be the sky once a sunset occurs, a sign of victory after a long day; it could be spring and all the flowers that bloomed within the season, beautiful and lovely, calm and kind.
Pink could be the hope you had once forgotten but now found—in the same room you had lost it years ago. Pink could be the willingness to fight whenever you were brought back down by the harsh laughter of the patriarchy because women can represent strength, too.
Pink could be you— all your masculinity and femininity, all your blues and reds and greens, everything that you had come to know and love; for it doesn’t have to hurt forever—being a woman—it could also be the comfort you had found in womanhood.
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