Women Go for Pink, Men for Blue

Gay preference for pink is not casual. The belief that pink is for girls and blue for boys has got scientific support. At least women prefer more reddish hues than men do. It appears that color preference in women evolved in part to help females spot rapidly ripe fruit, as these tend to get reddish.

"Both sexes find blues more appealing than other shades of the rainbow according to previous research. However, scientists have lacked good evidence as to whether women and men really differ in terms of the shades they like best," said lead-researcher Anya Hurlbert at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Hurlbert's team tested color preferences in 171 British adults and 37 recent UK immigrants from mainland China, divided in an equal number of men and women. Testing two different cultural groups eliminated cultural factor in the gender preferences for color.

Each subject viewed about 750 different color pairs from the entire rainbow, and from each pair they had to point the preferred shade. Indeed, blue was the preferred color for both sexes. But a detailed analysis showed that the women had a much stronger preference for blues with "pinkish" undertones, like lilac, whereas men preferred purer blues.

"Women might prefer pinker shades because – in cultures where pink represents girlishness and femininity – they have learned to identify with it. But the Chinese women, who grew up without commercial toys such as Barbie that promote pink to girls, showed an even greater liking for pinkish hues than their British female counterparts" said Hulbert.

This would mean that the female preference for pink is innate. Still, there may be other cultural influences on color choice beyond toys, admit the researchers.

Even if most mammals lack complex color perception, humans and most primates (monkeys and apes) have advanced color vision, detecting three different ranges of light waves (in the case of the birds, with a highly sophisticated vision, the number goes to 5!).

The evolutionary explaination for color vision is that it eased primates to pick out reddish, fully ripe fruit out of a green vegetation background. In this case, women are more sensitive to redder shades because when humans were just hunters-gatherers, women did most of the fruit gathering. Or perhaps sensitivity to red makes females detect faster blush-inducing emotions in their social roles as "caregivers and empathizers."

"Though, that just because women prefer pinkish colors does not mean they spot them faster than men do. Going back to our 'savanna' days, we would have a natural preference for a clear blue sky, because it signaled good weather. Clear blue also signals a good water source.", said Hulbert.

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