The Pink Pumps Project

I recently heard a sociologist say something that plucked a cord so deep in me that this morning I lay in bed unable to sleep. She said that the women’s movement of the 70s sought to accomplish two things. The first was to open masculine roles to women and the second was to make clear the inherently valuable role of femininity. She went on to explain that the first has been largely successful, great strides have been made toward this goal. However, rather than walking into the “man’s world” with our femininity intact women have largely taken on masculine characteristics to survive and thrive here. We have received the message that to be feminine is to be weak, to be incapable, to be unintelligent.

A friend of mine, who works in a different scientific discipline, wears heels to all of her presentations. She does this on purpose. She does it to claim her femininity. She does it as rebellion because at her last scientific conference she was one of TWO women presenting, at the entire conference. She has inspired me and she has gotten me thinking.

Female scientists certainly navigate the difficult terrain of a world structured by and built for men. We walk the well documented “tightrope” between being too masculine and thus unlikeable and too feminine and thus incapable. It’s really quite exhausting and largely a no-win situation.

While there are a thousand angles of attack on this unfair dichotomy one in particular has captured my attention. I believe, rather than bending our nature to become other, we should destroy the link between femininity and incompetence. We need to build a connection between femininity and capability.

How?

Well, I think in a million different ways, ways that a lot of amazing women like my friend in her heels are already doing but my idea is the pink pumps project.

I know, pink….

But you see I realized not too long ago that this color had been sort of taken from me my whole life. I grew up a “tomboy,” which essentially means I was a naturalist from day one. I climbed trees to peek into bird nests, waded in streams to catch frogs, and was told that these were “male” things. I’m guessing you were, too?

I was proud of my “tomboy” status, as if being a tomboy somehow elevated me above girls. I never ever got the impression that being a girl alone was special and or indicative of capability. Somewhere along the line I started to hate, loathe entirely, the color pink. For 36 years I felt disdain for this color because it represented femininity.

I only realized this a few months ago, thanks to a neon pink pair of chucks that I fell wildly in love with. Those chucks plus my friend’s heels plus a lot of research about the status of women in the sciences all came together into this realization. I need to reclaim my femininity. I need to link my “girlness” unquestionably and clearly with my “scientistness.”

So the idea came to me, as if carried by a muse (I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it). Pink pumps. What could more obviously and rebelliously declare “I am a GIRL!” I've long loved and subsequently felt disallowed to love heels. So, I am trying to gather the courage to 1) buy a pair of pink pumps 2) wear pink pumps every time I present from here until I no longer feel the need to declare that my femininity is intricately linked to my capability.

The Pink Pumps Project

For all the little girls sloshing through stream beds to find frogs or climbing trees to peek at birds. May you feel free to do so in pink.