Full of Color

The other day, as I was standing in line at Subway, I saw a guy who was wearing a bright pink shirt and matching pink and purple shoes. After I had been looking at him for a few seconds, I thought, "Why is he wearing that?" Then I caught myself and thought, "Why does it matter?" So what if he wants to wear pink? Why has society decided that it's weird for guys to wear pink?

Later that week, I saw one of the coolest rainbows I'd ever seen as I was driving home. It was a full arch, something that you rarely have enough rain to see in Texas. It was only there for a few minutes because the sun was setting, so I knew I had to enjoy it. It was so neat to be able to see how one color faded to the next. That got me thinking more about the pink shirt issue. All of these colors in the rainbow seemed to have equal importance. So how did we ascribe different meanings to these colors? Why is blue a baby boy color and pink a baby girl color from the beginning? Do these colors have inherent meanings? The only difference between colors is their wavelength, so where do ideas about colors come from? If all of the colors are good enough to be in the rainbow, I think we should be able to wear whatever we want.