Board 8 > Would you say purple is a feminine color?

(+) Yeah! (+)

So purple has been my favorite color since forever, and I've been secretly wanting to find a purple shirt for years to add to my wardrobe.

BUT, my brother recently told an aquaintance that if he saw a guy wearing purple, he would genuinely wonder if that guy was gay, since he considered it a girly color. My mom also somewhat agreed with that statement.

I was naturally shocked, since I've never seen purple "feminine"... ever. Only pink. I'd maybe argue for a few colors, like yellow, or pastel colors like salmon, teal... but that's probably it (and I'm not even sure).

What's your take on the matter?

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Ravens colors are purple and black so like 90% of men in Maryland have purple clothes.

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I feel like it's a color more likely to be worn by women but not really a feminine color. I would not think twice seeing a guy in purple.

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I've worn purple shirts since I was a wee lad and only one person has ever thought I was gay (I'm not, but he was).
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voted feminine but only slightly

plenty of guys wear pink even and I don't think they're gay because I see them wearing pink

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Color of royalty. Neutral.

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I said yes but it's like 55-45 towards it. Not really a big deal

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yes, but we're well last the point of it being an "issue" if people think you're gay, and certainly past the point where the fear of that should prevent you from doing anything you want
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Advokaiser posted...

I've been secretly wanting to find a purple shirt for years to add to my wardrobe.

You sound deeply, deeply insecure.

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Colors don't have genders

Only insecure people relate colors to a gender. Its why most people have no problem wearing whatever color their local sports team is.

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Depends on the shade. Dark purple I would say largely doesn't have fem connotations, especially in an area like Seattle where I live, where it's the primary color of a popular local sports team. Lighter shades of purple I do generally associate with femininity, yes (and for me, that's a good thing).

To add to that - it's obviously ridiculous to suspect someone is gay based on the colors they wear, and to automatically assume any color is automatically girly, or manly, or whatever - colors are very flexible and they can serve a multitude of purposes based on how they're worn or used, and those purposes can always be altered to suit your desires. But I don't think "Colors don't have genders" is a fully-formed take on the matter. That's a pretty good way to tell me that you don't think about gender presentation a lot! Which is fine, of course, most people don't really have to. But colors definitely do have various signals and, like, 'vibes'. They're subtle and ever-changing, and judging someone based on a color they wear is an absurd and insecure thing to do, but you can't ignore cultural and historical contexts that make our dumb human brains stereotype the meanings of certain colors because they just kinda do that. You should, of course, wear colors freely! But 'colors don't have gender' isn't really something that actually plays out in practical terms. (Besides, it would suck for me if colors didn't have gender, I want to wear the girly ones)

One final note - someone thinking a purple shirt might mean a guy is gay is a good way to tell me that someone doesn't know a lot of gay people, because in real life it just DOES NOT play out like that, most men aren't gay and the ones who are don't actually have different color preferences day to day, they might be less likely to be insecure about wearing pink or something but even that is a shaky premise

Its a color more likely to be worn by comic book supervillains, but plenty of them are male.

Jesus Christ Marie

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The concept of assigning colors to genders is one of many (gender-related) stereotypes that needs to go away.

I should expand on my last post.

What I meant is that if somebody instantly looks at a color and goes "that's too girly," or holds a belief like "I'd think a man was gay if he wore purple," they clearly have their own insecurities to deal with, and the problem is on them, not the color.

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Para put my thoughts on this subject better than I think I could.

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I think the style/cut of the clothing would say more about masculinity/femininity than the color. Pink maybe being the one exception, I guess.

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Colors don't have genders, stop letting toxic masculinity steal the vibrance of the rainbow from you

I voted no but kinda agree with Para. Certain shades of purple would feel feminine to me.

Like Lavender or Fuschia for example, lighter tones. Those are more feminine than a lot of pinks too. Like hot pink that's aggressive 80s punker stuff

When I read "purple" I think a darker shade by default which I associate with royalty mostly.

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I also voted no by the way because just the word 'purple' alone is "not enough info", although I do kinda think purple has like very lightly feminine implications

But again that's with the caveat that I think colors can be manly if you just wear them and then be manly. or they can be neutral if you wear them in a neutral way. It's really just sort of a base cultural assumption that you can then paint over as necessary

As a college student whose team colors were dark purple, I can tell you at least the darker variant is not feminine at all....now light purple....like violet....that is probably more feminine.


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MrGreenonion posted...

Colors don't have genders, stop letting toxic masculinity steal the vibrance of the rainbow from you

I don't think it's necessarily "toxic" to say pink is feminine or blue is masculine or whatever. It doesn't mean you think girls can't wear blue or boys can't wear pink.

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It depends on the shade of purple. In general I think bluer shades of purple are more masculine and redder shades of purple are more feminine.

But also I don't think I'd ever wonder about someone's sexuality based on them wearing a purple shirt. Like it would never occur to me. imo your brother/mother are being weird
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Wearing purple is sometimes part of signaling in the LGBT community (specifically associated with bisexuality), so there's maybe an off chance a guy would try to pick you up over it, but I doubt that would actually happen lol. You should just wear whichever colors you want.

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Aw yea purple one of my fav colors

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Certain shades yes.

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_stingers_ posted...

I said yes but it's like 55-45 towards it. Not really a big deal

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Depends on the shade, yeah. But if you like it go for it. My favorite color is pink so I wear it all the time

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Some shades are slightly feminine and some are slightly masculine, I'd say. I definitely see more men than women wearing grape purple.

For the most part if you go into a clothing store and buy a shirt from the men's section, it's going to be a color that isn't coded feminine. Because like... that's the point. We can debate if this is a good or bad thing it's bad but the moral of the story is, don't stress it.

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Drakeryn posted...

imo your brother/mother are being weird

this is pretty easily the most important takeaway here tbh

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Me in grade school probably thought that, but who knows anymore. Me in 2021, however, thinks my favorite polo is my purple one. The water's fine dude.

Royal purple's where it's at.

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I don't believe any colours are gender specific.

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I don't think there's any colour men shouldn't wear. That includes pink; if you want to wear pink, wear pink. It's literally just clothing dye. There's famous male movie stars that wore a pink suit to the oscars.

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It's no more feminine than red is. I voted yes because it's more likely to be worn by women, but the only color that's truly targeted at one gender is pink. How do you make a product for women? Make it pink.

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When I was a kid, I thought purple was feminine. Once the Ravens became a team that way of thinking went out the window.
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There are a few shades that I might consider feminine, but its mostly not.

No but I do think purple is the worst color don't @ me

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Grimace is canonically a straight cisgendered male so I vote no.

LeonhartFour posted...

I don't think it's necessarily "toxic" to say pink is feminine or blue is masculine or whatever. It doesn't mean you think girls can't wear blue or boys can't wear pink.

It kinda is though. Idk if I'd say toxic, but it's not good for us.

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Waluigi1 posted...

It kinda is though. Idk if I'd say toxic, but it's not good for us.

I mean, if it results in negative judgments, sure. But I'd consider purple a more feminine color and I also own purple shirts.

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Surskit posted...

You sound deeply, deeply insecure.

Haha, no, it's just not something that has been constantly mentioned among us over the last 12 or so years. They've always known purple is my favorite color.

(...Though I do have to admit, hearing such a statement from him actually made me insecure about that decision ever since...)

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I don't think you sound insecure, by the way. It is an act of bravery to wear something that you reasonably suspect others will judge you for, even if they're wrong.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I don't think you sound insecure, by the way. It is an act of bravery to wear something that you reasonably suspect others will judge you for, even if they're wrong.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I literally have a Spotify playlist labeled as "Songs For Alpha Males" solely featuring artists like Taylor Swift, Alize, GFRIEND, Katy Perry, etc. lol.

The thing is, even though I'm not gay or insecure about that aspect, I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable if the people surrounding me had a wrong or skewed perception about me (this includes other aspects in general, not just this specific topic). I'd rather be clear from the get-go.

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I think it leans towards feminine, but it's not a "It's for girls!" status like Pink is. Purple is also kind of a royalty color if that makes any sense?

...But yeah, it doesn't matter in the end. A guy can wear pink or purple if he wants to.

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BTW, what do you guys mean with "color of royalty"?

I can only think of red, gold, and blue in terms of royalty.

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Advokaiser posted...

BTW, what do you guys mean with "color of royalty"?

I can only think of red, gold, and blue in terms of royalty.

in days of yore purple dye was rare and expensive so only royalty wore it

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