There’s an article in today’s Independent titled “Boys like blue, girls like pink – it’s in our genes.”

According to researchers at Newcastle University,

“On top of the universal preference for blue, females have a preference for the red end of the red-green axis, and this shifts their colour preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks and lilacs the most preferred colours in comparison with others.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The headline is slightly misleading in that both genders tend to prefer blue over all other colors, but females tend to have a secondary preference toward reds.

Either way, the article attributes these characteristics to genetics and, ultimately, to evolution. But here is the very strange part:

However, early human societies almost certainly engaged in a division of labour between the sexes, with men travelling long distances to hunt wild game. Women, meanwhile, foraged locally for fruit and berries.

Dr Hurlbert suggests that this division of labour may be at the root of why girls now prefer pink.

“Evolution may have driven females to prefer reddish colours – reddish fruits, healthy, reddish faces. Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference,” she said.

As for the wider human preference for blue, Dr Hurlbert said this may have something to do with our love for the grassy plains of our place of origin, in Africa, where the sky is an important feature of the landscape.

“I would favour evolutionary arguments here,” she said. “Going back to our ’savannah’ days, we would have a natural preference for a blue sky, because it signalled good weather.”

(Emphasis, again, added.)

So, basically, girls prefer pink because many many years ago, women picked berries. But this implies that our environment influences our genes, which is wrong even if you buy into evolutionary theory.

Incidentally, the biggest problem with this article is that the whole “blue for boys, pink for girls” thing wasn’t uniform until the mid-twentieth century. Prior to that, pink was preferred for boys, while blue was preferred for girls:

“There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]

See here for more detail on that (scroll to “Why is Pink a Girl Color and Blue a Boy Color?”)

Sorry, folks. Back to the drawing board on this one.