After the birth of his daughter, blogger and stay-at-home dad Simon Ragoonanan started having an issue with pink. He wasn't opposed to the color in general, just its inextricable link to girl clothes, toys and culture.
"While it's unlikely that girls do indeed have a predilection for pink, the marketing-industrial complex is very clear: 'Pink is for girls,'" Ragoonanan wrote on his blog, "Man vs. Pink." "And they keep churning out their wares targeted at them."
He writes that assigning a color to a gender is limiting, and he wants no limits for his spunky three-year-old daughter.
"The big problem is one of smallness – the focus of what these things are remains relatively narrow, and this is potentially limiting our girls imaginations, opportunities and ambitions," he wrote.
So, he's trying something different. He's trying not to buy her anything pink.
“I like to think I am very studious about not buying pink things for my daughter," Ragoonanan wrote. "I am very clear with family & friends, ‘Please don’t buy her anything pink.'"
Though, he admits sometimes he does fail miserably. If something is "cool" and "also happens to be pink," he'll buy it.
But aside from pink avoidance, his most interesting experiment is a brave one. Recently he's started letting his daughter dress herself. He and his wife say it’s a way to let her imagination run wild and allow her to make her own creative decisions.
"Since she's turned three, I've decided to stop [picking out her outfits], as I'm trying to raise an independent, empowered girl," he said during an interview with "She Knows." "I'm kind of sending mixed messages if I decide what she wears every day! So every morning, she chooses herself."
So, how has that little experiment been going? Adorably, as one might expect. He's been posting some of her looks to his Instagram account.
Ragoonan is loving seeing his daughter style herself, saying her look has a bit of geekiness that includes a passion for superhero garb and a lack of princess-like accessories.
"I want my daughter to be her own girl and then woman, but with such marketing force trying to sell to her and define what they want girls to be, I feel I have to compensate a bit," he told "She Knows. "So I've always encouraged her to wear the geeky stuff — as much to show others as well as herself that being 'girly' doesn't have to mean pink and 'princessy.'"
