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For many modern cultures, the color pink has become the color meaning femininity, in all its forms. This means that the more feminine a woman is the likely she is to wear pink in fiction. It's also why it's thought girls appreciate pink things more than other colors.
The form of the pink is best done with elegant clothing (like the walls on her bedroom and the furniture), but even something "manly" being colored pink would count for this trope. Heck, even a dress that's not normally pink, like a Fairytale Wedding Dress, could be either colored pink (for being non- traditional, but still feminine), or have pink trimmings (usually in the form of a bouquet with pink flowers). A woman wearing sexy pink clothes can look naughty and nice at the same time.
This trope is Newer Than They Think. Pink is a shade of red, and red (being the color of blood) was considered masculine. Blue was the feminine hue (because it was associated with the Virgin Mary), and still is in some parts of the world.
The strong association of pink and a girly sort of womanhood makes this a delicate trope to navigate. For instance, a Tomboy will refuse to wear pink and her counterpart, the Girly Girl, will insist on it. A favorite twist is to bring the "feminine and delicate" connotations into hard contrast with an Action Girl's rough, tough, and indelicate career. Expect the Girly Bruiser to wear pink while kicking ass. Real Men Wear Pink also plays on the contrast (often humorous) which comes up when a "manly" man is shown to enjoy "girly" pursuits.
By the way, this can include any shade of pink, even those that cross with other colors (like fuchsia, a purple and pink color). This is why the Graceful Ladies Like Purple trope exists.
A Sub Trope of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
A Super Trope to:
A Sister Trope to Graceful Ladies Like Purple (and can overlap with colors like fuchsia), True Blue Femininity.
Compare Long Hair Is Feminine, Woman in White, Lady in Red, Girls Love Stuffed Animals, Hair Decorations, All Girls Like Ponies, Pimped-Out Dress, Princess Phase.
Examples (not covered in the sub tropes):
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Anime and Manga
- Black Butler's Lizzy on more than one occasion makes the manor look like a dragon puked pink all over the inside. Also, when Ciel crossdresses, he wears an absurd amount of pink.
- Dola, the leader of the Sky Pirates in Castle in the Sky, likes pink and has long hair in Girlish Pigtails.
- Played With throughout the Lyrical Nanoha franchise: the title character herself, a rather feminine young woman, has pink as the default color of her magic... which she usually uses to deliver a world of pain to her prospective friends and family. Then, we have Signum, a Lady of War who sports luscious waist-long pink hair... and is widely regarded as the manliest character in the series. Lastly, Caro Ru Lushe, whose hair and magic are pink... is a Girly Girl (and one of the most obviously heterosexual ones in this Les Yay-laden franchise, to boot), merrily playing this trope straight.
- As a "girl power" series, Pretty Cure loves the color pink, and the main girl of each series will always have some pink in her outfit. Notably, the girl in pink isn't always a Girly Girl — while that was the case in some other seasons, the earlier seasons and one of the later ones have the tomboy wear pink instead.
- Invoked in the initial flyer for Suite Pretty Cure♪, which went out of its way to point out that both mains wore pink in their Cure outfits, putting "girls' favorite color on full display".
- In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, each girl has a different Magical Girl costume with its own color scheme that matches with their hair and eyes. Naturally, Madoka, easily the nicest and most vulnerable of the main cast, has pink as her main color.
- In Sailor Moon, the title character usually wears red, white, blue, and yellow in her fuku, however her "aura" color appears to be pink, as whenever she's using an attack, pink is usually her main color. Her bow is also pink in the musicals and the live-action drama. Sailor Chibi Moon's fuku always has pink, not to mention that her hair is pink.
- Sailor Jupiter's dominant colour is light green but has pink for an accent colour, possibly since despite being the group's resident Tomboy she's also the most skilled at the traditionally feminine domestic arts like cooking.
- It should be noted that in the case of Sailor Moon herself, pink does not necessarily mean feminine. Sure, there's a reason why she's caught some flak from groups that oppose stereotypical femininity, but compared to some other characters (Naru Osaka, Sailor Mercury, and Sailor Neptune come to mind) she's somewhat of a tomboy herself, a trait which was particularly alluded to in early seasons.
- Ichigo Momomiya/Mew Ichigo, the leader of the Mew Mews from Tokyo Mew Mew.
- Yeo Goseng and Yeo Miseng from Tower Of God wear pink. Though the former is more a jaded snarker, Miseng is a typical little girl.
- Wedding Peach has the color appearing in several places, from the weapons to Transformation Sequences (and that's not even taking Momoko's hair into account).
- In the Magic Knight Rayearth art and series, Emmeraude's outfit is white, and Alcyone's outfit is red. In Rayearth OVA, their outfits are pink.
- All of the chosen girls' Digimon have pink heavily featured in most of their forms. Sora's Yokomon and Biyomon are both pink all over though the Champion and Ultimate forms change to red/maroon. Mimi's Palmon has a pink flower for hair while her Ultimate form Lillymon is entirely pink, as is her Mega form Rosemon. Kari's Gatomon isn't pink in any of her early forms but Angewomon has a pink shawl and her Heaven's Charm attack creates a heavenly wave of pink energy. One of her Mega forms Magnadramon is also a pink dragon. Plus the crests of Love and Light (Sora's and Kari's) are represented by rose pink and pale pink respectively.
Fan Works
Film
- Sharpay Evans of High School Musical is a drama queen and high school diva who wants everything to be fabulous which results in a lot of pink.
- Legally Blonde: Elle wears pink to stand out from the rest of the crowd and to emphasise her femininity.
- Mean Girls. The Plastics have these rules surrounding the color pink, which they must wear every Wednesday. Tomboy Janis owns nothing pink while Ambiguosly Gay Damian of course has a pink polo shirt.
- In Suzie Q, Suzie wears a pink evening dress, and her mother comments that she finally got her daughter to wear fancy clothes.
- Possibly also an Actor Allusion, since in at least one film, Suzie Q was played by Amy Jo Johnson, a former Pink Power Ranger who (for a time) was quite annoyed by her time in pink.
- Glinda's outfit in The Wizard of Oz.
- Hermione Granger wore an airy pink dress (with a purple sash around the waist) to the Yule Ball in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. It's used to show her make a girl-into-woman Cinderella entrance. (fans were neither happy nor impressed)
- Possible reason for deviation from book: Rowling probably didn't realize that brown eyed girls don't wear blue very well.
- Hermione again gets a pink dress, albeit of different design, for a brief Christmas Party gathering in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
- Bond Girl Plenty O'Toole wore bright pink panties with light blue/purple lace when stripped of her purple dress in Diamonds Are Forever.
Literature
- Subverted in the Vorkosigan Saga where the eight-foot-tall Cute Monster Girl, Sergeant Taura had been told that pink would make her look less intimidating. Because of this, most of her civilian wardrobe is a nearly fluorescent pink that does NOT work on her. One of the running gags in Winterfair Gifts is the efforts of the rest of the cast to correct her of this fallacy.
- Delores Umbridge of Harry Potter surrounds herself with pink, to try to cover up her Jerkass nature.
- As well, when the Weasley twins open their shop in Diagon Alley, they have a range of items marketed to girls which are all pink.
- April Devereux from Half Moon Investigations had a "Pink Club", which turned out to be a cover for a club determined to get girls a good education and will go to any measure to do so.
- In Paranormalcy by Kiersten White, Action Girl protagonist Evie has a rhinestone-studded pink taser named Tasey, wears killer pink boots, and refuses to carry a knife until she is given one that is, you guessed it, pink.
- A minor running gag in the Discworld books. Monstrous Regiment mentions that girls of around seven are magnetically attracted to the color pink, however they feel about it later. Brought up again in Making Money where Adora Belle Dearheart says that every girl of approximately eight years of age loves the color pink. This is used to rule out that the Cabinet of Curiosity at Unseen University could have been designed for a little girl, since it contains nothing pink.
- The books of Angelina Ballerina, and its cartoon adaptations, put Angelina in a pink tutu.
- Cindy, Chris and Cathy's very girly adopted daughter in the Dollanganger series, notes that "I love pink, really adore pink," and has a bathroom decorated in pink with gold and green accents.
Live-Action TV
- The Chick in Super Sentai shows would usually wear pink (which also influenced similar shows, such as Go Lion, and any parodies, such as the Axem Rangers of Super Mario RPG). Carried over into Power Rangers, of course, where Pink Rangers usually get pegged as the Girly Girl.
- Played with in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. The gimmick of copying previous Rangers already mixes up the Gendered Outfit thing, but in the Gavan crossover movie, the entire team briefly uses pink Ranger Keys. However, it was ultra rare for someone not the Pink Ranger to wear pink. That all-pink morph may have been the first time.
- Played with in Power Rangers Mystic Force, where Vida the Pink Ranger is about as un-feminine as you can get and was pissed at getting stuck with the pink suit with the pop-out butterfly wings. (This is a hilarious reversal of its parent sentai, too, where Magi Pink was Kawaiiko squared.) During Turbo / In Space, the more girly fashion-conscious Ashley is the Yellow Ranger, while the (slightly) more brash, tomboyish musician Cassie was Pink.
- Averted in Time Force. Pink is Jen, a Badass with a vengeful streak and The Leader of the team (Red gets the usual standing-in-center priveleges because that's the rule, though.) There wasn't a Girly Girl that year at all. Yellow is a girl with Super Strength who loves to use it. However, Katie's more sentimental side comes out a lot more than Jen's.
- In the Firefly episode "Shindig", Kaylee wears a pink Pimped-Out Dress as part of her Princess for a Day.
- The Female Changeling, the bigger bad from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, wears a flowing pink garment in her humanoid form.
- Prairie Dawn from Sesame Street.
Professional Wrestling
- In WWE the original Women's title had a pink strap on it, that the new FCW Divas' title also is modelled after. The current WWE Divas' Championship is also designed pink and the Divas' logo is pink. As far as I know the only diva who has not worn pink on her ring gear is Michelle McCool.
- Mighty Molly (Molly Holly as the Hurricane's superhero sidekick) wore a pink and black outfit.
- In a way Natalya Neidheart defied this trope whenever she wore pink as it was a reference to her Hart family lineage, whose colours are pink and black. So Nattie never comes across as feminine when she's seen wearing pink ring gear.
- When they have to promote a Diva's match with a graphic, there's always some pink in the background and the text is normally pink as well.
Toys
- Barbie has been wearing pink since at least the "Enchanted Evening" doll, and even has a copyrighted color of "Barbie Pink".
- The body of the original toy release of Princess Celestia in the Hasbro toy line was pink colored and not white as in the show, apparently to appeal to little girls. It was however changed when the "bronies" complained.
Video Games
- The pirate captain Clara in Skies Of Arcadia wears pink and decorates her ship pink and her crew wears pink uniforms. They are the girliest pirates you'll ever see. Aika says the cabins look like 'a honey moon suite'.
- Mass Effect introduces the character Ashley Williams in a pink uniform. Since it's a uniform, and Femshep doesn't wear pink, the color probably indicated unit affiliation rather than gender or fashion choice, and Ashley's lost unit all wore pink.
- Amy, the first playable female in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, doesn't wear pink. She is pink. Wherever possible she also incorporates pink into her vehicles and stage design.
- The entire menu and user interface of Persona 3 is changed from blue to pink in the PSP version's female protagonist route.
- Claire in the second Puppet Princess game, and Etoile's sprite in the first game.
- Bad Girl of No More Heroes wears pink, but given her Badass nature, this seems to be just to keep up her Sweet Lolita image.
- Vanille's pink top in Final Fantasy XIII.
- Maria's dress in Castlevania Rondo Of Blood.
- Annie in Wild Guns wears a pink dress by default.
- Virginia's dress in Wild ARMs 3 is purple in artwork, but fuchsia in-game.
- Natalie's pink armor in Radiata Stories.
- Momo Karuizawa in Rival Schools.
- In addition to Peach, the Super Mario Bros. series has Wendy Koopa and Toadette.
- Josephine of Suikoden V.
- Kairi in Kingdom Hearts II.
- The Queen of all Cosmos in Katamari Damacy.
- Sakura of Sakura Taisen wears pink in her uniform.
- Princess Zelda wears pink in a few of her incarnations, most notably The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
- Flora, Professor Layton's adopted daughter, prefers this palette. She's first seen in a formal portrait, wearing a red velvet gown; later she wears a white dress with dark pink accents, and in the second and third games of the series she wears a peach-pink dress with dark pink or red accessories.
- Some ladies in Tekken wear pink.
- Ling Xiaoyu's outfit in 5 is mostly pink, save for the white shorts and white feathers.
- Alisa Bosconovitch's outfit is half pink half blue.
Webcomics
Web Original
Webcomics
- In Homestuck, played straight with Roxy and Feferi, who are both pretty girly, but averted with Meenah, who is actually a tomboyish Punk.
Western Animation
- In The Transformers, Arcee the female Transformer was all pink (okay, there were white highlights.) Elita-One, the leader and most visible member of a team of girl Autobots, was also pink and white.
- Robert Mandell's best-known creations, Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers and Princess Gwenevere And The Jewel Riders, were distinct contrasts on this trope. In the first, Niko was only shoved into a pink dress once (while she and Doc were heading to a Bad Guy Bar), protesting all the while. The latter cartoon was designed for a girl's toy line, and virtually everything was pastel, with the lead character rarely seen in any other color than pink.
- Larke and Bianca of Beverly Hills Teens have a bunch of pink things, including Bianca's Limited Wardrobe outfit.
- Amy from Futurama wears a pink, midriff-baring sweatsuit a lot. However, "Into the Wild Green Yonder" reveals that it's actually a boy's sweatsuit.
- Quinn from Daria wears pink in many of her outfits.
- Ashley A. from Recess usually has pink in all of her outfits.
- Dot from Animaniacs wears a pink skirt.
- The Chipettes in Alvin And The Chipmunks have a lighter color scheme than the chipmunks, Brittany wearing pink.
- Charlotte LaBouff from The Princess and the Frog is obsessed with the color pink, since she never grew out of her Princess Phase, and because Princesses Prefer Pink.
- Mulan's matchmaker dress is colored pink while she is given tips about being a House Wife.
- Pink is a common color for Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck of the Classic Disney Shorts.
- Sarah of Dinosaucers wears pink tights.
- Teryx, the only female Dinosaucer, has pink skin and darker-pink armour.
- Pre-Black Cat Felicia Hardy wore a pink skirt in the 90s animated Spider-Man series.
- Megara from Hercules wears a light pink dress with a slit on the side with a dark pink sash around the waist.
- Jean in the 90s X-Men had a few pink outfits, like a pink evening mini dress, and in the Fairy Tale episode, her fictional Princess counterpart wore purple and pink.
- When Darkwing Duck traveled to an Alternate Universe, Gosalyn's counterpart was feminine compared to the regular Gosalyn's tomboy, and she wore a pink, frilly dress.
- Penelope of The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop.
- Jessie of Jonny Quest The Real Adventures gets pink clothing, whether a shirt or Stylish Protection Gear.
- Katie and Sadie from Total Drama both wear pink short shorts and high heeled sandals. In Revenge of the Island, Dakota's regular outfit is entirely pink.
- Clara from The Nutcracker Prince has a pink bow and pink fur-trimmed winter coat.
- Kim in The Care Bears Movie has a pink hair bow and sweater.
- Milli from Team Umizoomi has a pink dress with flowers, a matching helmet, pink tights/stockings and pink shoes as her default outfit. She's an action girl, so it's a subversion.
- In Barbie in a Christmas Carol, Eden's best friend Catherine wears a pink and white Pimped Outdress. In a Bad Future, Catherine is as mean as Eden, and has an Evil Costume Switch to a purple dress.
- Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! wears a pink and white striped shirt.
- While Blossom is the only member of The Powerpuff Girls whose attire is pink, the girls' bedroom in general is pink.
- Subverted with The Pink Panther, who is male. Clothing merchandising has attempted to feminize him.
- Another X-Men/Jean Grey example - in the Flashback episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men, as a teenager Jean Grey was shown wearing a pink shirt (with purple and blue hair bands).
- Caitlin from 6teen often wears pink in her outfits and has several pink accessories, including her cell phone.'
- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic averts it with Pinkie Pie, the pinkest pony of the main cast, who isn't particularly girly. The most classically effeminate cast member, Rarity, is white with a lavender mane. Hasbro also tried to invoke this by marketing a pink Celestia doll, even though the pony in question is white; they later got their proper pink princess in the form of Cadance... who is nonetheless badass enough to singlehandedly defend her kingdom for weeks without sleep, and with assistance from her husband sent an enemy army flying over the horizon. Studio B likes to play with tropes, can you guess?
- In Sleeping Beauty Flora and Merriweather row over what colour Aurora's dress is to be. Naturally the more feminine Flora insists that it must be pink, though the dress spends most of the film blue.
Real Life
- Angie Harmon wore a pink Pimped-Out Dress with a feather skirt to the 2011 SAG awards.
- There's an anti-pink campaign run by some people who are sick of girls being "'pinked' to death". Pink Stinks
 Here is a Synopsis of it.
- An Exploited Trope use of this is making pink the color for breast cancer research. Although it's not an exclusively female disease, is has helped in getting attention for cancer treatment.
- This trope is explained here.
- Jayne Mansfield loved this color, and had a lot of her house colored pink, and even had furs dyed pink.
- Mary Kay Cosmetics frequently rewards its top salespersons with pink cars. The Mary Kay/pink association was lampshaded in a Bloom County arc where Opus tries to locate his mother among the test animals at Mary Kay's cosmetics labs, only to be cornered by the Mary Kay Commandoes; "Even their Uzis are pink!"
- Before the forties it was Inverted with pink being a boy's color and blue being a girl's color.
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