A few weeks ago we got a couple of plastic bags containing children´s clothes, from a relative. Some of the garments have done a circle in the family, for example there was a red cardigan that both my sister and I had when we were kids. In one of the bags there was also a really cute pink top.

Many times it has occurred to me that I don´t look at Korvas as a carrier of a specific gender. It doesn´t matter, she is a little baby and a little person and that´s all there is to it. But when Lisa one day dressed her in the pink top it was a cute little girl that was sitting in front of me and I saw her with different eyes. My reason said that it was the same baby as yesterday and the day before that, but something really deep within me said something else, and I´m sure that I carried her with softer hands that day, aware of her fragility.

A thousand times I have sworn at films when some guy opens a hard sitting lid to a can, for his helpless woman. Not that asking for help is wrong, it´s just that this is a simple trick in a film to illustrate the woman´s need of her man, to make her look dependant on him. “Let her open the god damn lid herself" I scream. But without wanting it, it affects me anyway. And even if I know, intellectually, that it´s silly, I´m still more impressed when a girl is good at building things, than when a guy is. And I notice so clearly that people think it extra nice and special, almost cute, when I am with my daughter, but not when my girlfriend is.

We are children of our time and must be on our guard. Because no matter how free thinking we believe ourselves to be, there are a thousand actions we just do from old habit and the old habits are not free. Therefore it feels extremely important to control the actions that we actually are aware of. Sure, in a mere colour perspective pink is just like any other colour. But in real life it is a colour with a history and a colour associated with a behavior and a role. And of course by avoiding it you keep conserving the meaning of pink as well, but not to the same degree. And as long as Korvas´ own father treats her differently because she is wearing a pink top, then a colour isn´t just a colour.