Let's talk about the color pink. Hint: it's not just any color. Pink is one of the biggest hidden representations of our society and its gender norms. Pink is at the origin of everything, and the secrets that come with it have haunted us ever since we were born.

Who else, when they were small, refused to say their favorite color was pink, in fear of what others would think? And why? Because those tiny little brains of ours had already been manipulated enough to associate that specific, innocent color to a number of things we wouldn't have even understood at the time. How many men do you believe probably skipped this piece as soon as they read the title, the 'p' word spreading monstrous images into their minds of flowers and butterflies, unicorns and barbies... just enough for that gnawing voice to wake and scream at them, "Go! Search up 'big super manly stuff to make me feel manly like a man' on Google Images before it's too late!". You may argue that I'm falling prey to the gender stereotypes myself by writing such a thing. However, I'll defend myself by saying I'm simply depicting what society has taught us to do. By reading the word 'pink' we immediately are lead to believe what's in front of us is likely to be directed towards girls rather than boys.

Reproductive systems don't define people, they can make people, that's for sure, but that's all there is to it. As humans, it's in our nature to make sense and give order to everything around us; we set up global, invisible diagrams and boxes created to classify everyone inside them, and scrap out the ones who threaten the system. We even go as far as to use these biological aspects to justify our own actions. Do you remember in middle school, when they had an assembly to discuss bullying, and instantly described the girls as using verbal violence and the boys to use physical? You may now tell me that it's in fact true, but I push you to imagine a world where we were never,  never in our entire history, taught to believe this. What if we were to start off from a clean slate, live and breathe in a world where we were all equal, only different anatomically. Where nothing surrounding us was labelled into these gender venn-diagrams, and we were all simply our complex individual selves. Would boys still be more physically aggressive than girls? Or, was the justification of their violence ever since they were toddlers lead them to act that way when they were adults, going on to teach the same concept to their own children? It could very well continue on a never-ending cycle, and we are the only ones who can turn it around.

How many transgender kids have to die before we accept that it is us who need to change, not them? How many women must sacrifice their careers and dreams to satisfy a lifestyle chosen by society of the housewife looking after the kids? How

many men need to conform to be the type of person the media wants them to be, when they don't feel comfortable in their own skin? We, all those generations ago, are the ones who wrote those rules, and we are the only ones who can write new ones. It is those sparks of hope that rise up every once in a while in different communities which lead us to go on in this fight, that show us there is still a chance. In Sweden, the multinational company 'Toys-R-Us' promoted gender-neutral advertisement, depicting little boys playing with none other than pink dollhouses and girls playing with blue nerf-guns. To applaud Sweden once again, they are also one of the few countries which offers gender-neutral, multi-stall bathrooms in all municipal facilities (!). Not to mention their extended paternal leave, going against the norm that it's the mothers who need to be the ones nurturing and growing their child and allowing the fathers to be just as much engaged in their child's lives.It's time to start all over again, beginning by the acceptance of all colors to not be associated with any gender, because yes, as Audrey Hepburn says, I do believe in pink.