The World According to Taquoriaan

During the Christmas season a campaign launched in the UK drew my attention. I saw a lot of news sources ran the story and decided to have a look. After all, they touch upon my field of interest: psychology. Two sisters from London, Abi and Emma Moore started a campaign against the “pinkification” of the world: Pink Stinks. On their site they state what the goal of their campaign is:

PinkStinks aims to counteract the slurry of media obsession on women who are ‘famous’, ‘thin’ ‘rich’ or ‘married to famous men’, by celebrating those women that we see as inspirational, important, ground-breaking and motivating. On these pages we’ll point you in the direction of some of those women … some from history, some just starting out, from all walks of life. It’s amazing how great they are, and when they’re brought together in a list like this there’s a real power to them, that can only serve as an uplifting inspiration.

Also, they showcase a number of “new role models” for girls, while ranting against the feminine stereotyping of girls, dressing them in pink, selling them pink toys and most of all “force them” into stereotypical girly role models. They argue, maybe not explicit that society forces girls with a model on how to behave and how to think and how wrong that is, the current situation that is. What they don’t seem to realise is that they themselves try to do exactly the same, with other role models, other toys and other ways of dressing. It strikes me maybe because it’s all to familiar with me, with my mom being rather feministic trying to avoid the gender stereotyping. It almost seems like they have some issues with girls wanting to be girls, wanting to wear any colour pink, wanting to play with dolls and when they grow up they want to be a teacher, a nurse or wife of some famous person.

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The Dutch have a long tradition when it comes to Saint Nicholas, whose feast day they celebrate today. Even after most Dutch abandoned the Catholic tradition in earlier ages and more recently Christian symbols and culture as a whole, St. Nicholas remains. It’s not done to decorate your shop window in the Netherlands before St. Nicholas left the country and Santa Clause is frowned upon, despite the fact Santa’s history reveals he is the same person as St. Nicholas. The Dutch want St. Nicholas and want to celebrate St. Nicholas’ Eve on Dec. 5th. They also don’t want to have anything to do with Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. They are so proud they are open to other traditions, and therefore St. Nicholas needs to be “culture neutral”. Which means in the eyes of some enlightened souls that the cross on his mitre needs to be replaced by something neutral. And so they did.

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