Customer Reviews

Pink Think

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fascinating read. The author has a bit of a hobby in collecting examples of 'Pink Think,' or, paraphernalia which encourages women to do groom themselves to be appropriately girly to fulfill their potential (i.e., how girls were brainwashed for decades that their only goals in life should be to snag a husband and to find their true happiness in motherhood).

It's enraging and yet at the same time strangely intriguing to read about books, magazines, advertisements, games, television shows, movies and more were so often geared toward steering a woman to be a certain way.

Strange details include how women were encouraged to be 'fresh' from douching with disinfectants to childhood games where the goal was to get the perfect date to how a woman only achieves true sexual satisfaction after she had fulfilled her destiny of marrying and having children. On top of that it details how girls were encouraged to always dumb themselves down in front of men to flatter their egos, and the author even provides quizzes published decades ago in magazines to test girlishness or career woman potential.

Any modern independent woman will be both shocked, amused, angered and more than likely grateful that so much progress has been made (even though we're still encouraged in many ways to continue to 'think pink'). Just open up a woman's magazine and see the advertisements for pink feminine hygiene products and diet aids, among a million other self-improvement articles. It's great to see a book like 'Pink Think,' however, to realize how far we've come along.

This book is genius! It walks a fine line between rationally exploring the history of social expectations for girls and reporting the horror contained within, without ever giving into the temptation to go on one long, humorless feminist rant. In fact, it approaches the topic with remarkable good humor. Well written, informative AND funny!

After enjoying Lynn Perils sarcastic wit in Mystery Date, I was excited to read she had a book in the works. Lo and behold here it is.
Peril reviews highlights of advertisements and home ec propaganda from mid-century america, when gender roles were apparently our patriotic god-fearing duty to obey. Along with illustrations and reprints of such epherma, we get her commentary, which isn't as obnoxiously judgemental as it could be- instead she is just amused and continuously dumbfounded at the ploys used to develop brand loyalty from age 3 on, instill a pride in fragile, meek femininity (strapping robust heterosexuality in the males), and exploit adolescent anxiety in order to do so.
Open any womens magazine from the era and you will find page after page of ads for deoderant and listerine- all with the same message that failure to use their products might ruin your chances at MARRAIGE, the be all end all, apparently, of female life in the mid 1900s.
Lynn Peril collects and organizes the best of these ads and textbooks for you. It is up to you to make any conjectures about what they imply past and present about their place in politics and commerce in America.
The 8 color pages in the center could be put to better use, such as putting more pictures on each page, but that's really just a minor detail.

This was great. Terribly entertaining and very informative as well. Lynn Peril obviously has a passion for this stuff, and her research is quite extensive. I thought that the information was presented in a very manageable and clever way. I only wish most of the non-fiction I read in college was this good while still teaching me things. Should be required reading for EVERYONE! I loved her chapter at the end about how, sadly, we are none too far away from this type of thinking, with several examples, such as "The Rules." It just made me very sad and angry at times, while laughing out loud or cringing in horror at others. My roommates and I had a grand time taking the 1947 Ladies Home Journal quiz to find out if we should look for a job or a husband. (One of the instant "job" qualifiers was if you were over 26 years old or "above average height")

This book is fantastic. For anyone interested in gender studies, women's studies, or just 50's/60's culture, this book is just great. I had read Peril's column in Bitch magazine and decided to get her book. (the column is similar to this book) I couldn't believe all of the amazing and frightening tidbits of female life in the 50s... like Lysol being sold as a douching product?? And even more disturbing was the death toll from using Lysol in such a capacity. More upsetting still was the company's reaction to these women's deaths - the women had failed to properly dilute the product and, therfore, caused their own deaths. Most of the book is not so disturbing. In fact, most of it is really charming. The kind of stuff that makes you look at bullet bras, cardigans, saddle shoes, and other icons of 50s femininity and think "wow, I've got it pretty good." A great read if not for academic purposes then for simple head-shaking humor.

Pink Think is hysterically funny...but I'm in my mid-40's and I grew up with a lot of the "Pink Think" examples in this book. I urged my 25-year old daughter to read it so she could better understand the environment I grew up in. This book is worth reading just for the entertainment value, but it also serves as a wonderful reminder of how much attitudes about women have changed and improved.

My mom makes a whole lot more sense to me now.

It is what I saw to be a modern "Feminine Mystique". A very insightful book on the media's effect on women and how impactful society affects females to the point that a color becomes a technique to manipulate women. As a high school student I found this book truly amazing and an awesome reading that I would recommend for everyone to read as we are constantly blinded by how detrimental society can be to women.

This book is positively brilliant. It is likely that even the most well-educated feminist will learn new and horrifying things from Pink Think. My blood pressure went up several notches.
I would like to point out one thing, however, something which the author herself addressed: things haven't changed. In my opinion the only thing that has clearly changed dramatically are women's career opportunities, but we are still expected to keep a happy, clean home, raise children, and keep hubby sexually satisfied. While reading this book with the TV on, I was struck by the similarity between today's ads and those presented in Pink Think (cleaning products - nuff said.) Rather than coming away from this book thinking that you have it so much better than your baby-boomer mother did, allow it to open your eyes to the hilarious propoganda in the present.
I can't wait to see a book from the same author chronicling current magazine ads, dating advice books, and TV commercials.

I happened to just pick this off the shelf at Borders when just doing a browse, as a collector of "femorabilia" it really stood out. After a quick look, the faithful consumer in me just HAD to have this book. I have a collection of cheesy "nurse in love" 1960's romance novels, old health textbooks, Barbies, you name it- but I never really thoroughly thought about all of it (or why I was so strangely attracted to it) until I read this book.

The writing style is great- it moves at a quick pace and I had trouble putting it down. You do get glossy pictures in the middle, and vintage ads are always fun. But the meat of this book shows just how twisted the image of "femininity" (and in one chapter, masculinity) is in our media and society. It illustrates very clearly that while we have come a long way, "pink think" is still alive and sashaying. Passages reminded me of personal weird "celebrations of your womanhood" that were fed to me, like in sex ed in the 5th grade they made getting your period sound like an amazing, wonderful thing. Me and my friends literally couldn't wait, and even said things like "I hope mine is a week long, and not just three days!"

It's embarrassing now, but I was thoroughly brainwashed and naturally pretty bummed out when menstruation wasn't like a party in my pants. I also remember having those Mall Madness and boyfriend board games as a girl (for the author it was Mystery Date), which I played years before I had much interest in guys or my credit rating.

This book is incredibly smart, interesting, surprisingly non-judegmental, and as fun as it is scary. Ranging from the hilarity of a "Lady" marketed pink train set to the horrors of ads for douche made from LYSOL, this book will keep your attention and keep you thinking long after you finish it. Highly recommended to all age groups.