Pink + Blue = Purple

If you want to read other cruisers posts on this topic you can find them here or here.
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This was a difficult topic for me to write about even though I had the advantage of being able to read what others had to say on the topic before writing this post. I've written before on topics close to this one. I've talked about how I am not an admiral and my struggle to find like-minded chicks in the cruising community.

Carol and I only have pink and blue jobs in the sense that we jokingly refer to anything I do as pink, anything he does as blue and anything we both do as purple (pink + blue = purple). This leads to pink jobs such as fiberglassing, blue jobs such as floor washing and purple jobs like oil changes and bread making.
Although most couples cross over gender lines a little, we find ourselves among a minority in the cruising world in which our jobs are pretty thoroughly mixed. We don't try to be equal in any forced or systematic way. Like most couples, we look at the list of to do items, play to our strengths and try not to saddle each other with any of our personal "most hated" tasks. We both know all of the navigational, weather, sailing and safety systems on the boat, not for safety reasons although that is important, but because we are both genuinely interested.

I think there are three primary reasons that gender roles come up so often in cruising publications and forums:
1) Women who were land-based powerhouses struggle with the realization that the strengths they bring to their cruising team are primarily pink.
2) Women who fall into pink roles, or desire pink roles, feel judged for doing so.
3) Women who don't fall into pink roles feel that pink roles are expected of them.

I want to add my thoughts on #3 to the mix.

We are a boat without a strong dose of pink. We don't care a lot about decorating. Neither of us is willing to cut our day of playing short in order to make something fancy for the potluck and so we only manage to do so on slow days.

I feel the pressure to be pink even though I am certain some of it is self-induced. I feel the pressure when people compliment me on the bread that Carol made. I feel the pressure when most of the women proudly unveil delicious dishes for the potluck and we have opened a jar of garlic stuffed olives or a big pot of rice because we were out kiteboarding all day. I see the women noting each dish placed on the table, helping to organize the flow of food, while the men (and I) talk about other stuff on the side (it will all work out, right?). On the slow days when I've made something fancy as well, because I do enjoy cooking, I feel a disturbing sense of relief at having met expectations permeate my normal sense of accomplishment at a fun task.

I feel abnormal when a fellow cruiser asks Carol if I am enjoying the chance to do some shopping (I like shopping?). I feel a little odd when, at a gathering on a new boat, I am looking around deck at how the lines are run and notice that all of the women at a gathering have skipped the exterior and gone down below to look at the interior.

I imagine that this same pressure is felt in reverse by guys who aren't terribly interested in blue things. Guys who don't find talking about engine bits interesting. Carol has always found it funny when someone asks him about something that I installed.

Finally, I wanted to add my own agreement to Behan's frustration that the dichotomy is still in place. Not ignoring that there are still gender roles, or that people fall into them, but that we still bother to think about boat jobs that way. I'm including myself in that. The reality is that almost no boat divides exactly along gender lines and almost no task on a boat is completely pink or completely blue.

If we think of a task as pink or as blue, as his or as mine, does that limit us from having the opportunity to try new tasks later in our cruising lives? Will we get stuck in pink and blue, mine and his ruts?