Poem - Pink Jobs.

Born into a working‑class family in the 1970s, I was raised in a time when boys were expected to become 'providers', to be independent, practical, and work‑ready. Daughters, however, were expected to balance work with housework and family life. By the time I left high school, these ideas were beginning to loosen, but in my immediate family, at least, the expectations around what a girl should become were still firmly in place.

These ideas shaped everything. How we behaved, the books we read (my favourite was Every Girl’s Handbook), the subjects we were encouraged to study, the careers we were steered toward, even the chores we were given at home. Like many children then, my sisters and I were raised by our Mum whilst our Dad, an electrician by trade, was the breadwinner. As a result, our 'preparation for life' revolved around the kitchen sink and the ironing board. We were Girl Guides taught to “think of others before ourselves and do a good turn every day.”

When Dad wasn’t working, he was building an extension, making canoes in the garage, tinkering with his car or motorbike, brewing beer or generally fixing something. We quickly learned the garage was his domain and that these kinds of activities were “not for girls.”

As we entered our early working years, we were guided into similarly traditional roles - catering, administration, childcare. These weren’t so much chosen paths as expected ones, shaped by the assumptions we’d grown up with and, for my older sister and me, strongly influenced by our parents. My eldest sister was the only one to push back. She left catering and, to my parents’ dismay, went to work in a laundrette. This was a choice they felt was “beneath her.” I think she secretly enjoyed the rebellion. After many happy years there, she moved into retail and now works in the motorbike industry, doing tasks that would once have been considered “not for girls” - aside, perhaps, from making the occasional brew. 

My younger sister and I stayed in the industries we were guided toward and, somewhat ironically, have both done well and are happy in our careers.

Looking back, what strikes me is the contrast. We were shaped by the same expectations, yet we responded to them differently. One of us stepped outside the boundaries whilst the others stayed within them and still found fulfilment. It reminds me that gender norms don’t dictate a single destiny and that people negotiate them in their own ways.

And yet, when I speak with younger women today, I’m struck by how little these kinds of limitations register for them. Many have grown up in environments that appear to offer equal opportunities, where explicit gender barriers seem to have faded. 

What I see, looking back, is that those early ideas about gender influenced our direction, but they didn’t fully determine where we ended up or how satisfied we would be with the lives we built.

So the words that follow come from the life I lived as a girl. They are written in reflection, in an attempt to understand those early years more clearly, and to acknowledge both the freedoms we lacked and the quieter inequalities that still shape the world girls grow into today.

PINK JOBS 

When I was a girl we had pink jobs

Blue ones were just for the boys.

We were stuck with the tea towel or duster,

Whilst they got the tools that made noise.

When I was a girl we had pink toys,

Sewing, mini kitchens, and dolls,

The boys had footballs, Hot Wheels and Tonka,

Lightsabers and battles and brawls.

When I was a girl we were told to be quiet,

To sit still with our knees pressing tight.

While boys could be loud, they could run and climb trees,

And stay out much later at night.

When I was a girl we learned how to please,

To help and to smile and obey.

While boys were encouraged to lead and to build,

To go out and to make their own way.

When I was a girl I wish I'd been shown

How to wire, how to fix, how to build

How to measure, to cut, make it level and strong,

Not just told that I should be fulfilled.

I wish I'd had the noise and the weight in my hands,

The kick and the spin of a drill,

To make something solid and stand back and say,

“I did this” - but I never will.

But somewhere between all the pink and the blue,

Society started to see,

The lines that were drawn were not fixed after all,

Just rules that were not meant to be.

Now I have girls and they pick up the drill,

No pause for permission or praise,

They build and they shout and stand fully themselves,

Owning every inch of their space.

They’ve more than just pink, more than limits I knew,

Though some lines still quietly stay,

But they know they can cross and redraw them.

And that’s more than we had in our day.

So if you read this, don’t say “that was then,”

Like the lines have all faded away,

Look closer - they shift, but they’re still being drawn,

Just in quieter, subtler ways.