The semiotic ecology of gender: A critical narrative review of the pink–blue binary across discourses and domains

The pink–blue divide has long been dismissed as a trivial cultural code. However, this study demonstrates that it operates as a powerful discursive system shaping gendered subjectivities across childhood socialisation, consumer culture, education, and neuroscience. Drawing on a critical narrative review of 44 peer-reviewed and institutional sources published between 1975 and 2025, the analysis integrates feminist theory, sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, and neurofeminism to interrogate how chromatic coding constructs, reinforces, and contests binary gender identities. Findings reveal a multimodal discursive feedback loop in which language, imagery, product design, and institutional practice repeatedly legitimise gender binaries, naturalising them as biological inevitabilities despite their socio-historical contingency. While resistance strategies such as gender‑neutral pedagogy and inclusive marketing campaigns show potential, they often remain limited, performative, or co-opted by commercial imperatives. Neuroscience further complicates the picture: while traditional studies reinforced binary essentialism, emerging research on brain mosaics and transgender populations destabilises the male–female dichotomy. However, risks of rebiologising identity persist. This study introduces the concept of a semiotic ecology to capture the systemic interdependence of discourses sustaining the pink–blue binary and argues that dismantling these codes requires coordinated discursive and structural reform in education, marketing, and science communication. By situating the pink–blue divide within a global, interdisciplinary framework, the paper challenges its assumed universality and offers a critical agenda for advancing more inclusive understandings of gender.