Why pink? That’s a good question.

Today’s Butler Eagle is printed on pink paper to remind readers that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Todays’ edition contains a number of stories about our friends and neighbors who are breast cancer survivors along with groups and events that support breast cancer services and survivors.

One-half of the $1 single copy price of this special edition will be donated to the Butler Breast Cancer and Women’s Cancer Support Group.

The pink Eagle certainly is an attention-getter, but again, why pink? Why not blue or green or yellow?

Pink seems a natural selection for breast cancer awareness because, to put it simply, pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Everybody knows that.

But it wasn’t always so. We haven’t always divided our babies into a blue team of boys and a pink team of girls.

Up until the dawn of the 20th century, all infants wore white dresses and diapers — most practical in an age when the only fasteners were buttons and safety pins — no snaps, zippers or Velcro — and white cotton dresses and diapers could be laundered with bleach.

A Smithsonian magazine article explains: “Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the two colors were not promoted as gender signifiers until just before World War I — and even then, it took time for popular culture to sort things out.”

Then along the way advocates of breast cancer awareness adopted the color as a symbol of their struggle and a highly visible show of support for women who are battling all forms of cancer.

The choice of a color simplified a delicate but crucial message: that breast cancer exacts a huge toll on the women directly affected by it and on the rest of us, too.

Professional sports teams started adding pink details to their game uniforms and equipment. That grabbed the public’s attention because — everybody knows — men don’t wear pink.

The gesture reframes the issue. The fight against breast cancer is everyone’s fight. Brothers, sons, grandsons, fathers and husbands — all have a stake in this fight.

We continue to refine diagnosis and treatments that lessen the impact and increase the survivability of all breast cancers. We continue to strive for a cure.

And until then, the battle continues — under a banner of pink.