From: Shine.Yahoo.com
I came across an article last week that caught my eye. It discussed girls clothing that came out in time for back to school shopping. The clothes were targeted to young girls and contained messages such as "I'm too pretty to do math" "Future trophy wife" and "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me" The last message was sold on the JCPenny website with a message "Who has time for homework when there is a new Justin Bieber album out" I was horrified to read that these are the messages we are trying to convey to young girls.
Melissa Wardy started a Facebook campaign against these t-shirts in fear of her young daughter who is starting kindergarten this year, thinking that academics are only for boys. She had launched her own clothing campaign called Pigtail Pals in 2009 against this type of gender stereotyping with messaging like "Pretty's got Nothing to do With it". Because of Wardy drawing attention to this clothing, JCPenny's discontinued the sale of the offensive t-shirt and released a statement apologizing for selling it after
The article also talks about the 1994 barbie that spoke "Math Class is Tough" when you pushed a button on it's back. I wonder like this author why designers are continuing to push the stereotype that beauty is everything to young girls. How are young girls supposed to pursue careers and gain access to equal pay with their classmates wearing clothes like this?
Wow this is disturbing. What happened to just cute, plain girls sweaters?
ReplyDelete