This Just Isn't My Week!

Here I go again.

Looking back on some of my recent posts, I’ve done a little more ranting than usual. I’m not always a little ray of sunshine or anything, but typically, my writing is a mix of funny stories, random thoughts, and serious discussion.

Lately, however, I seem fated to be pissed off.

First, I had a pretty bad cold last week, but I couldn’t take any time off to recover because I was facing 3 major deadlines that fell on Thursday and Friday (which is supposed to be my day off), along with several monthly litigation reports for clients. Yep, those are as fun as they sound. 

Anyway, my job isn’t one with a steady “busyness,” so I suppose I’m grateful for that, but that lends itself to periods of extremes. There’s our normally manageable, slow pace, and then overdrive, and usually nothing in between.

Ironically, I often function better in overdrive because I work well under pressure. I crank things out and I do a good job. The downside of these manic periods, though, is that a deluge of deadlines leaves me exhausted and slightly grumpy when I get home.  Add being sick to that and it’s not a pretty picture.

These circumstances conspired to make it difficult to find writing time for MLWP and also led, for the first time, to a bit of writer’s block. Usually my writing is an escape for me, a fun diversion I look forward to each day, and I know it helps lower my stress level. I really felt the absence of that time last week. 

When I DID manage to find writing time, my overwhelmed, sick self ended up encountering a dieting book for little kids and a terrorist coloring book. In those moments, what I had intended to be a fun and relaxing writing experience became a frustrated, ranting one.

And today, apparently, is no exception. So I'll get right to it.

Many of your kids went back to school, or started for the very first time yesterday.  When I went to school, I was excited about it, but also super excited about the brand new school supplies and clothes I knew I’d get. I’m sure many of you took your children out to buy new things to get ready for a new school year.

When you did, if you went to JC Penney, you may have encountered this:

Yes, that shirt, intended for girls ages 7 to 16, reads: “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.”

Huh??

And that’s not all. If you happened to be doing your back-to-school shopping online, you would’ve seen this description next to this item:  "Who has time for homework when there's a new Justin Bieber album out? She'll love this tee that's just as cute and sassy as she is."

Photo from: celebritygirlsphotos.blogspot.com

This was not the week for me to see this shirt just after reading about how fat girls need to stay thin to avoid teasing and gain friends, and how terrorists attacked us so we shot Osama.

What in the world are we doing to our children, especially our girls?

Thanks to my unusually heavy workload last week, I’m a few days late jumping into this fray.  Many of you may have read articles about it already. And, thanks to an online petition, JC Penney pulled the shirt off store racks and issued the following “apology”:

J.C. Penney is committed to being America's destination for great style and great value for the whole family. We agree that the "Too pretty" t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message, and we have immediately discontinued its sale. Our merchandise is intended to appeal to a broad customer base, not to offend them. We would like to apologize to our customers and are taking action to ensure that we continue to uphold the integrity of our merchandise that they have come to expect.

That’s lovely, it really is, but the damage was still done. Somehow this sexist, ridiculous shirt made it through whatever shoddy selection process the store uses and onto the shelves, where some people undoubtedly bought it. So I’m writing about it anyway, even though my objective isn’t really confined to this particular shirt. It’s about making people think twice. It’s about what the shirt represents.

Do we really want our daughters to wear something that, in essence, says, “All that matters is that I’m pretty. Let the boys be the smart ones.”

For all I know, the intended message of the shirt was that girls can call the shots, or that sisters can make brothers do things.  Maybe that was the point. But that interpretation is the far less obvious one.  The more glaringly apparent one is that math problems and writing assignments don’t matter as much as listening to Justin Bieber and curling your hair. As long as you’re cute, you don’t need to be smart.

Besides, when you do want to learn something, ladies, you can just use your 9/11 coloring book.

Photo credit: Really Big Coloring Books, Inc.

Our daughters have a tough road ahead as it is, what with the sexualizing of girls in the media at younger ages than ever before, the higher echelons of companies remaining largely male-dominated, and, of course, the nagging fact that we still earn less than our equally-qualified male counterparts in the workforce. (Read about that here.)

Graph from www.womensmedia.com

 

Will it still be this way when our daughters are adults? Will beauty still be prized above intelligence, and that terrible idea mass marketed? I hope not. So, even if it means ranting, I’m going to do it if it means challenging people to look behind what some say is “just a t-shirt” to the deeper meaning, to the subconsciously devaluing message our girls are receiving with this shirt and so many other things.  

Only we can put a stop to it. The petition that resulted in this action by JC Penney is a start, but we have a long way to go. We are the ones with the power to challenge the sexism that still exists today, with the power not to settle for the status quo. Who’s with me?