Somewhere, somehow, there is a manager at J.C. Penney's that thought reinforcing an anti-intellectual image of girls was a good idea. Specifically, "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me." Erg.
The good news is that J.C. Penney's is media savvy enough to understand the problem when it started. They have pulled the t-shirt in question from their online store and are investigating the decision to add it to their product line.
Major league kudos to the horde of folks traveling the inter-tubes that spotted the shirt and began spreading the news. Big companies are sometimes loath to make changes unless the perceive a significant downside to doing nothing.
Not only do we have a daughter, but the missus and I produced a geek daughter. We are so proud. Big things will happen for her soon enough. There just simply isn't another option in her mind...or ours.
Messages that reinforce the anti-intellectual image for young women are not welcome here.
I came across this issue by reading John Scalzi's blog "Whatever". He has a geek daughter, too. I hope to write more about Mr. Scalzi. In fact, the way I schedule my posts, you may have read it by now!
*The word "marketeer" was used on purpose. It is a reference to that special little "wonderland" that many marketers inhabit that causes them to confuse using the word "quality" with actually producing products that actually have high quality, and to confuse my telephone, mailbox, and email inbox with public toilets.
No comments:
Post a Comment