School's back in session and, as usual, some stores are taking heat for selling sexist T-shirts to the female students. The one that comes to mind right off is a checklist of "My best subjects" with stuff like shopping and gossiping checked, but math not checked and a note "Nobody's perfect".
The thing that galls me about this is not the message these things are sending, because that's open to interpretation. The thing that galls me is this: I see every day, on social media, posts of a little girl going off to school and everyone has to comment on how cute she is. I see parents spending more time on the kid's back-to-school wardrobe than on selecting the stuff that's actually gonna help the kid learn.
The same mom who just spent three hours choosing fashions and four seconds choosing study aids is the reason marketing offices think those T-shirts will sell. This same mom is going to someday quote Will Smith's mom "You go to school to learn, not for a fashion show" to the same kid she's instilled with the opposite truth. And it isn't just girls. Look at the boys getting off the school bus. What's on their T-shirts? Professional wrestlers, violent video games, camo... they are getting a similar message.
If we are teaching our girls to be Bimbos and our boys to be Rambos, it is hardly the fault of the stores who sell us the stuff. They wouldn't sell it if we didn't buy it. They wouldn't try to sell it if we didn't give them the impression we wanted it.
