What is it about back-to-school T-shirts that cause so many problems for clothing retailers?
First Old Navy doesn’t use proper punctuation on a college tee.
Now J.C. Penney has made a lot of people, especially women, angry with a shirt it was marketing to young girls. The T-shirt bore the slogan “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother does it for me”.
In a time when girls and women are still fighting to not be judged based solely on their looks, many moms were outraged by the message that being pretty was more important than studying. An online petition was created Wednesday and before the day was through, the retailer had pulled the shirt from its website and sent an e-mail to Lauren Todd, who started the petition. The e-mail stated the shirt had been removed because it “does not deliver an appropriate message” and offered an apology. Todd certainly had more luck with her petition than U.K. pet shop owners who sought to sell elephants in their stores.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with girls being “cute” but wouldn’t it be just as easy to create a shirt about being both cute and smart.