"I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother does it for me."
It was written across a JCP T-shirt that went on sale this weekend on online stores.
A "social media firestorm" soon followed. People littered the JCP Facebook page with posts like: "It will be quite some time before I spend my dollars at [JCPenney]. I also question the person(s) responsible for making the decision to manufacture and sell this particular t-shirt. Are they still employed with JCP....and what will they ‘create’ next? Insulting at the very least. [JCPenney], as a corporation, should be so very ashamed of themselves.”
It's true the shirt is sexist and promotes an unfortunate stereotype. However, it's hard to know what's ok and what's not when shirts like "I'm with stupid" are extremely popular.
This apparently didn't fly with JCP consumers, but I think what's worse is the way they handled the situation. The rep released a statement saying: “We are not happy about the shirt! We're looking into it right now, to find out how it happened. It was only online, not available in stores, and we have removed it from the site.”
You don't know how it happened...? Do T-shirts often miraculously appear for sale on your website? I think it would have been more affective to remove the shirt from the website, and apologize for anyone it may have offended - not play dumb.
Oh, and the promo copy that accompanied the shirt was: “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.”
Original article here.
2 comments:
Personally, I don't think it is that offensive. What I found more offensive in the spring was the Abercrombie move to make push up bikinis for 7-year-old girls. I understand that JCP is more of a family-oriented business, but if consumers can get rid of this, why did Abercrombie get by with their merchandise?
I do think its pretty offensive to women. Out of all things that's what they came up with? Especially since I bet women were in charge of designing the shirt and considering the scale of their job, probably successful women at that who did do their homework. So why they would want to leave this impact on young girls, I don't know.
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