Well, the ladies of Feministing and Feministe found the shirt today.Jill at the latter says,
Who are the people who buy these shirts? Promoting female stupidity, vapidity and competition is awesome.I thought then, and am still inclined to think now, they may have been overreacting. Even recognizing that I'm a man and may just not get it.
Although my friend Moya thought the shirt was a hoot. And rightly pointed out that she's smart and does math for a living (and I'll rightly point out that she's also pretty). I was pleased to see a handful of women commenting at Feministe (where there's a selection of similarly "funny" t-shirts) who agreed.
These are bloggers I read daily and respect, but my feeling is still that this is something they need to just lighten up on. For my money Shakespeare's Sister has the best perspective on this.
A group of female high school students in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania have started a girlcott of Abercrombie & Fitch because of a series of t-shirts featuring phrases, in addition to the one pictured, such as “Blondes are adored; brunettes are ignored,” [and]“Do I make you look fat?”
The shirts are stupid, and I would likewise consider anyone who wore them with a modicum of sincerity rather a dullard, but, in these cases, a big kerfuffle usually just means higher sales for the vendor of the stupid item. (Just ask Bill O’Reilly how his lawsuit against Al Franken went. Better yet, ask Al Franken about his subsequent book sales.)
That's pretty much how I feel, even about t-shirts that offend me far worse than these (like those that say "If I want your opinion I'll take my dick out of your mouth.") It's the kind of thing you either think is funny as hell or just stupid. But if you think they're just stupid, the only thing stupider is making " a big kerfuffle" about them.
Also, all three of the blog posts spend a little time allowing for the fact that the shirts, if "worn with irony," might, in fact, be funny. They're just concerned that some women might be wearing them without irony. This is a little too close to the "Of course, I'm smart enough to know the difference...it's the rest of you potato eaters..." thing. Which never flies very far with me.
I suppose it's just a combination of naivety mixed with my desire to put women on pedestals. But I don't think it would ever occur to me, if I saw a woman wearing one of these t-shirts, that she didn't mean it to be funny and ironic. I wouldn't think "Hey, there's a bimbo," I'd think "Hey, there's a woman with a sense of humor."
Sometimes I think I think women are smarter and stronger than they even think they are.
3 comments:
I like to think I have a good sense of humor. However, these T shirts would be funny if worn by women, but they are being marketed to girls, teens, children. Yes, teen girls are children, even though they have breasts.
These girls are just figuring out what is what. Their entire bodies have gone through a radical change. How people react to them has changed. Girls who used to get positive attention from being "cute" or "smart" now seem to get it from their breasts. They want approval. They want boys to pay attention to them. It is scary to have all that based on how you look.
T shirts like these reinforce the idea that their only value is how they look.
Actually, I think that's a valid point. I admit when I thought of the people who would wear these shirts, I was thinking of grown women, as Amee and Moya are. Women who know damn well (or should) they are valued for more than how they look.
(Although they're certainly valued for that-yowsa!)
However, I'm still not convinced that the way to discourage girls from getting that idea is by making too much of a big deal about things like this.
As Shakes said in the entry I quoted, it often has the effect of creating more of a spotlight for the thing that offends you.
One of the feminist bloggers linked to a line of shirts with more "progressive" slogans, and that seems to me like a better way to fight fire.
It's the old "solution to bad speech is more speech" thing...and I can't believe I just quoted Thomas Jefferson in a post about t-shirts...
I think it's once more a case of much ado about nothing. There are T's out there with (much) more degrading slogans than this. T's that encourage girls to commit acts of violence for instance. these T's are printed with slogans that degrade both sexes, by encouraging girls to lash out at boys, yet very few people are taking that seriously. Since feminist culture is one that seeks superiority, rather that equality, these days perhaps it is not surprising. As a Man in this society I know the underlying hostility directed toward My sex is one of "pay back for way back" even though I'm not the one responsible for doing those things. That doesn't keep an innocent Man from being attacked. As a mater of fact the more You protest Your innocence the more your accusers get away with marking you with a scarlet letter for the crime of being born a male human being. Guilt by association. I thought feminists were supposed to be about non-violence. Guess I was wrong. In some cases as Men we are literally DEAD wrong. Then they have the sadistic gall to ask if it hurts. So, You'll have to excuse Me, when I see shit like this happen, it just makes Me want to laugh out loud in their faces. That is, if I felt like laughing. I'm too numb from the constant drum beat of hate I'm receiving on a daily basis. I used to care. I used to feel. However, Now that I've been made numb, I think I'm capable of anything.
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