• Several other T-shirt manufacturers weren’t satisfied with butchering simple English punctuation. They decided to denigrate mathematics, particularly the ability of girls to do well in mathematics... or, for that matter, any other academic subject.
• For example, Forever 21 (a shop popular with female tweens, teens, and 20-somethings) offered a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Allergic to Algebra.” On its website, JC Penney recently marketed to girls ages 7-16 a T-shirt that proclaimed “I’m Too Pretty To Do Homework So My Brother Has To Do It For Me.”
Fortunately, enough people protested that both retailers pulled these unfortunate T-shirts, which have only one positive: They make it possible to muster a wee bit of sympathy for that hapless Old Navy T-shirt proofreader. After all, maybe he or she had been subjected to one too many misuses of your/you’re or to/two/too, which seem to be everywhere. Let’s (ahem) be charitable. At least he/she wasn’t approving anti-academic, sexist phraseology.
But back to the marketers who did approve those T-shirts. Has our culture become so numb to stupidity and sexism — even glamorizing it — that they thought no one would be offended? And, once it became clear that enough people were offended that the products had to be recalled, was anyone able at those retailers able to do the math to figure out how much the recalls cost in lost revenue?
I’m proud to say that our daughters — who never had anyone do homework for them — excel at math and could no doubt figure that out. Without breaking a nail. Or having an allergic reaction.
But at least JC Penney and Forever 21 did have the sensitivity to pull those T-shirts. Not so for online retailer David and Goliath, recently called out in the media for women’s T-shirts that proclaim “Who Needs Math When You’re Already A Ten?” and “I’m Too Pretty To Do Math.”
On the other hand, that retailer doesn’t even pretend to be classy. The logo on its homepage: “Our apparel is stupid.” A quick check of what’s available for men on the site turns up even more offensive T-shirts, with ethnic and sexual orientation slurs. So, that retailer is, at least, honest in its self-assessment, all while managing to properly place apostrophes.
All this is enough for me to yearn for a backlash against T-shirts in general, at least the printed T-shirt with logos and sayings. Frankly, I’ve never been particularly comfortable staring at people’s chests — female or male — to read even the most innocent promotions of teams, institutions or philosophies.
Perhaps if we all took a break from trying to reduce our thoughts to T-shirt logos, sound bytes and twitters, discussions of substance might emerge on topics ranging from the importance of education (in math, grammar and other subjects) and the dangers of sexism and ethnic slurs.
But perhaps that’s just too much to hope for.
This fall, I’ll just be thankful that printed sweaters aren’t the rage.
Sharon Short’s column runs Monday in Life. Send email to sharon short@sharonshort.com.
About the Author