Posts Tagged ‘children’s apparel’

The t-shirt I regret.

When Benny Boy was a baby, a friend gave him a t-shirt that read “Lock Up Your Daughters” with a little pad lock at the bottom. It is not something I would have ever bought for him, but I thanked the gift giver and remember feeling grateful neither of my children could read yet. I tucked the shirt in the far back corner of a drawer, meaning to donate it the next time I changed out Benny’s closet.

Months later Benny was sick and had gone through all of his clean clothes. I put the t-shirt on him as a last resort, hoping to get some of the wash done later that day. We weren’t leaving the house, so I rationalized with myself that I was covered in baby puke and sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. I’m fairly certain it was the only time he wore that shirt.

Fast forward to last night, I’m at the grocery store picking out produce and a family wheels up next to me. I smile  at the little girls in the cart. The dad and the mom are playfully arguing over whether or not they have ever purchased blackberries. Then I turned to say hi to the baby (we all know how much I love chubby babies) as I moved my cart out of their way and I noticed that he is wearing the “Lock Up Your Daughters” shirt. On someone else’s baby, it was so obvious to me why that shirt had always made me feel uneasy.

It promotes Rape Culture. I stood there horrified I had ever put that on my son. My beautiful son, who loves his mama and his big sis and whom I am trying to raise to be a man like his father: intelligent, kind, caring, respectful, and strong. The shirt sends the message that the boy will be out on the prowl, and your daughters are not safe around him as he looks for prey. Best lock them up. It sends the message that girls are responsible for preventing sexual assault, as opposed to, you know, boys being taught never to rape.

This shirt’s message as: If those girls don’t watch out, the fault is on them. They were fairly warned, their parents were told to lock them up. Don’t keep them under lock and key, they become fair game.

On a physical level, it is making a joke of sexual assault with the “boys will be boys” attitude. That in and of itself, the excusing of rape based on caddish behavior assumed to be natural to boys, is vile. On an emotional level, it is saying your daughter will be manipulated and used, just before the boy moves on to the next girl. What an awful message for both boys and girls to get.

It also assumes my son will be heterosexual. He is four right now, and I have no idea where his sexuality will fall. (I’m not really concerned about it.) I am concerned about him growing up in a culture that treats women like objects, and makes the act of rape entertainment. Music and music videos, tv and movies, and especially video games all have shown boys and men callously involved in various degrees of sexual assault on women. What’s more, these men and boys are never held accountable. I don’t want that message anywhere near my son. When he begins dating in his teenage years, we’ll talk to him about respecting his significant other, both emotionally and physically. We’ll instill in him the notion of being a gentleman, and doing things like speaking up against street harassment, or walking a friend home at night so she doesn’t have to walk across campus alone.

I really have no idea how difficult it is going to be to raise my son as a feminist (humanist) and to respect women, but I will do it. His father, uncles, and grandfather will lead by example. The men our family calls friends will lead by example. And I will own up, and make sure I never make a mistake like that t-shirt again.

Maybe he needs a new shirt. One that says “I will respect your daughters.”

As a parent and a business owner, I believe that when my name, whether it be my family name or my business name, is attached to something that is found offensive it is my responsibility to do two things: try to correct or amend the offense, and issue a sincere apology. It is simply the right thing to do.

I’m not sure why consumers give large businesses a free pass on that, but we seem to, time after time. I’m told they are just trying to make money. I’m told I don’t have to buy it. ”Free speech” and “open market” are things I hear quite a bit, but I have yet to accept that. Specifically when these instances of “free speech” are actually instances of objectifying females or outright misogyny.

As Ryan S. said on our facebook page, “Free speech ends when it promotes violence against others. That’s where the line is drawn.”

Take, for instance, Sears (also owns Lands’ End) – our 126 year old American cornerstone, selling child-sized t-shirts on their online marketplace that read:

“Nice Girls Don’t Use Pepper Spray”

“Don’t Make Me Kick You In The Fallopian Tubes”

“Don’t Make Me Kick You in the Birth Canal”

I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in, because the condoning of rape culture and misogynistic violence against women and girls directed at their genitals sounds like we’re describing a third world country. We are, in fact, talking about Sears and their third party vendor, 99 VOLTS.  These shirts have since been pulled from Sears’ online marketplace. They are still for sale at 99 VOLTS. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.

These shirts are offensive in adult sizes, but in children’s sizes it is outright appalling. Nice girls, bad girls, any girls have the right to protect their bodies from rape. Men and boys do not have the privilege to rape, specifically by shaming a girl into “taking it” at the risk of losing her patronizing “nice girl” status. The “Don’t Make Me Kick You” shirts, with the act of aggression specifically aimed at the female reproductive parts is hateful to the point of being misogynistic. We have a lot of that going around these days, but to have it offered in a Youth Small is just too much.  What does it say about our society when we openly teach our children to hate, for the bargain price of $15.99?

When this story broke, it somehow flew under my radar. Then I started getting emails from parents asking if I’d heard that Sears was selling a baby t-shirt that read “Hung Like Daddy”. This shirt that sexualizes little boys has also been pulled by Sears, but if you search “Hung Like Daddy” on sears.com you will find a cache of tongue-in-cheek horse cock Halloween costumes. You know, because Sears is all sorts of classy.

From the Zimbio post linked above, it is reported: “A Sears spokesperson responded to an AdAge query about these offensive T-Shirts with the following:  Thank you for bringing this to our attention. While products like this may appear on Sears.com marketplace through a third party seller, Sears does not sell them. We are removing these products from the site.” 

Well now hold on a minute, Sears. You are, in fact, the seller.  The items were not carried in your store, but I see the Sears logo at the top of the web page, and the BBC accreditation with your contact info at the bottom. I can even earn “Shop Your Way Points” from your store when I shop your woman-hating way.You process my payment. Your third party vendor holds the inventory and does the order fulfillment, but you are indeed the seller. See, just like this, when I go to sears.com to buy the “JC Penney Banned T-Shirt I’m Too Pretty To Do Homework So My Brother Does it For Me”, it looks just like this….

For reals, this is for sale at sears.com.

I’m not sure if you got the memo, but that didn’t go well for JC Penney.  And when JC Penney got busted for it on their online marketplace, they issued a rather acceptable apology. They didn’t pass the buck.

Your Public Relations department wasn’t polite enough to return my phone messages, despite the recording I heard from a woman who sounded like Phyllis Diller telling me you’d return my call within the hour. I sent two emails to the person your fully-automated Public Relations line told me to, but those went unanswered. For posterity’s sake I just sent off a third email, here’s what I asked:

I received a reply email from the Division VP of Public Relations this morning. Why am I left feeling like I am the one who has to police Sears’ website for them, and they’ll only stop selling garbage if they get caught. And why does it feel like I have to apologize when I’m offended? “Sorry you were offended” isn’t the same thing as saying “We deeply apologize our website was offensive to you, violence against women is offensive to us as a brand and as individuals.”

Sears has asked their third party vendor to remove the shirts, and I have confirmed this with that vendor. But this vendor DID NOT lose their approval to sell. When you pile up all of the items mentioned in the post, seems like Sears is doing a pretty crappy job of “policing their marketplace”. What I’d like to hear from Sears, much like we did from Amazon after they finally got the apology correct for selling a how-to-groom-and-rape guide for pedophiles, and much like we did from JC Penney after T-shirt Gate 2011, is a sincere apology. (Hint: Don’t take notes from Chap Stick) Something about Sears respects all of it’s customers, does not condone violence against women and children, and that they are reviewing the vetting process for their third party vendors because maintaining a family brand is important to the people who work for our all-American staple, Sears. They feel very badly this shirts caused distress to their customers and the general public, and moving forward will take appropriate steps to ensure a safe and responsible shopping experience.

Because, call me crazy, I think it would rather be a smart investment on the part of Sears, if they are going to go the third party route, to pay some out-of-work college kids living at home with their parents $9/hour to go through their massive online marketplace to make sure their brand isn’t tied to sexualizing, pedophilic, racist garbage like this:
 

Not to mention, that image looks like something from an Eastern European human traffiking website. Really, Sears? And contrary to Tom’s message, I can earn “Shop Your Way Points” on this and the Homework tee. I won’t be shopping Sears way anytime soon. Or, ever.

If you’d like to contact Sears about any of this troubling information, you can call the Sears National Customer Service Line at 1-800-549-4505to file a complaint. When I did, the woman I spoke with was completely aghast and thanked me for calling in. So be polite to whomever to speak with, because they are people too, and let them know why you want Sears to take some corporate responsibility over it’s marketplace. You could also take a crack at emailing Tom Aiello, asking for an apology that leans a tish more towards accepting some responsibility for the Marketplace they have created, with the Sears name at the top and bottom of every page. Tom’s email address is in the message above.

I might also encourage you to contact the small businesses in your area, or favorite online business, like Pigtail Pals, who operate with integrity and offer respectable apparel for your family. Tell the folks who are doing it right why you appreciate them. We work really hard at what we do, we don’t sell out to make a quick buck, and we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into building our brands.

You might ask why I’m not doing a change.org petition. Because what happens is that generates a TON of media buzz for the ill-behaved retailer when news channels cherry pick the story off of my blog, and the story becomes an “Oh how could they!?” morning bit with a psychologist inserted for credibility, instead of a story on the company that is doing it right. I’m just tired of it all. Focus on who’s got it right, and parents would know there are much better, more responsible small businesses out there working really hard to bring great products to their families. When people know better, they can do better.

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So…..who ARE these third party vendors? Most of them are small businesses, just like Pigtail Pals. The company selling the pepper spray and birth canal tees is 99 VOLTS, located in Florida. I had a long conversation with their manager on Tuesday. It was interesting, to say the least. He did confirm for me that Sears emailed him and instructed him to remove the offensive tees described above, which he did. We then had a very interesting conversation.

**I’m going to apologize ahead of time for the language about to follow, but I think it is really important that you understand where this is all coming from.**

My phone call yesterday with 99 VOLTS manager Emery was, ahem, colorful. He was very polite and took about 30 minutes to answer every single one of my questions. I really appreciated that. 

I begin the convo by saying I want to talk to the guy responsible for the “Don’t Make Me Kick You In The Birth Canal” tee. I hear a chuckle on the other end of the phone. I say rather directly the reason for my call is that I don’t find the violence against women’s genitalia to be funny. Funny Haha or funny ironic. The guy clears his throat and asks how he can help me.

Emery, the manager at 99 VOLTS, confirms for me they are a third party vendor on the Sears marketplace and upload items in bulk. I ask of there are Terms and Conditions or a Code of Conduct for such an agreement, and he says they are. I question if those tees fall within those stipulations, he says he guesses not because Sears emailed him to remove those items.  I ask why they were produced in children’s sizes to begin with, and I get an answer about last time Emery checked, kids cannot buy online unless they are 18 years old, so if a parent buys one of those tees for a kid, they must think it is okay. I then delicately remind Emery that a lot of people who probably shouldn’t procreate, and that what role does 99 VOLTS play in supplying those families with misogynistic and potentially dangerous and desensitizing apparel. Emery says it is a free market, and they appeal to all different kinds of people. Indeed. By the by, 99 VOLTS also sells high brow tees like “Got Farts” and “Jesus is Coming….Hide the Sex Toys”.

So I tell Emery that I understand they have a niche, which seems to be the bar/beach/biker/rock band/frat boy niche. I tell him that I get they want to be edgy and sarcastic and irreverent. I’m fine with all of that. But I ask if violence against women and rape is funny to him. Because it isn’t funny to me, and to most of society. Emery says that 99 VOLTS prides themselves on being sassy. He says someone at 99 VOLTS came up with the t-shirt slogans, they thought it was funny and would sell so they turned it into a t-shirt. I ask Emery how many women are on his design team. He says it is just him and another guy, so zero. I should have asked Emery if he’d ever been raped, and if he giggled his way through it since it is so freaking hysterical to him. I didn’t do that, I played nice.

Next I ask Emery if they have plans for a “Don’t Make Me Kick You In the Dick” tee. No he says, that would be offensive. I ask why, and he says they can’t use vulgar words like dick, cock, or pussy. He says they could say anatomical words like penis or testes, but Sears would consider “dick” to be profane. Gasp! I ask him isn’t that just playing semantics, he doesn’t really answer that one. So I ask him if they are developing a “Don’t Make Me Kick You In the Testes” tee….and wouldn’t you know it, they are. He explains they couldn’t sell a shirt that says “Eat Shit”, but they apparently thought they could get away with the one about pepper spray that normalizes rape. I think we need to scrub up on our morals, 99 VOLTS.

Emery then tells me the “Don’t Make Me Kick You In the Birth Canal” and “Don’t Make Me Kick You In the Fallopian Tubes” is really a spin off the idea that when guys are whiny and annoying they get called pussies. So the tee is supposed to be like a warning telling guys to not act effeminate or they’ll get kicked in the pussies they don’t have. But they can’t put the word pussy on a shirt and sell it at Sears, so they went with birth canal. Clever.  I tell Emery that all of that back story is kind of lost when you see the tee on it’s own, and maybe they should rethink the phrase. He then tells me that the most popular tee style they sell that in is baby doll tee. Know what that means? WOMEN are buying it. Good. God.

So we chat a little more about violence against women. This conversation is fascinating to me because for three years I’ve railed against crap sold to kids, but never had the chance to talk to the person who developed it. They have all hidden, and I gotta say, I respect that 99 VOLTS stayed on the phone with me and talked. And even though Emery was certainly smart enough to get that I strongly disagreed with him, we had a really nice conversation. He seemed really open to talking about this. He tells me Sears didn’t have a problem or boot the shirts until people complained. He says Amazon doesn’t have a problem selling it. I remind him Amazon defended the selling of a book written for pedophiles on how to rape children, and maybe Amazon shouldn’t be our gold standard of online commerce.

Then he said some things that makes it so clear to me why stuff like this exists on the market — because people who think it up want to make money, and they don’t really care if they devalue females in order to do it, because they don’t even see it as devaluing females. They don’t seem to see any wrong in what they are doing. Emery said to me, “I do see your point about violence against women, but that is all kind of a gray area.”  I tell him I’m going to need to him expand on that. He says that all through human history, it was acceptable to beat your woman or even kill her if she gets out of line. We (99 VOLTS) do not condone violence against women, or against anyone, but it wasn’t until recently with the feminist movement that it became unacceptable to beat a woman.

Through gritted teeth I tell Emery it has always been wrong to beat or kill a woman, feminists just made sure it was also illegal. He then tells me they offer some nice choices for the ladies, like “Well behaved women rarely make history”. Meh.

But here’s the thing – I ask Emery if he and the other development guy would be willing to have a couple more conversations with me about what they are creating. He says sure. He gives me the number for Chuck, the guy who owns the joint and tells me to call him on Monday. I’m going to do that.

Here’s what I’d like you to do — write to 99 VOLT and ask them to stop making these misogynistic and hateful tees. Emery is one half of the development team, and he seemed open to reason. He’s actually a pretty clever guy and cracked me up a couple of times on the phone. I have an inkling that if 99 VOLTS were enlightened to do better, they just might.

Or not. And then we can use that idea tossed out on the facebook page and see if they’ll make the “Misogynists are Assholes” tee.

sales@99volts.com

The little cuties in this image are from One Step Ahead.

These little folks to the left are pretty cute, I you ask me. At first glance, the swimwear and sunwear this crew is wearing is adorable. Totally stuff I would buy for my own kids, which is why I get the One Step Ahead catalog because I have purchased from them several times before. They have some really cool, unique stuff for families.   

But….   

When I look at this and the other photos below, I notice that something is missing.   

What is missing from these pictures out of the One Step Ahead catalog is important.  

For a day at the beach, the boys get sea turtles and whimsical fish. That makes sense.  

The girls get daisies and monkeys. Huh? Daisies don’t grow at the beach. I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally associate monkeys with beach fun. Where are the turtles and fish for girls? Or sea horses and starfish and whales? Not even a smiley sun?  

The clothing is age appropriate and cute. Cute! But we need to look past the cute, and look at the big picture. What is the message we get for girls? That even at the beach, a place for kids to romp and tromp and splash and run and dig and play, girls are meant to sit and look sweet and pretty. Look! Tutus! For the beach!  

The boys, on the other hand, get sea creatures and pick up things from nature and run around! Rascals!  

Even on the swim floaties, girls get ruffles and palm fronds, boys get BIG. CHOMPING. SHARKS.  

Girl Monkey

Boy Monkey

(Click to enlarge these, I know they are tiny.) 

The girl monkey is a close up of her face, with hearts on her smile and a flower in her hair. Look how sweet and pretty she is. Oh, nevermind that she doesn’t have a full body and we’re just focused on her face.  

The boy monkey? He surfs! Always catching a wave, that Boy Monkey! Side by side, the difference is an important one.

Girls = look sweet and pretty.  Boys = sporty and action packed.  

There is no surfing choice for girls. There is no close up of a boy’s face. Why? Because we look at girls, but we watch boys go through the world.  

The difference, what is missing for girls, the focus on sweetness and prettiness….All of it matters. The difference is an important one. 

Girls designs don't reflect anything you'd actually find at a beach.

Boys get sea turtles and fish and surfing monkeys.

Ruffles, daisies, and monkey faces for girls. Fish, sharks, turtles, and surfing monkeys for boys.

This weekend my husband and I took the kids into Chicago for a day in the city. I had a brunch with Ines from 7 Wonderlicious to discuss brand strategy, and the kids were anxious to tear up the Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. I had checked out the website for the museum the night before, and was really excited to see some of the exhibits like the Artabounds Studio, Dinosaur Expedition, and Skyline. 

I consider museums to be sacred. They are esteemed building of knowledge  where everyone becomes an equal because of their hunger for learning. When I’m feeling completely run down and out of sorts, I head for an art museum. It helps my head to just sit in the sound and the color of the paintings. I have successfully passed down my love of museums to my children, who at ages four and two years old seem to already know everything and question everything all at the same time. 

So the night before our trek into the city, I’m pouring over the website and then look at the link for the gift shop. I always like to know ahead of time if places have little trinkets available so each of the kids can get a small ($5 or less) toy when we leave.  Then I come across a t-shirt that makes my head explode. I shared the image on our Pigtail Pals Facebook page, and many people had the same reaction. Not only did the shirt have no place in a museum, some commented it had no place, period.  I am offended by limitation, especially when aimed at my children whose minds know no boundaries. 

Princess shirt for sale at the Chicago Children's Museum.

My confusion on this has several parts: 

1. Why sell a princess shirt in a museum with no exhibits about princesses? 

2. Why sell only two shirts for girls, this one with a tiny-waisted white princess, the other pink with butterflies and caption “You make my heart flutter”? 

3. Why are girls limited, constantly, to Princess Culture? Why is this their ONLY choice? 

4. Why are we constantly bombarding our girls with a very narrow definition of beauty? 

5.  What do a few royal sparkles and odd floating high heel have to do with learning? 

In case you are wondering, the boys had three shirt options: a pirate, a T Rex roaring at the skyline of downtown Chicago, and a blue tee with a space shuttle on it that read “Big Dreams Start Small”. 

Girls = “You make my heart flutter.” Butterflies          Boys = “Big dreams start small.”  Spaceshuttle 

Big dreams start small. My daughter is small. She has big dreams.Not a single one, so far as she has shared with me, is about princesses nor their sparkles. She dreams about narwhals and dolphins and Sea World and seals and flying to Madagascar. She thinks volcanic eruptions are divine and she loves to pour and measure liquids. This morning when she was playing pretend with her little brother, she didn’t ask for a princess dress or enchanted high heel to wear. She asked for seal fur so that she could go to the Arctic. 

Next to the princess tee above was half a wall of purses trimmed in fur, tiaras, magic wands, jewelry,and fairy wings. Next to the boy’s pirate shirt were astronaut and space toys, dinosaurs, maps, rescue gear and vehicles. 

My daughter came to this building for learning. Gender stereotypes do not help her, nor my little son, learn. They limit them. They diminish who she thinks she can be, and what he believes girls are capable of. I teach them everything to the contrary, but this is the urban wallpaper I am forced to raise my children with. Even in this building of learning and exploration. 

The gift shop offerings belied the experiences I saw as my family moved through the exhibits. I saw girls pretending to be bugs, playing with cars, building skyscrapers, digging up dino bones, putting out pretend fires, and experimenting with physics like racing balls and flying planes they made of foam pieces. My daughter discovered the joy of delivering enormous static shocks to her dad after she slid down the slide in the Treehouse Trails. She discovered sparks, but not sparkles. 

I don’t understand why so much of the marketplace for children does not reflect children. It reflects what a company thinks a child ought to be. 

I think we need to change the way we think about our girls.  

I am offended by the limitation being sold and taught to girls. I do not accept it. Not for my daughter, not for yours. 

If the princess paraphernalia were one of ten other options, I wouldn’t be writing this post. When it is the only option, my head explodes. Childhood is not a time for limitation and stereotypes. 

Next time I go to the museum, I hope to see them carrying shirts that show girls as astronauts, doctors, scientists, carpenters, paleontologists, and pilots. Shirts, like these. 

We need to change the way we think about our girls.

Ahhh, summer time. This upcoming weekend is Memorial Day and the official start of summer. Dogs on the grill, baseball games, lemonade stands, and little girls’ asses hanging out of booty shorts all over……Sometimes, there are things that by definition, have no place in childhood. Booty shorts would be one of those things.

Before we get underway, some vocab for all you Media Literacy savvy parents:

• Inseam: Length of inside pants seam from bottom of crotch to lower ankle.
• Short shorts: Clothing vendors refer to these as shorts with an inseam of 4 inches or less.
• Hot Pants: Shorts with inseam of 2 inches or less, meant to draw attention to legs and buttocks.
• Booty Shorts: Shorts with inseam of 1 inch or less, meant to reveal the lower curve of the wearer’s buttocks. Usually used in conjunction with clubbing/dance outfits or sex workers.
• Infant: offspring of humans, usually pre-verbal and under 24 months old.

Clearly, our vocab list doesn’t seem like it has a lot of cohesion. I think it would make sense for clothing companies to provide shorts that allow young girls to crawl, climb, run, and sit as they naturally would during a full day of play. Yet I’ve received numerous emails and postings about moms having a hard time finding decent shorts for their girls this summer. Everyone is complaining about how short these shorts really are. As a mom of a four year old girl who needed new summer clothes, I could empathize.

So could Andrea Owen, a life coach and mom of 2 who was shopping for her infant daughter at babyGap. She became disgusted when she saw what were very short shorts being marketed to babies. If the purpose of short shorts is to show off long, lean legs and a little peek-a-boo of ass cheek, why are they being sold to babies? That’s not exactly the kind of peek-a-boo I’d want my little daughter playing.

I’ll let Andrea tell you more. Here’s her guest post:

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Denum Shorts for Toddler Girls from babyGap

I admit it: I’m a conformist. I shop at The Gap. It’s one of my favorite stores and probably 85% of not only mine, but my kids wardrobe is from there. And slowly my heavy metal loving husband’s closet is seeing labels from The Gap as well. A few weeks ago I was shopping at Baby Gap, oohing and aahing over the cutest ever baby girl dresses. Then, I saw them. Booty shorts. For babies, you ask? Say it ain’t so! Yes, it is:

Link to Product: http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=6433&vid=1&pid=740457&scid=740457002

Even in the reviews section one shopper writes, “These were too “hootchie mama” short shorts for my very tall 18 mo old. Bought size 2! I didn’t send them back, though, they look cute over leggings but I sometimes wonder if people are looking at me sideways for dressing my baby kind of sleazy.”

These shorts can be purchased for your little baby girl in size 12 months to 5 years. My daughter is a hefty 7 month old and I’ve been looking for shorts for her to wear this summer. Does this look like a girl who should be wearing short booty shorts?

Andrea Owen's 7 month old daughter

I didn’t think so.

But, you might be thinking, “Wow lady, they’re just shorts. And they’re just babies. Get over it.” Well, to be honest, if someone actually said that to my face they would have really wished they hadn’t. But, to be nice and professional in this blog post I will make the following points: The first and most obvious being that specifically from The Gap the boys shorts are much, much different.

Secondly, and more importantly, there is nothing sexual about babies and little girls. Why do women wear super short shorts? Because the weather is hot? No. Because they like the style? Maybe. But mostly to show legs. The shorter they are the more leg is shown and yes, I know, it makes our legs look longer. I’ll be honest, in high school, I wore some very short, shorts. We used to roll them up and even roll down the waist. But, I was 17 and 18 years old. Not 18 months old. Or a preschooler. And even a couple pairs I own now would be categorized as “short” (for the record, my butt cheeks are nowhere near hanging out). But, as grown women, we’re allowed to be sexy. It’s our choice as adults. Call me crazy, but in my book, short shorts are considered sexy, right?. So why would we put them on a baby or preschooler?

And thirdly, if you still think this isn’t a big deal, OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE! This is a big deal! I will NOT allow companies like this to tell me it’s okay that our babies, our toddlers and our little girls dress this way. Or that it’s cute, or funny. It’s setting them up and sending them a message very early on that it’s how they should dress. That their bodies and how much they show is more important than things like their personality, attitude, sense of humor and intelligence. It’s hard enough for them to understand this when they get into adolescence, the tween and teen years. If we start early by dressing them in a way that screams “Check out my legs and butt, everyone!” we as parents are giving in to the pressure that advertisers and the media put on us as adult women every day.

As a parent, and as a woman, it’s unacceptable that this double standard, this message to young girls starts this young. We deserve better for our daughters, and we deserve better as parents shopping for those daughters. So, I wrote to the Gap. My beloved store The Gap, I let my voice be heard. Here is my open letter:

To whom it may concern,

I have been a loyal shopper of the Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy for many, many years. My wardrobe has been dominated by your brand ever since I was single, and now I am married with children. I do buy clothes for my family at your stores, but was recently shocked when I realized the length of shorts for little girls that you sell in your stores and online.

What concerns me is these “short shorts” or what many call “booty shorts” that are being marketed for 12 months and toddlers. In the same age bracket for boys, the shorts are much longer and yes, I understand that it’s the “style” for girls to have shorter shorts, but, really…..really? I am not what some may call “prudish” or “overly strict” with  my style or attitudes, merely aware that these type of messages are detrimental and careless for our young girls. Please re-think this. Talk to your  marketing team and designers. What do you want to say to your customers? To me, you are saying, “Your 12 month old to 5 year old daughter should wear shorts so short that her little butt cheeks hang out,  and set her up for dressing this way when she continues to get older”.

Your shorts from The Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic in the women’s sizes are not this short, why are they this short for our babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers?

Sincerely,

Andrea Owen

I encourage you to write to them too. Take action. We need more voices heard that this is unacceptable for our little girls. Be heard. You can tell them what you think at custserv@gap.com.

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Here is Andrea’s response she received from The Gap after her initial letter:

Dear Andrea,

Thank you for your feedback regarding toddler shorts. We appreciate the time you’ve taken to contact us to share your thoughts. We’ll be sure to pass your message along to our merchandising team, as customer feedback is an important consideration when planning what our future products will look like.

We appreciate your business and look forward to shopping with you again soon.

Sincerely,
Erika
Customer Service Consultant

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A big thank you to Andrea Owen for her guest post, for standing up for our daughters, and for holding corporations accountable. Brava!

Andrea Owen is a Life Coach, blogger, self esteem and body image activist, empowering women and girls, eating disorder awareness, loving wife and semi crunchy mom.

You can read more from her here: http://liveyourideallife.blogspot.com