Posts Tagged ‘Ellen Degeneres’

I think what JC Penney did this week over the Ellen Degeneres/1 Million Moms fiasco was commendable. Highly commendable. No business should cower to bigotry and homophobia. The family values I teach my children are acceptance, love, and kindness for all human beings. I believe in equality, to my very core.

JC Penney played the firestorm beautifully, and they needed to, because they needed a PR home run. They got one — as many of the parents and concerned adults this fall who were outraged over the back-to-back mudslide of the ”I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother does it for me” T-Shirt Gate and the objectifying Phoebe Cates/pool tv commercial are now all wild for the JC Penney shop-in taking place this weekend. I won’t be attending.

I fully support Gay rights, the LGBT community, and the right to equality. But I also support our daughters, and I’ll be busy giving a keynote address on the role of women and girls in the media, ironically. I try my best not to shop at places that sell my daughter short, and teach my son not to expect much from girls.

I just went through all 8 pages of tops offered online for girls sizes 7-16. With the exception of a few “nerd” references on t-shirts showing Hello Kitty wearing thick black glasses, the vast majority of the shirts referenced shopping, bff’s, high heels, make-up, Peace, cupcakes, and phrases like “Fame, Fashion, and Friends”.

I just want more for my girl, ya know? Fighting stereotypes about one group of people doesn’t quite cross out selling and profiting from selling stereotypes about another group.

The t-shirt that helped Pigtail Pals go on one of our two wild viral events this fall is still selling like crazy — Pretty’s Got Nothing To Do With It. You can get yours here. Because you won’t find anything like it at JC Penney.

Pigtail Pal's best-selling tee that builds girls up.

The back of our Pretty tee, words were collected from our Facebook community as they described their daughters.