A young woman I see on the bus sometimes wears a t-shirt – either homemade or faux-homemade, I can’t tell – which says “I love my cunt,” with “love” indicated with a heart symbol. I think that’s a brilliant shirt.
Nonetheless, my bet is that Abercrombie & Fitch won’t be marketing shirts with that slogan. Amanda is criticizing the new Abercrombie & Fitch line of t-shirts, marketed at teens, which promote hiply ironic sexism.
Some of the mottos on these shirts:
- “Who needs brains when you have these?”
- “Blondes Are Adored, Brunettes Are Ignored.”
- “I’m too pretty to do math.”
- “Do I make you look fat?”
- “No Money, No Car, No Chance.”
I’ve seen some fruitless arguing over “is it funny or is it offensive?” I’ve never understood that debate – there’s no reason things can’t be both.
For myself, some of the shirts could be redeemed by context – that is, if the right person wore ’em with the right spirit of irony – but most of ’em are just crap. (I myself would be happy to wear the “do I make you look fat” shirt, if only it came in size XXXXXL). And I hate that they’re produced by a major corporation, because the very fact that a huge mega-seller like A&C is convinced that they can make a profit selling these proves that the shirts have nothing to do with individuality.
Are shirts like this such a big deal, in a world of so many really horrible tragedies? No, but it kinda sucks whenever rebellion is mass-marketed to kids by cynics who have the most to lose if real rebellion ever takes place. That it’s effectively endorsing sexism – in a aren’t-we-all-past-worrying-about-it way – merely increases the suckitude.
Happily, as Twisty and Demagogue both point out, some teen girls have seen past the fake corporate irony and are organizing a “girlcott” of Abercrombie & Fitch. From the Chicago Tribune story:
Heather Arnett, adviser for the girls’ group, said it doesn’t matter if Abercrombie gets free advertising. They’re already a giant as far as she’s concerned. What matters is empowering young women, she said, who in turn serve as examples to other young women.
“A week ago, Katie Couric knew who Abercrombie & Fitch was, but she didn’t know who Emma Blackman-Mathis was,” Arnett said. “A bunch of teenage girls are being interviewed by national media about what they think. And that is the news.”
Now that is cool.
Well, if I saw someone who had on a “I [heart] my cunt” T-shirt, I’d think it was pretty offensive and not particularly funny. And yes, it’s possible to be funny and offensive, I’ve told plenty of jokes like that myself.
As far as mass marketing T-shirts with clever or not-so clever sayings on them, the individuality is in choosing to buy and wear them, or not. Of course, it kind of spoils the effect if 3 other kids in your class have the same T-shirt on. As you say, context has a lot to do with it. I can see where some of these T-shirts could be pretty cruel, too.
I’m no fan of A&F. Good for those teenage girls.
With all due respect, Ron, if somebody isn’t offended then the t-shirt isn’t really daring.
Why do you find it offensive – because of the use of an obscenity?
i admit to being troubled by shirts like that. of course, i applaud the idea that women are in charge of their own sexuality. men have been in charge of both men’s and women’s sexuality for way too long.
but i’m a high school teacher. and to see blatant sexuality in a 15-year-old girl, even if she’s savvy enough to understand the irony, is disturbing. because i don’t think most 15-year-olds (girls or boys) are old enough to understand the personal and social consequences of having sex. what am i supposed to make of my 14-year-old girls who wear revealing necklines and low-cut, hiphugging pants? a 24-year-old has the right to try to turn my head if that’s what she wants to do, but if i turn my head to the 14-year-old once too often i’ll be fired.
and what about the 15-year-old boys who probably don’t understand the irony? how are they looking at these girls? are they learning to respect the individuality of their classmates’ sexuality? or are they learning that their classmates are hot, and maybe sluts?
the worst one i’ve seen at school: over a picture of a beach…”get drunk, wake up sandy”
or are they learning that their classmates are hot, and maybe sluts?
One wonders where they learned the concept of “slut” from.
what am i supposed to make of my 14-year-old girls who wear revealing necklines and low-cut, hiphugging pants?
We did the same crap when we were teenagers.
mythago,
no, no, no…when I was a teenager it was skintight Jordace jeans and parachute pants…they were SOOOOOO much better than the hiphuggers of today!
;-)
I just wish instead of “Who needs brains when you have these?” was “Who needs brains when you have massive hot breasts like these?” I’d consider wearing it then. Just so that people will take a look and be all like “What the hell?”
“I’m too pretty to do math” just pisses me the hell off.
I ‘m not so far from it that I can’t remember and I can tell you that maybe twenty five percent get the irony the rest have no clue. I personally think it stupid to wear a tee shirt saying” who needs brains when I have these” at age fourteen, or any age, but can totally get on board with the cunt tee shirt being worm by a twenty four year old on the bus. I have to point out that even this little rebellion is somewhat contrived and self serving. I’d rather they organized and made t shirts that said” Stop the Genocide” rather than bother with this as I think it just another media hyped debacle.
You want offensive? Try http://www.beoffended.com!!!
Talk about being offensive..!!! I am much more bothered by those shirts then someone wearing a I love my cunt shirt.
Making a t-shirt about genocide (especially some generic, unspecified genocide) doesn’t seem any less contrived or self-serving to me. I mean, to even “raise awareness” (at best a dubious proposition for a t-shirt) it would have to at least give you SOME context like, “in Sudan” or something. And then what? “Yes, I’ll stop it singlehandedly, right away!” Without a number to call, site to visit, SOME source of further information, it’s as vain and pointless as can be. I might as well wear a t-shirt that says “Stop Letting People Do Bad Things to Other People.”
I think I would be taken aback by the cunt t-shirt. But adults being taken aback would sort of be the point of young people wearing them.
here in Egypt I sometimes see young women wearing scarves and really tight t-shirts (over long johns so that there is material coming down to the wrist) that say something like “hot babe” or something like that on them. I find this kind of funny. Teenage fashion is always pushing the envelope.
I find the sexist t-shirts to have a REALLY high “ick” factor for me, though, not “taken aback” like the profanity one, but wanting to take the girl and shake her by the shoulders and scream no, you missed the point.
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Yes, it’s the obscenity that bothers me.
As someone who works with kids a lot, the whole concept of hyper-sexualizing teenagers bothers me quite a bit, never mind using it to sell goods. I do wonder, what’s in the minds of the parents buying these clothes?
I went to our local middle school to drop off the facility reservation form for our Scout Troop; we have our weekly meetings there during the school year. I stopped by just a few minutes before the start of school. Out by the front door was a group of girls, probably about 11 or 12 years old. One girl was talking to the rest. She was wearing a skirt that was probably about 14″ or 16″ long, and a top that left about 6″ or 8″ of her midriff bare. I went in to the office, dropped off the form, and described what I saw. I said, “I can’t believe that this kid’s parents would send her out of the house like this.” The assistant principal spoke up; he said, “It’s hard to find anything else in the stores to buy.”
He told me that part of the problem is that the parents tend to give the kids money and drop them off at the mall to buy clothes; many don’t accompany the kids and supervise what they buy. I just can’t imagine doing this. Based on what I’ve seen with the boys in Scouts, I do know that many parents don’t discipline their kids; if the kids don’t get what they want the first time they ask, they keep asking until the parents, sick of hearing the kid whine, give in. The concept of “No means no, don’t ask again or else there will be negative consequences” seems to be a foreign idea to them.
I went to a public high school from 1966 to 1970 in Franklin, Massachusetts, about 20 miles from Boston. We had a dress code. Girls had to wear skirts down to just above the knee, unless is was absolutely freezing, when they could wear slacks. Blouses had to have full sleeves and buttoned up to one button below the collar. Boys had to wear slacks and shirts with collars and sleeves. Short sleeves were allowed for both genders during warm weather. No blue jeans were allowed.
Now our local high school has tried to institute a dress code of it’s own. The general parameters:
1) No skin visible between the bottom of the jeans and the top of the top.
2) No visible cleavage.
3) Underwear should not be visible either outside of or though outer clothing. If the problem is that the outer layer is sheer, there has to be an additional intervening layer. This applies equally, as the boys seem to think that pulling the tops of their underpants up and the tops of their jeans way down on the butt is a fashion statement.
4) No sleeveless tops (again, for either gender).
5) Underwear appropriate to your gender must be worn.
They put this out at the end of last school year so that there would be time for people to adjust to it when they bought clothes for the next school year. My kids are out of High School now. I wonder how many complaints they got? I wonder how many were from parents?
Bubba, I wasn’t offended. They were just right-wing t-shirts; why would that offend anyone? We all know that right-wing opinions exist.
I thought they’d be offensive t-shirts, like a news photo of beheaded terror victims with the caption “it’s funny because it’s true.” Or a photoshopped, explicit photo of John Kerry giving George Bush a blow job. It’s like those people don’t even know how to be offensive.
* * *
Lilith, I think a shirt saying “Stop Letting People Do Bad Things to Other People” would be hilarious.
It seems to me that there’s a contradiction here.
Teens are hypersexual. They were when I was a teen, and they will be when my son is a teen. Attempts to make it a generational issue are ill-considered, and make the speaker sound not only old and cranky, but ahistorical.
I often hear people going on and on about being worried about the sexuality of teenagers and especially teenaged girls. Most of those people generally exhibit a pretty common American belief that sex is dirty and bad and evil (except in marriage). I always think it is cool when I see teenagers wearing fashions that show off their bodies because I see a lot of self-confidence there.
I dont like those T-shirt slogans though. I dislike them enough that I am certain that if I had a teenager at home, they would want to wear them just because I dont like them. I am not sure how I would handle such a situation but, since I dont have kids, I dont spend too much time worrying about it. Good luck to those of you raising kids in this culture.
There’s two different concepts there.
3) means that your underwear remains under your clothes and your outfit isn’t so sheer as to make the underwear plainly visible.
5) means that you must wear underwear; I imagine so that the girls’ breasts don’t have their nipples plainly show, etc.
“Teens are hypersexual. They were when I was a teen, and they will be when my son is a teen. Attempts to make it a generational issue are ill-considered, and make the speaker sound not only old and cranky, but ahistorical.”
I didn’t mean to imply that teens’ interest in sex was any less when I was in school than it is now. That hasn’t changed, and isn’t going to. But there’s no need for the schools to allow it to be emphasized as much as it is now in the way that the kids dress. Letting kids walk around with bare midriffs and lowcut jeans and see-though tops (boys or girls) does nothing to further the educational mission of schools and does a lot to detract from it.
well, it’s good that girls are now allowed to wear pants before the weather’s ‘absolutely freezing.’ but i’m confused about the ‘underwear appropriate for your gender’ rule. (and i’m assuming that ‘gender’ really means ‘sex’ here, unless the rules for femmy boys are different than the ones for butchy boys.) is the rule only stating that girls have to wear bras? that seems like a weird rule to me. or does it mean that boys can only wear cotton boxers, not g-strings with rhinestones from victoria’s secret? what if someone wants to go without any? this rule seems meaningless at best and invasive at worst. if it really means ‘girls have to wear bras so their nipples don’t show,’ they should say so. and demand a certain thickness of bra, because hard nipples are visible through most non-heavily-padded bras. then we can ask why it’s ok for boys’ nipples to show.
Well, it looks like the “girl-cott” was successful:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051106/us_nm/retail_abercrombiefitch_dc
“Abercrombie & Fitch to pull tees after “girl-cott””
So, now that the ‘cott is over, does that mean it’s okay to wear the t-shirts?
5) means that you must wear underwear; I imagine so that the girls’ breasts don’t have their nipples plainly show, etc.
I have to say, I really wouldn’t have thought to extract “you must wear underwear” from “you must wear underwear appropriate to your gender.” Why not just amend the dress code to “you must wear underwear”? Although enforcement would certainly be a problem, I suppose.
As far as profane shirts, skimpy clothing, boxers pulled way up above one’s pants, etc., I think there’s an argument for keeping all that out of schools. It’s distracting, to teachers and to other students. Outside of school, though – well, there’s no right to ride the bus without seeing offensive clothing.
I think RonF’s argument that parents need to be more involved in supervising their children, while a pretty good idea in most situations, isn’t such a good one when talking about teenagers’ clothing choices. (11 and 12 year-old preteens, yes, certainly.) Clothes can be an outward expression of identity, especially for teenagers, who are in the process of developing their own identities. Taking away the choice can make them feel like their identities are under attack. The resultant situation will not be a fun one for anybody. I certainly saw this scenario play out more than once in high school. Encouraging a kid to make a reasonable clothing choice is not the same as making the choice for him or her, and, I suspect, will work better. Or draw some absolute limits but allow leeway within those limits.
“well, it’s good that girls are now allowed to wear pants before the weather’s ‘absolutely freezing.'”
10-4 on that. I was listing those for historical interest, not to say that this should be the rule now. I think that requiring girls to wear skirts is unnecessary.
“but i’m confused about the ‘underwear appropriate for your gender’ rule. (and i’m assuming that ‘gender’ really means ‘sex’ here, unless the rules for femmy boys are different than the ones for butchy boys.) is the rule only stating that girls have to wear bras? that seems like a weird rule to me. or does it mean that boys can only wear cotton boxers, not g-strings with rhinestones from victoria’s secret? what if someone wants to go without any? this rule seems meaningless at best and invasive at worst. if it really means ‘girls have to wear bras so their nipples don’t show,’ they should say so. and demand a certain thickness of bra, because hard nipples are visible through most non-heavily-padded bras. then we can ask why it’s ok for boys’ nipples to show.”
I haven’t discussed the rules with the administration, but I presume that boys have to wear both a shirt and an undershirt, as well as for girls to wear bras. What happens if some girl wears a bra that does not keep her nipples from showing is unknown to me. I also have no idea how they would tell in 90% of the cases if someone, male or female, is “going commando”, but perhaps that’s the point; the situation is only an issue if you can tell. Again, I’m posting this to illustrate the solution that a local school is putting in to deal with the problem of kids wearing inappropriate clothing to school. I don’t know how well the rules are actually working, or how they are being implemented.
I remember at the time that the “no slacks” rule was put in when I was a HS student. At that time, slacks were just coming out as a fashion for girls of HS age. Girls started wearing them, and the administration stepped in. The girls protested, which the administration expected. What they didn’t expect was that the boys backed them up vocally; you could actually see these girls’ legs turn colors while they were waiting outside at the school bus stop. The rule change to allow slacks on cold days came in soon afterwards.
But the girls still had to take the slacks off once they entered the school building! Usually they just wore their skirts over their slacks and pulled their slacks off in the hallways. Seemed pretty stupid to me then, never mind now.
Of course, this was at a time when, at a 400 student high school, the number of teachers’ cars in the parking lot outnumbered the students’ cars, and the vast majority of kids who were driving age took the school bus to school because they didn’t have their own cars. Now most juniors and seniors in my kids’ area who are driving age get a car to drive to school, and the school has a huge parking problem because it is over 100 years old and is still on the original site. It’s expanded since then (~3,500 students now), but there’s very little parking space on campus and the off-campus parking immediately around the school is restricted to residents. So a kid who drives and doesn’t win the parking lot lottery usually has to walk a few blocks from his or her car to the school.
The “teens need to pick out clothes to express their identity” argument is a red herring. “Identity” (a rather vague concept to start with) can certainly be expressed through clothing, but it also exists independently of it. It should be possible to find out what is important to you and what your preferences for life are without blasting it to the world via t-shirt. In fact, I would argue that allowing teens to cowtow to every passing fashion god that passes their way actually hinders the development of their unique, individual selves. It’s a sloppy shorthand at best and a complete farce of a costume at worst, dressing up and playing at “goth” or “slut” or whatever crap is being sold to kids by cynical executives this week.
My kids’ school has uniforms (all Egyptian schools do, pretty much) which really does take the nasty peer pressure found in the US off of the kids.
But, as long as you don’t have uniforms i think restrictive dress codes like the one quoted above are stupid because it just gives the teens a focus to rebel against. When I was a kid and this was in the 80s, “half shirts” (the ones that show the midriff were called that back then) were sort of in for a while and the small rural high school tried to start a new policy against them – the next day the majority of the kids wore them just becuase there was this new policy.
Lilith, I don’t think that clothing is a terribly important part of identity. However, if you take away some significant amount of choice, you can make a teenager feel like his or her identity is being assaulted. Give them some time, and a non-controlling statement of your opinions, and I suspect most if not all will grow out of it. Make a big fuss out of clothing choices and it will come to mean more to the teenager.
Ok folks, lets be realistic, the more control that adults try to have over teens dress habits, the more they are going to rebel. Being able to choose what to wear is a freedom, and although may shock and offend some, it is necessary for kids to grow up into their own person. I do agree that it’s lame that a&F and other bullshit organizations are mass producing theese lame shirts, and I agree it defeats the purpose of individuality, but I definitely get a kick out of some of the home-made slogan shirts. One of my favorites is “don’t bother… i’m not that drunk yet.”
I do think that school authorities are much more thin-skinned than when I was in school.
My dad owned a bar, and got lots of t-shirts from the liquor store for buying in quantity. Since the Reagan Revolution devastated the economy in Pittsburgh, the bar wasn’t making as much money, and I often wore the freebie liquor shirts to school. Nobody cared.
Nowadays, they’d treat me as if I’d shot the principal. How dare you wear liquor shirts to school!
What’s also ridiculous is the pants controversy – 20 years ago, it was school authorities worrying about too-tight pants; 5 years ago, too-loose pants; now, too-low pants.
Yeah, to the last couple posters—way to miss the point.
Offending people is funny.
thats the joke you missed.
I don’t think there would be an issue if:
1) there were t-shirts that poked light-heartedly degraded males too; and
2) their products were NOT marketed to teens.
fred is pretty lame
topics like this shouldn’t be taken lightly, let alone advertised as culture and style to vulnerable teens who’ll accept anything that makes them “cool.”
plus, if a girl is wearing such a shirt on a bus, with riders who vary from the elderly to young kids, how is the shirt appropriate? A child would read it and wonder what a cunt is or learn that it’s okay and accepted to wear vulgar shirts like that.
sure, there are a lot more important issues to be recognized and focused on but its the little things like this that sometimes amounts
that’s the fact that YOU missed
My dad owned a bar, and got lots of t-shirts from the liquor store for buying in quantity. Since the Reagan Revolution devastated the economy in Pittsburgh, the bar wasn’t making as much money, and I often wore the freebie liquor shirts to school. Nobody cared.
Hm. I had an issue in the Troop where a couple of times the kids wore booze-related T-shirts. In one case, mom and son wore matching Jack Daniels’ T-shirts. After consulting with other Troop leaders, we put out a notice that Scouts should not wear clothing advertising something they could not legally either possess or use.
Leaders in other units that I talked to all thought this was a good idea. We didn’t particularly think it was appropriate that a kid should show up wearing a liquor advertisement to camp. Now, in one of the two cases I know for a fact that it wasn’t a case of finances. I can’t answer for the other.