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And finally, by Forever 21, who gears there merchandise towards young girls, teenagers and women:
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| *the magnet has since been pulled of their website due to the high number of complaints against it |
As a woman engineer, seeing this image literally made me cringe. Although there are those naturally smart people who will breeze through engineering school (they exist, I promise), I was not one of them. And as a minority in all most my classes (as in could count the number of other females in the lecture on my hand) and my major, I struggled with confidence through most of my college education. Now I'm not saying that all women go through this when they choose a career dominated by males, but I did. And shirts and magnets that seem to encourage young women to stray from the studies and career paths that could provide not only incredible potential to themselves, but also to the fields they go into, REALLY, really makes me sad. disappointed. hurt. That people would actually think it is a good idea to print this and sell it to and profit from girls who are already struggling with their own self image really is just ....Really, don't they have enough to worry and think about without having to agonize over whether the fact that they like or are good at math and science really means that they are ugly and uncool. Because when I look at that phrase, that's what I think young women will see. Or maybe it's just another excuse for girls to avoid things that are hard. Whatever the reason, I think it's horrible.
I'm all for freedom of speech and expression. But please, lets take a better look at how and what we are encouraging the young girls around us to do.
Further ranting can be found here, here, here. In fact if you google it, you'll probably find a slew of other well-versed, angry rants.
*Stepping off my soapbox*
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