Immediately reminding tons of people on the Internet of The Simpsons’ “Malibu Stacy” doll (which was itself inspired by the real-life Teen Talk Barbie line), J.C. Penney served up a big bowl of strawberry sexism earlier today by debuting a shirt targeted at girls aged 7 to 16 emblazoned with the logo, “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” Which—despite shoring up your daughter’s fragile self-esteem by reminding the people who might look at her that she’s pretty, which awww, sweet—nevertheless reiterates a certain “don’t ask me, I’m just a girl” attitude that was only reinforced by its ad copy: “Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out?” the J.C. Penney website asked, thus echoing the nation.
The remarkably swift backlash has already culminated in J.C. Penney removing the shirt from its catalog and issuing an apology, in which it agreed that, indeed, “ the ‘Too pretty’ t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message,” thank you all for revealing the hidden subtext of its comedy. The Village Voice has since followed up on the matter with corporate spokesperson Kate Koultas, who said she was “looking into it right now, to find out how it happened,” before giggling that “math is hard” and setting off to “make cookies for the boys” instead. After all, thinking gives you wrinkles. There, I think we got them all. [via The Daily What]