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Who's the brains behind this T-shirt girlcott?
Eric Heyl is a Tribune-Review staff writer. He can be reached via e-mail or 412-320-7857.
Outraged, they are, over suggestive and allegedly offensive T-shirts being peddled by Abercrombie & Fitch.
Members of the Allegheny County Girls as Grantmakers program will hold a news conference at Chatham College on Sunday to denounce the retailer's merchandise. The coalition of several local women's organizations will call for a "girlcott" of A&F stores until they stop selling clothing they consider degrading to their gender.
One shirt in particular has drawn their ire.
Its apparent intent is to draw attention to a portion of the female anatomy that already gets more than sufficient notice, usually by the opposite sex.
The shirt reads: "Who Needs Brains When You Have These?"
Anyone posing such a question, unfortunately, probably is immune to its obvious answer:
"Anyone caught dead in such appalling apparel, you twit."
Unless they suddenly start administering vaccinations against vacuity, the women wearing those shirts probably won't respond positively to the proposed girlcott.
Nor will those attempting to incite gender warfare on the basis of hair color by wearing shirts containing vapidly incendiary messages such as, "Blondes are Adored, Brunettes are Ignored" or "I Had a Nightmare I was a Brunette."
If this girl-to-girl divisiveness doesn't stop, why, Clairol stock could go through the roof -- or something like that, Girls as Grantmakers co-chair Emma Blackman-Mathis sort of suggested in a prepared statement.
"We, as young women and girls, do not need to create extra competition between our ranks," she said. "By girlcotting these shirts, we not only create unity for a single project or battle, we create unity within the female community as a whole."
Courageous words, sister. But the girlcott will create unity only where it already exists -- within the segment of the female community opposed to wearing inane attire.
I'm guessing the women who have these items in their closet will continue buying similar clothing -- if only to have something fresh to wear to the next wet T-shirt contest.
In drawing attention to controversial Abercrombie & Fitch merchandise, Girls as Grantmakers is doing little more than providing the retailer free advertising. They are playing right into the hands of the women-degrading bimbo enablers they oppose.
Not the brightest move. Then again, who needs brains when ... ah, never mind.
