What I do want to talk about is why, in 2011, it is still commonplace to degrade girls and paint them with a brush of disempowering emptiness, more interested in beauty than smarts?
When I saw the offending shirts on the Internet, I was reminded of a little girl I saw this summer, marching through the hallways of my school, getting ready for a dance performance. She could not have been more than 6 years old. She wore shorts and a T-shirt that she had decorated herself, with copious amounts of glitter surrounding her name.
Her elbows bent at her sides, her head flung high, she marched, almost trotted, to the little girls' room. Her arms pumped vigorously, her hips propelled her forward, and in her face beamed the confidence, the sassiness, and the grit that are so often part of a little girl's personality.
My words stuck in my throat when a colleague pointed her out to me and said, laughing: "Isn't she awesome?" She was, and what I wished for in that moment was that this little girl would never lose the supreme audacity that shone in her eyes and radiated from her confident posture.
I hope this girl stays so self-assured that she rejects wearing a shirt that says her beauty is more important than her brain. I hope she never doubts that she can indeed take on the world and that she dismisses outright debasing messages when they come her way.
I want her, and any girl, to know that she is not a mindless "princess"; she is not an advertisement for her breasts (recall the infamous "Hooters in Training" T-shirt). Instead, she should always believe that she is fiercely capable of making an impact in the world and leaving it a better place. With her brain and her heart.
As an educator, I have the privilege of working in an all girls' environment. I know my work in some ways is easy. Our girls, throughout their time with us, are exposed to messages that girls are smart and can do anything. Our girls know they do not need to define themselves in shallow ways. Instead, they can define themselves as athletes, intellectuals, artists, leaders.
And that little girl I saw this summer. . . walking fearlessly and proudly toward her moment on stage, well, she has a shot. We will work with her to recognize the implications of the next offending shirt. And in so doing, we will allow her to create for herself the identity she deserves. With audacity and grit.
Mariandl Hufford is the director of the Center for the Advancement of Girls, an initiative of The Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont. E-mail her at mhufford@advancinggirls.org.
