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Alison Skirtboston

Skirt! Boston editor

Skirt! is evidence that the universe is paying attention: I spent the last six years at mach speed, whether finishing college (Emerson) while writing full time for Boston Globe West (2001-2004) or editing the Boston Parents’ Paper during the day while holding down the steady gig writing for Globe ...

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reason for offense?

Alison, editor

Would you wear a t-shirt that said “Make Cocktails, Not War”?

When the question came through my inbox from a local PR guy, I thought about it. T-shirts aren’t as much of a fashion statement for me as they once were, and because I’m a parent of teens, I monitor anything that mentions alcohol. Still, the phrase seemed cute.

Then I got a letter from a group of concerned women at the About Women & Media Project at the Women’s Educational Center in Cambridge. Apparently, the company that is offering those semi-cute t-shirt statements is responsible for widespread advertising that offends some women. It looks something like this:

Similar “fembot” images apparently adorn Boston bus stops, and the 32 women who signed the letter are bothered by the misogyny and objectification they see in it.

“By stooping so low to generate income for the Greater Boston area you are actually degrading the quality of life here and creating a hostile environment for girls and women,” the letter reads. “This makes the pretentious signs sprinkled around Cambridge declaring it a ‘domestic violence free zone’ even more ironic; as we know that crimes against women and girls continue as usual. While we hear of a rise in sexual assaults and molestations of girls and women using public transportation, the City is soliciting and hosting an ad that contributes to creating a dehumanized, sexualized image of women.”

Ever since thatcoolbroad started the hot thread about fashion magazines, I’ve been ruminating about images of women. It seems to me that the Women’s Educational Center letter makes a good point: we are at least subconsciously consuming these images. Whether a person acts on that – or what else happens to it when it enters a person’s subconscious – is a matter for serious debate.

Suddenly, the cute t-shirts don’t seem so harmless anymore.

 [EDITED TO INCLUDE: Just saw this amazing interview on salon.com with the author of The Lolita Effect about images of women in media and how the mixed messages of “look hot” and “don’t be a slut” mess with young women’s minds. A MUST READ! www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/05/20/lolita_effect/index.html]