Boys are scholars, girls are looked at: Gap slammed for sexist kids t-shirts

Clothing retailer Gap has been accused of sexism over their latest kids collection. The advertising campaign features a little boy, labelled 'the scholar' wearing an Albert Einstein t-shirt, and a girl, the 'social butterfly' whose outfit is the 'talk of the playground'.

Collective Shout's Caitlin Roper spoke to the Australian Women's Weekly about the ad campaign:

[Roper] tells the Weekly Online that this is yet another example of how we as a culture tend to value girls primarily for their physical appearance and sexuality.

“Boys are encouraged to be and to see themselves as smart, strong and active, while girls are limited by this ongoing focus on their looks to the exclusion of all else,” she says.

Roper notes that items that are essentially the same are marketed in completely different ways for boys and girls.

“Science kits that are marketed as such for boys, but for girls, the same products become ‘magic nail kits’ and ‘perfume laboratories’.

“It’s as if girls couldn’t just have an aptitude for or interest in science, that to have any appeal it must be a product that enhances their physical beauty or attractiveness to men,” she explains.

Read the full piece here.

See also:

"Hide your daughters" sexist messages on children's clothing at Best & Less