"On the door of a local store in our town square, there are cheerful, aspirational slogans printed in tidy, modern fonts. Among them: "Do something with joy, or not at all." "Beauty is not trivial." "Every product should have a story." Inside, the vibe is curated optimism: plants, candles, linen that whispers wellness. But then... right out front on a rack by the entrance, there is a jacket."
"Across the back of the jacket, in glittery, shouty block letters, it reads: "DON'T BE A LITTLE B*TCH." Every time I pass it, my body reacts before my brain does. A spike of heat. A tightening in the chest. It isn't just the word. It's the casual ugliness of it. Mean. Sexist. Performatively confrontational. And frankly, the jacket itself looks like something that's been rejected from the wardrobe department of a local production of Grease."
A boutique displays cheerful, aspirational slogans and a curated interior of plants, candles and linen promoting wellness. A glittery jacket bearing the slogan "DON'T BE A LITTLE B*TCH" hangs on a rack at the entrance. The jacket's language elicits a visceral, negative reaction and clashes with the brand's advertised values of joy, beauty and storytelling. The display becomes particularly troubling because a girls' high school sits nearby and students walk past daily. A customer raises the concern with staff about the jacket and its placement and receives inattentive, dismissive responses. The garment communicates an aggressive, sexist message that undermines the store's curated optimism.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]