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Something is in the air at Bluenotes, and it smells like stupid.
In a move that could reduce the most articulate champion of women’s issues into a slack-jawed heap, the denim retailer has released a men’s t-shirt (as shown) that undermines the Canadian Federation of Students' campaign against sexual assault, from which the shirts poach their repellent text. The shirts have created a massive uproar across student and anti-violence groups, calling for a boycott of the retailer.
One can only speculate as to the nuggets of creative wisdom that were bandied about at the marketing meeting: “Wait, wait! I got it! You know how one in four women can expect to be sexually assaulted in her lifetime? That would just kill! Are you feeling it?” Clearly, some people were playing golf during the sensitivity training session.
Irony has a place in fashion, but the self-referential sexual predator? What’s next, Bluenotes? A “Take Back the Roofies” hoodie?
Photo from Canada East Online
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I don't know what's worse, that they made this shirt, or the fact that there are people who will wear something like this...
Very poorly done taste-wise, but publicity is, unfortunately, publicity.
The fact that this t-shirt got from the brainstorming phase all the way up to being a mass-manufactured product shows a serious deficiency in judgment at the executive level. Is the entire team missing that buffer in their brains that suggests that certain things may not be a good idea?!
This is shades of Wal-Mart's recent Nazi totenkopf t-shirt debacle, as well as the scandal years ago at Queens University when guys hung signs on the dorm building that said, "NO means kick her in the teeth." I can't even fathom how someone lacks such awareness that they publicly celebrate a statement like that.
You're right. Part of me didn't want to call more attention to this for exactly that reason, however, not talking about it makes me feel grossly complicitous. And from who I've talked to, men and women are equally pissed.
I did find one astounding example of why this needs to be discussed: on one message board, a guy wrote that "99.9 % of attractive women would not have a problem with the shirts". WTF?
Sorry-- my "you're right..." was addressed to Aaron.
Now onto Walmart. Nazi imagery making it onto the shelves as a "training issue"?
There's a point where you can kinda accept that someone up the chain made a totally ignorant mistake, the shirts get pulled, and the culprit either gets canned or goes for some sensitivity training and the company apologetically claims to learn from the mistake, as much as it shouldn't have happened.
Then there's Bluenotes, who are refusing to release a statement or return calls from the media—not even a curt "we're looking into it." It's at that point where they lose any corporate sympathy and deserve to be publicly shamed. Apparently, the shirts are now being pulled. Duh.
And what how do the women who work there feel having to sell it to customers? It reminds me of when I was in a store in Tennessee some years back and the black employees had to sell mammy dolls and little Golliwog figurines. Just wow.
Y'know, I find that a lot of the time people are too worried about being politically correct and end up being overly sensitive about things that ARE funny and totally harmless.
This isn't one of those times.
I cannot believe that this sort of BS made it to the shelves. I for one, won't be buying anything from Bluenotes again.
Y'know, I find that a lot of the time people are too worried about being politically correct and end up being overly sensitive about things that ARE funny and totally harmless.
This isn't one of those times.
I cannot believe that this sort of BS made it to the shelves. I for one, won't be buying anything from Bluenotes again.
I recall Urban Outfitters having a few t-shirt debacles in the past few years...one involved a shirt that said "voting is for old people" that seemed to get swiftly pulled as soon as the complaints rolled in. The other was the series of "everyone loves a ____ girl" t-shirts, where the blank was replaced by "Irish" (the the slogan surrounded by shamrocks) or "Catholic" (surrounded by little crosses) -- the problem shirt said "everyone loves a Jewish girl" and was surrounded by little dollar signs. Anyhow, UO seemed to realize it was in poor taste, and pulled the shirts and replaced 'em with ones with little hearts indicating Jewish girl love.
Good thing I'm a guy, if I were a woman, I'd be facing lethal injection right now for castrating the guy I saw wearing this T-Shirt.
Embarrassed to be a male.
Sorry ladies.
Marc, in regard to "There's a point where you can kinda accept that someone up the chain made a totally ignorant mistake"
maybe, but you and I both know how many peope look at a design before anything goes to production...designers, directors...these people don't make mistakes like this. They'll come out with some BS statement about how they are sorry and this goes against Bluenotes policy, blah, blah, blah." They knew what they were doing.
Wow, Bluenotes. Congratulations on making me vomit.
This also makes me question: was there not a single woman in the 'chain of command' who looked at this shirt before it went into production??
I don't think it's about whether this shirt was produced/okayed by men or women, but more just that a tasteless marketing team had little enough reflection, conscience, or foresight to realize how unacceptable that message is.
What I thought upon hearing of this was "Gosh, and I thought the Ramones t-shirts were bad!" Unfortunately, I'm afraid Bluenotes' targeted customer is the same consumerism-driven teenager who doesn't question promoting a band (s)he's never heard of / a message with implications (s)he doesn't fully understand. Is this a consumer who's likely to boycott?
I think this shirt is great. The statistic of 1 in 4 women being sexually assaulted is bunk. If a man is within 10 feet of a woman she can claim she has been "raped" and get away with it.
I'm in no way saying that actual rape or seuxal abuse is right for either men or women to do, but the "Take Back The Night" FemiNazis have really gone too far too many times, and deserve a little bit of a jest.
I am a woman by the way, and I would love to wear this shirt.
wow
It's terrible, really. I mean, if it wasn't for this shirt, sex crimes and assault against women would be WAY down! You wanna reduce sex assaults, start by censorship.
Lets not forget, t-shirts do not sexually abuse women, it's the message on them that does.
N.
OK, I'm sure no one is saying censorship is an alternative. This doesn't have to swing that far to the other extreme. But let's not get carried away. This isn't a "Mustache Rides $1.00" message. I don't think it's too much to ask for a little more responsibilty. Let's not forget there are very real victims out there for which this T-Shirt has a whole different meaning. Just as the Confederate Flag, a noose or a swastika has different meaning to certain groups of people.
Maybe just a tad more sensitivity instead of a "frat-boy" mentality. Let's say a women who was raped saw a guy with one of these shirts and beat his head in with a brick, can we then throw that age old "blame the victim" defense and say HE was asking for it by the way HE was dressed? "Wow, dude, ya know, my sister was raped, spent years in therapy, and she still can't go out in public without wondering if it will happen again...but really, cool shirt, PARTY!!"
Since we've got a nice debate going here -- how different is this T-shirt from some of the posts made by that fellow Torontoist has doing the morning news roundup? Or other posts by other Torotoists that make fun of people and inappropriate jokes? There's an incredible amount of moral outrage in this post towards Bluenotes -- justifiably and understandably -- but why is a misogynistic tshirt terrible, but that Explosively offensive fellow's jokes about the misery of other's acceptable to Torontoist and supposed to be funny? I recall a few weeks ago specifically something he wrote like "shootastic" after some guy was shot by police. I get the feeling reading this blog that it's ok, and encouraged, to make fun of everything, and make jokes about everything, no matter the subject. It's encouraging that the line has been drawn at this date rape shirt. It's interesting that other stuff is tolerated.
Potentially offensive joke from a recent news roundup on a site whose primary demographic is well-educated adults (most of them several years out of university): "Second swan beaten to death in Owen Sound. Yes, a second swan has been beaten to death. Meaning that Owen Sound has a serial swan murderer. Man, when they catch this guy, he's going to have to have some seriously weird explanation for this. I'm talking "a swan ruined my marriage and stole my wife" weird."
T-shirt sold (for profit, of course) by a company whose primary demographic is young, stupid teenagers (I mean, who the fuck shops at Bluenotes?): "NO MEANS have aNOther drink."
Apple, meet Orange.
Rain (Rush??): Sexual assault and rape are not synonyms. Rape is one of the the forms that sexual assault can take.
Your use of "feminazi" says it all.
I have to give it to Rain. He was right about something. The one in four statistic is bunk. Given the staggering number of victims of sexual assault whose humiliation, anxiety, and cultural confines prohibit them from coming forward to reveal the horrors and indignities they have suffered, the true ratio is actually much higher.
Rain, thank you for opening that dialogue, sir.
Guys who use the term "feminazi" always seem to have such anger toward women simmering under the surface. I'm convinced that this is caused, in part, by the rejection they experience from women on account of not comprehending why such a term is so offensive in the first place.
Also, the potential humour in a shirt like this depends on the context. Sarah Silverman saying something like this ironically: funny (at least to some). Bluenotes mass-producing a shirt lacking context and irony: never funny. Someone buying it and wearing it also shows a severe lack of judgment.
Rain is a woman. She made that quite clear at the end of her post.
I'll leave it at offensive is offensive (as is bad writing) and this apple and orange aren't so different. It is forever interesting how hipster humour can be outraged one moment, then shrug it off the next, claiming different contexts.
"She said I was a 'hipster doofus'...I'm not a hipster doofus".
So, the people who would wear this shirt...by your logic, one should also be able to walk around with a t-shirt that depicts a picture of a lynching that says "Guys night out, 1933". Or how about a picture of Martha Stewart next to an oven in Aushwitz that says, "It's all good".
If you don't draw the line with this shirt, I'm curious as to what YOU would consider offensive.
Patting ourselves on the back about our indignation at this un-funny shirt is the first, best, and most positive step that anyone could ever take against sex crimes and rape.
Bluenotes may have stupid people working at it, but at least we've all got our eyes the prize. Hurray, us! Because we CARE!! We care SO much more than other people. Why can't others care the way that WE do??? Why must there be hate and ignorance in the world (except in us)? Can ANYone answer this?
Thank Christ my comment was held back for approval in case it might be SPAM!!! Holy SHIT, what a near catastrophe! Thank you, Torontoist, for saving us all.
Tagus: We get thousands of spam comments every day, which is mainly why it's been really tough to comment lately without receiving errors (rest-assured that the comments are saved, people, and they will eventually show up even if it times-out). Your comment (#26) was placed in a review queue by an automatic filter as have some others in this discussion, likely because keywords like "rape" were flagged. You wouldn't believe some of the repulsive, violent sex spam messages we get, which is also partially why a dialogue on these issues is important.
It's an automated system that prevents the comments section from being unreadable and unusable; we're not singling you out or manually flagging things as potential spam.
What are you trying to say, Tagus? Is it not possible for at least some of us to be sincerely repulsed by the sentiment in the shirt? And what does that say about you that you assume we all are smugly and self-indulgently patting ourselves on the back for our sensitivity? Or that none of us are taking any action towards addressing rape and sexual assault?
Egg, I can say that I am a bacon sandwich at the end of my post; that doesn't make mr tasty and toasty. I think anyone would be safe to assume that Rain's claims to womanhood are probably a lie, just by the language used in his post.
Just in case anyon'es still reading this forum item / comments section:
Just got this email back from the BlueNotes president - looks like a form letter, but at least they realize they buggered up:
Thank you for taking the time to express your concerns. We take our customer partnerships seriously. I want you to know that wesincerely apologize for any offense our t-shirts have caused and accept that it was a mistake to make them available. As a company, Bluenotes is committed to promoting positive messages and recognizes that the slogan was not in line with those values. We will ensure that items are evaluated more critically moving forward. We assure you that all the t-shirts carrying the offending slogan have been removed from our 116 stores nationally as of Sunday, February, 18. We are also inviting the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) to workwith us to develop a line of t-shirts that reflect our common values. Aportion of proceeds from these t-shirts will go back to the CFS to helpensure that that the integrity of the CFS' 'No Means No' campaign ismaintained and reinforced through continued communications initiatives. There is a great deal of social responsibility that comes with being oneof Canada's foremost retailers. This t-shirt slogan was not suitable. Weare striving to ensure that our customers continue to look to Bluenotesas their fashion partner. Regards, Michael Roden
President, Bluenotes
Thanks for posting that, Yodaddeo. It must be a form letter (I received that same message this morning). I'm glad that they've taken some responsibility.
Company president Michael Rodent?
While it's super easy to lie on the internet, I don't think it's fair to presume someone's sex by the way they think ... doesn't that just fly in the face of the very idea of gender equality? Besides, there are lots of women who regularly behave in a way that puts feminism back three or four decades, and just as many men who try to push it forward.
Yeah, OK, all is forgiven, Bluenotes. Your' bullshit, "common values" form letter worked.
My favorite bullshit line...."There is a great deal of social responsibility that comes with being one of Canada's foremost retailers. This t-shirt slogan was not suitable."
It's like that song in "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", picture the CEO dancin' around his office... "It's... a... diff-uh-cult Ree-spons-uh-bil-uh-teeeeeeeeeeee"
(lookitup)
I've worked in the design departments of a few "fashion" companies and, on the whole, I've found my fellow employees and bosses to not be the most thoughtful, or enlightened, people. It doesnt surprise me at all that things like this happen.
Robis (and others): Women can be sexist (yes, even toward women). Women are also capable of using such terms as "feminazi." The point isn't whether it's men or women who are propagating misogynistic messages (or defending them in a "hey lighten up, rape victims are just lying whiners" kind of way) but that in our society such a violent and sexist slogan could go through a mainstream and self-purportedly "socially responsible" company to be worn by unquestioning teenagers. I'm glad Bluenotes has removed the shirt from their shelves, but this crap still pervades, e.g. those t-shirts that are ubiquitous at cheap tourist and head shops and read "FBI: Feminine Body Inspector" - WTF?
"Rain" one question: have you ever been sexually assaulted? I'm only curious because I am one of the 1 in 4 women who has been, and wonder: is my claim "bunk" as you so sincerely call it? I think not. Unfortunately I think the only way you would understand a women or man's claim to being assaulted is if you had experienced it yourself. However, I hope you never have to experience someone throwing you down on the floor and ripping your pants off. Holding you by the neck as you struggle to protect yourself, as they forcefully take something that was never their's to have. I hope that you never have to go through the traumatic moments of walking into an ER bruised and battered and have to speak about how you came to be such a walking disaster. I hope you never experience the trauma that sexual assault victims experience for the rest of their lives. Because if you ever did, you never would have spoken so ignorantly about a very real statistic.
this victim rhetoric is so boring and pointless - people missing legs and children don't get this maudlin and dramatic over their experiences, and they've been through way worse than sexual assault. get over yourself!
I'm a survivor, not a victim. And speak about something you know, or don't speak at all.
JMc's comment is a perfect example of why there is still much more awareness and education needed on the issue. Plus, comparing one sort of trauma to another is like comparing lightbulbs to toothpaste.
This is rediculous, all this fus over a shirt. I'm a female and I think it's funny, it's just a joke and not something that should be taken seriously. Give girls a little credit they are not all stupid and overly sensitive.
Terri, what exactly is funny about it? I must be missing something, since this is how I understand the "joke":
1) Woman rebuffs sexual advances with a clear "no."
2) Ply woman with alcohol until she is intoxicated.
3) Finally have sex with her when she can't give unimpaired permission or even consent at all.
Wow, a real knee-slapper. I'll bet guys are walking female magnets when they wear this shirt.
I'll bet guys are walking female magnets when they wear this shirt.
The shirt is horrifying, but at the very least the wearing of the shirt shirt will help guys who would wear it and women who think it's funny identify each other and keep them out of the way of anyone with any kind of sense.
Marc are you serious, you are talking like women are helpless with no self control. In order for a woman to not be in a situation where you can be taken advantage of the woman can say no. If a woman pushes their limit where their judgement becomes blurry, then they have brought it on to themselves. Women can take responsibility for their own actions. Really it's only making fun of stupid girls and for those girls that don't put themselves in these situations they would probably laugh too.
Wow, Terri. Just wow. So, if they get assaulted or raped when intoxicated, they were just asking for it?
Everyone is accountable for their actions, including anyone who would take advantage of another person who was operating under impaired judgment. The difference is that rape and sexual assault happen at the hands of another person. It's not the same thing as getting trashed, barfing into your purse, calling your boss an asshole and then falling down the steps in a drunken stupor and breaking your ankle -- that's when you're responsible for your actions.
Wow, indeed. In an ironic twist, misogyny appears to be an equal opportunity pursuit.
at least in the case of the wal-mart nazi t-shirts its understandable, even if its not understandable why they were still on shelves after more than a year. you can't expect every person to know the regimental insignia of every SS unit of the second world war.
this bluenotes case is simply unacceptable. i've already commenced the angry letter writing. perhaps some of you should think about joining in?
i would like to add one more thought to this discussion :
1 in 4 women report being the victim of sexual assault at some point in their life. 1 in 6 men report being sexually assaulted at some point in their life. does this mean that women are twice as likely to be victimized, or does it mean that women are twice as likely to report being victimized?
i'm not just outraged at how this belittles the suffering of women. i'm outraged at how this belittles the suffering of people, female OR male. transgendered too.
their are points of intersection between the feminist struggle, and the struggle of other groups of people. never forget that. by supporting each other we can all advance together.