Two dozen Pittsburgh girls are calling for a "girlcott" of Abercrombie and Fitch's attitude T-shirts, a product popular among many AU students.
The girls are participants in Allegheny County's Girls as Grantmakers organization, a two-year program in which girls discuss and explore ways to make a difference in the community by reviewing and funding grant proposals designed by peers, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Their protest landed the group's 16-year-old co-chairwoman, Emma Blackman-Mathis, on NBC's "Today" show with Katie Couric Tuesday, on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes" Tuesday night and on CNN last weekend.
"We're telling [girls] to think about the fact that they're being degraded," Blackman-Mathis said.
Gemma Puglisi, a professor in the School of Communication, said she thinks Abercrombie and Fitch is not being responsible with selling the shirts.
"It's similar to the situation in the Victoria's Secret at a local mall," Puglisi said, citing a recent incident in which mannequins in the store were in suggestive positions and parents protested and got the store to change their window display.
"I think what happened will backfire on the store because kids who were originally consumers may not want to buy anything from the store anymore," Puglisi said.
Many AU students are divided on the issue.
Alan Boswell, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, does not understand why girls would want to wear things that only feed a negative portrayal.
"As far as whether it's attractive to a guy, it definitely isn't for me. Shirts like that only attract the wrong type of guy," Boswell said. "If a guy is looking for a serious, possibly long-term relationship, he is not going to be attracted by such girly, superficial, 'being dumb makes me cute' stuff. ... He wants real substance."
Ashley Wilhelm, a freshman in thee School of Communication who worked at American Eagle, said she does not think she would wear the shirts.
"I have more respect for myself than that and from working at American Eagle, we at one point had sexually suggestive clothing like that and young girls would come in buying it because they didn't fully understand what the words meant," she said. "Overall, I think they're harmless. It just depends on what type of people you're around."
Jordan Del Valle, a freshman in SOC and a model for Ralph Lauren, called the shirts "slutty and na?ve."
"I would not be attracted to girls in those shirts, for sure they're a turn-off," Del Valle said.
The aim of the "girlcott" is to convince people that the T-shirts are offensive, but young people do not care if they are, David Krafft, senior vice president of Chicago-based Graziano, Krafft and Zale Advertising, said in an article on Newsday.com.
"You figure they're appealing to a younger audience demographic and [young people] are going to want go for brands that are more cutting edge, or viewed as more cutting edge," Krafft said. "So it's just going to be a benefit anyway to Abercrombie and Fitch."
"I don't think the shirts are funny and are a way for girls to try to be attractive when they aren't," said Matt Nestopoulos, a freshman in the School of International Service. "If the girls were really pretty, they don't need a shirt to draw attention."
Aimee Malin, a sophomore in SOC, said she thinks the protest is stupid.
"I thought all the shirts are really funny," Malin said. "I was going to get the one that said 'Who needs brains when you have these?' and I told my girlfriends, and they asked why I would want to flaunt something like that."
Malin visited the Abercrombie and Fitch Web site with her roommate and found shirts that said things like "The Freshman 15" and listed 15 guys' names. "We laughed at them because they were just cute and funny," she said.
Jenn Lang, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and a teaching assistant for a Gender and Society class, feels the shirts are being marketed to a certain type of person.
"They market them to people who will buy into the idea," Lang said. "It also has to do with marketing based on class because, for instance, most people from lower classes who can't attend college don't even know what the freshman 15 are."
According to Lang, some of the shirts are derogatory but "they are what sells and that's the way it goes."
Abercrombie and Fitch has been criticized for suggestive material before. In 2003, a catalog containing photos of topless women and bare-bottomed men provoked so much outrage that the company pulled the publication.
