Walmart’s ‘95 Ban on Women-for-Prez Tee Didn’t See Hillary Coming
Sweet, sweet irony.
By the 1990’s, the United States of America saw the onset of a movement we now call Third Wave feminism. It was one that moved beyond suffrage, equal civil rights and focused on a more holistic, multicultural and multi issue approach to achieve positive liberty for women.
So naturally, it is surprising that in as late as 1995, Walmart banned a t-shirt that had the cute graphic of Margaret from Denis the Menace and that read “Someday A Woman Will Be President”. Even after having sold three fourth of their stock, the Walmart store in Miami pulled out all pieces in retail after a customer complained about them.
While the exact nature of the complaint by the customer was never disclosed, it was said that the t-shirt was too political and it went against the family values of Walmart. Twenty years after this incident, we can fairly infer that the management implied that women in leadership positions would compromise on their household duties, and this as an idea was not one that could be entertained by Walmart.
Ann Moliver Rubin, who was in charge of marketing this t-shirt, slammed this philosophy and questioned it by dissecting the store’s double standards at being comfortable with women as doctors and lawyers yet getting intimidated when women became ‘too’ successful.
Very soon, after the criticism it invited, Walmart went on the defensive, saying it over reacted to a customer complaint. The product did even better when it was relaunched.
Many people came out in support of this t-shirt and women’s rights activists like Shellie Levin said the shirt’s message was a positive statement for boys and girls.
Twenty years after the t-shirt controversy, America is closer to having a female President than it has ever been before.
Coincidentally, Hillary Clinton was the first female to make full partner at Rose Law Firm, in Arkansas and their biggest client was Walmart. She assumed a position on the board of directors of Walmart for six years till 1992 and often used her position to emphasise on equal rights for women.
Today, Clinton, the Democrat nominee has a large task at hand. The first is to beat a narcissistic demagogue and cult figure to become President. She needs to overcome the sexist slurs that pull her down and claim she’s ‘sleeping with Wall Street’, or ones that label her vote bank as idiots ‘voting from their vaginas’.
Her capabilities are going to be attributed to her gender, and that is unfortunate. While Hillary Clinton might be smashing one glass ceiling, is she going to be creating a stronger one in its place?
The important transition now is to evolve from ‘Someday A Woman Will Be President’ to ‘Someday Women Will Be Presidents’, an idea that America hasn’t explored despite their claims of being a liberal, progressive community.
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