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"MATH MAKES ME DIZZY"

Two years ago I wrote a post about an offensive t-shirt I saw in a local shop window.  It was one of those stores where young girls can have makeover parties and get their hair and makeup done.  The shirt read, "Math makes me dizzy," a phrase that still makes me cringe, particularly since math is so key my profession as a financial planner.  The idea that pretty girls don't have to worry about having brains still makes my blood boil.  

At the time I wrote, "I honestly can't decide if seeing stuff like this makes me hope I have only sons or if it makes me want a daughter so I can ban her from ever attending a makeover party and raise her to be an engineer or a fighter pilot or something."

A month later I was pregnant with a daughter.

My opinion on the subject hasn't changed, except to the extent that I'm now even more vehemently anti-slut.  I want to protect my daughter from ever being valued or judged for her sexuality and if that means she doesn't get to attend birthday parties in which she'll end up wearing makeup and trampy clothes, so be it.  I want no part of any of that.

It also means she'll never own a Bratz doll.  Not even one.  Nor will she be allowed to play with Bratz dolls at her friends' houses.  I realize it's going to make me an unpopular parent and worse, it's going to make for some uncomfortable conversations with other moms, but still, I see absolutely nothing good about the sexualization of young girls.  The only way they're going to stop making these dolls is if parents stop buying them.

Even to this day, people are still reading that post.  Yes, it was off-handed and slightly rude, but honestly, what kind of a parent would actually BUY that t-shirt for their daughter?  What kind of a message does that send?