Why I
Launched the Campaign Against
'Boys are Stupid' Products
by
Glenn Sacks © 2004
This article originally
appeared on the Glenn J. Sacks
Website
and appears here with the permission of the author.
"Dad, why
are they always saying things like that about boys?"
This question asked by my 11 year-old son triggered a campaign which
in just six weeks has driven T-shirts, hats, and other merchandise
bearing the slogan "Boys are Stupid--Throw Rocks at Them" out of
nearly 3,000 retail outlets worldwide. The products depict a little
boy running away as several rocks come flying at his head.
The stores dropped the products after being bombarded with thousands
of e-mails and phone calls, largely from the listeners and
supporters of my radio talk show. Most of those taking action have
been fathers who are concerned about the cultural atmosphere
surrounding their boys.
However, some of the most passionate and articulate supporters of
our campaign have been the mothers and grandmothers of boys. It is
mothers who generally supervise their children's educations on a
day-to-day basis, and they more than anybody see boys' largely
ignored struggles.
Though our educational establishment has been slow to recognize it,
boys have fallen seriously behind girls at all K-12 levels. Girls
get better grades than boys and are far more likely to graduate high
school and go to college. The vast majority of learning-disabled
students are boys, as are students diagnosed with attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder. Nearly nine million prescriptions of Ritalin
are written for American children each year--most of them for boys
between the ages of six and 12.
Boys also suffer from having few men in their lives. Modern schools,
particularly at the elementary level, are often devoid of men except
perhaps the janitor and the maintenance crew. And there are more
boys growing up in fatherless homes than ever before.
Add to all of these problems a boy-bashing preteen and teen
culture--where clothing which insults and taunts boys is seen as
acceptable and "funny"--and it's natural that many boys feel the
deck is stacked against them.
As parents, we suffer along with our children, and like millions of
mothers and fathers, my wife and I have lain awake in bed many
nights worrying about our son. Perhaps this explains why the
campaign has struck such a chord--in the past week over 300
newspapers and television and radio stations have carried stories
about it.
Some commentators have criticized me, saying the shirts are just a
harmless joke and that I need to "lighten up." However, to the
limited extent that the shirts are humorous, it is adult humor being
played out on boys.
Others say I'm violating the targeted businesses' First Amendment
right to freedom of speech. However, the function of the First
Amendment is to prevent the government from restricting our freedom
of speech. Our campaign is instead a consumer action against
companies which carry products which insult boys. Should John
Ashcroft ever kick in the shirt designer's door and beat him with a
nightstick, I'll be the first to help raise his bail.
Some say that
in launching a campaign which has received extensive press coverage
in five countries, I've inadvertently helped the manufacturers of
"Boys are Stupid" products by giving them free publicity. There is
some truth to this, and the publicity factor is a common problem
with consumer boycotts. However, the company can't be happy that the
products it has said are its best sellers have now been knocked out
of three-quarters of its retail outlets worldwide. More importantly,
this campaign is not about hurting the products' manufacturer--it is
about getting "Boys are Stupid" products out of our stores. I don't
care how many other T-shirts the company sells and how many Jaguars
the owner buys as long as these products are not in our stores.
Other
critics, mostly men, deride me as unmanly. I confess this attitude
puzzles me. These men often grumble about TV commercials in which
men are portrayed as idiots and clowns, and they read their kids
bedtime stories from children's books where fathers--the few left in
modern children's literature--are similarly depicted. Yet many of
these men seem to be struck by cultural amnesia the moment somebody
finally decides to do something about male-bashing.
How many times in the past 20 years have several major companies
been forced to remove a product and apologize because it was
offensive to males? Very few, I would guess. The media attention
garnered by the campaign has already led some observers to speculate
that many companies may soon be reexamining their marketing
strategies for fear of a consumer backlash against anti-boy and
anti-male ads.
I've never pretended that "Boys are Stupid" products are among the
most important challenges today's boys face. The boy-bashing culture
the products typify is just the tip of the iceberg. Today, thanks to
the actions of concerned mothers and fathers, that iceberg is a
little smaller.
This column first appeared in the
Los Angeles Daily News (2/4/04).
Copyright 2001 Glenn
Sacks, all rights reserved
