Girls Can Only Date Superheroes According To Sexist Target PJs

Target Canada is getting slammed across social media for selling what many people are calling sexist baby pyjamas.

The outcry all started when Aimée Morrison, a professor at the University of Waterloo, posted a picture of these baby onesies on her Twitter. They both feature the Superman logo however the one for girls reads, “I only date heros,” while the boys item beside it reads, “Future man of steel.”  Put them side by side and you have the perfect example of blatant sexism.

Please RT this sexist set of baby jammies from Target. Boys can be heroes; girls can date heroes. #target #sexism pic.twitter.com/44bbIGDIqP

— Aimée Morrison (@digiwonk) September 29, 2014

After Morrison posted the image under her username @digiwonk, it caused an online storm, with many denouncing the retailer for selling the onesies.

The photograph was taken over the weekend by Morrison’s friend Christine Logel, an associate social development professor at the university. Logel was shopping with her two daughters in a Target in Waterloo, ON when she spotted the baby apparel.

“I have come across things like this before, but I expected better of Target,” Logel told CBC. After taking a photo, Logel showed it to the store’s manager who said, “Awww, cute!”

Logel then decided to post the picture on her Facebook, but it got little attention. That’s when Morrison offered to post it on her Twitter. The response was almost immediate.

“It’s the contrast between what we imagine in the future for boys and what we imagine in the future for girls,” Morrison told Canada.com. “One is, ‘I can grow up to be somebody powerful,’ and the other one is ‘I can grow up to date somebody powerful.”

And she’s right. Where’s the onesie that reads, “Future Superwoman”? Not at Target, apparently. According to their onesies, girls can’t even be superheros. Funny, because last time we checked, there’s an abundance of strong, female, superhero-type figures in pop culture today. Katniss Everdeen, Black Widow, Catwoman, Wonder Woman and most recently Thor who is now a FEMALE SUPERHERO (in the comics, anyway). Why is it still so strange for young girls to want to aspire to be strong, intelligent, independent, superhero-type women?

To be fair, Target isn’t the only retailer to be caught selling these types of clothing items.  Many Twitter users replied to Morrison’s tweet with their own examples from other unnamed retailers.

Gross. “@john_savarese: . @digiwonk I spotted these uptown recently pic.twitter.com/sLrLsW4gBd”

— Aimée Morrison (@digiwonk) September 29, 2014

@digiwonk @annemarsden Same stuff from a Spanish supermarket: Smart like daddy, beautiful like mummy #sexism pic.twitter.com/scQmUiRxUS

— Sara Fernandez (@SaraFdezM) September 30, 2014

@digiwonk found at Carter’s / Oshkosh on Sunday. Guess which gender is which? So mad. pic.twitter.com/fy4uMIkob9

— Karla Hayward (@KarlaHayward) September 30, 2014

Target isn’t the only one getting the heat. Just this past week, Jezebel reported on how a blogger found this DC licensed Batman shirt being sold in the Juniors section of Walmart,  sparking similar online outrage.

While it looks like we’re making great strides in the world of gender equality, these clothes prove we need to better in terms of how we socialize our children. Yes, they’re just clothes but they’re clothes with strong messages on them — messages on society’s gender expectations and how society determine’s each gender’s worth. With enough of these messages floating around, people can do crazy things, like start to believe them.

“There’s research that adults treat the same baby differently when think the baby’s a boy, than when they think the baby’s a girl,”  Logel told the CBC in an interview. “So you can imagine when a baby girl is wearing a message that she’s a future girlfriend of a superhero, rather than having a future as something powerful herself, you can imagine grown-ups are going to treat in her in a way, maybe more gently, and take her less seriously and sort of teach her to be more passive.”

Now it wouldn’t be the internet if there wasn’t any real debate going on. It must be said that not everyone found the apparel offensive. Many criticized the professors, tweeting things like, “There are more important problems in the world..” and “You obviously don’t have anything important to do.”

Alright, so you tell us: Are we reading too much into this? I mean, it’s just baby clothing after all. Or are these messages really harmful to our children? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!