A Mighty (Sexy) Girl

My six year old told me recently that she wants a pair of jeans. I went to Target and was horrified to discover that my choices were either Skinny, Super Skinny, or Jeggings. Honestly, Target, what is even the difference? I’m opposed to the sexualization of children so I’m not buying those jeans. Besides, skinny jeans can physically harm the wearer!
I went on Facebook and asked my mom friends where to find kids jeans that aren’t designed for teens and adults. One of them suggested Wal Mart. Now, I hate Wal Mart. It’s dirty, understaffed, and the corporate policies are awful. But I did want a pair of kids jeans. So at the end of our date night, my husband and I went to Wal Mart. We did find a pair of normal jeans, so yay for that.
However, while we were there, we saw these:

I laughed and said, “Look, Deadpool underwear for little boys! Not appropriate.”

My husband agreed. We kept looking, fascinated by the juxtaposition of Sesame Street characters and Marvel super heroes. Then I picked one up. The back was narrower than the front.

“How is a boy even suppose to wear these?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.”

I pulled the waist out from the hanger and noticed how wide they were.

“Um, I don’t think these are for boys.”

“What do you mean? Who could they be for?”

“Little girls!” I exclaimed. “Haven’t I just been telling you that they are sexualizing our kids?”

We continued to stare, puzzling out the bizarre underwear. I saw this was an end cap to an aisle of bras. Adult bras.

“Oh, these are for women,” I said.

“NO!” My husband shook his head. “Look, it’s Sesame Street characters! What woman wants to wear Big Bird underwear?”

“Yes, these are for women!”

So here are the top 5 things wrong with these underpants.

5. They have a really narrow butt. This means they will constantly be wedged into the wearer’s butt crack.

4. They aren’t thongs. If something is going to be in my butt crack, it should be a thong, because at least that way I won’t have visible panty lines.

3. They have Sesame Street characters on them. Look, I get how you might want a pair of Oscar the Grouch underwear that say “Nope” on them. We all get periods. But Big Bird? Cookie Monster? Elmo?

2. They are, with one exception, male characters. Thor, Captain America, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, Deadpool, Captain Marvel (who even knows who that is???). The female is Black Widow. Forget feminism. Forget the wildly successful Wonder Woman that is currently in the theaters. Make women wear sexy underwear that celebrates male comic book heroes.

1. These are not knock offs. That means that someone at PBS looked at the idea to put Sesame Street Muppets on women’s underwear and said yes.

I guess the idea is that all women need to fit into one carefully designated box. We must be skinny to the point of disease, young to the point of puberty, mentally young to the level of Sesame Street, but also as sexy as the girlfriends of comic book super heroes. No thanks.