
Last night, Hillary Clinton became the first woman (opens in new tab) to be nominated for president by a major political party. But just two decades ago, the concept of a woman president was deemed "offensive to some people."
Nick Kapur, a Rutgers University professor, first tweeted out an article from 1995 with the headline, "Wal-Mart pulls shirt from store," which describes the controversy surrounding a shirt predicting a female president. And the Internet can't stop talking about how absurd it is that this news ran so recently.
In 1995 Walmart pulled "Someday a woman will be president" T-shirt from shelves, saying it offended "family values." pic.twitter.com/jqqbmZFMCaJuly 27, 2016
In 1995 Walmart pulled "Someday a woman will be president" T-shirt from shelves, saying it offended "family values." pic.twitter.com/jqqbmZFMCaJuly 27, 2016
The Associated Press story (opens in new tab), which ran in the Lodi News-Sentinel, describes how a Miami Wal-Mart stopped selling T-shirts reading "Someday a woman will be president," because it was "offensive to some shoppers."
The company's spokesperson Jane Bockholt told the paper, "It was determined the T-shirt was offensive to some people and so the decision was made to pull it from the sales floor."
A Wal-Mart buyer in Arkansas said the chain refused to carry the shirt nationwide because the message "goes against Wal-Mart's family values."
The shirts featured a cartoon of Margaret, a friend of Dennis the Menace.
After I saw @nick_kapur's tweet I found this story in Miami Herald archives. Looks like it was on/off/on the shelf https://t.co/gXFReMgF9zJuly 27, 2016
A Walmart spokesperson tells MarieClaire.com: "Wow, it still pains us that we made this mistake 20 years ago. We're proud of the fact that our country – and our company – has made so much progress in advancing women in the workplace, and in society."
According to an article (opens in new tab)The Miami-Herald (opens in new tab) posted from its archives today, the original article led to customers threatening to boycott the store. The shirts briefly returned to the shelves, but were eventually pulled for good because "they didn't sell."
Bet they'd sell now.
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Kate Storey is a contributing editor at Marie Claire and writer-at-large at Esquire magazine, where she covers culture and politics. Kate's writing has appeared in ELLE, Harper's BAZAAR, Town & Country, and Cosmopolitan, and her first book comes out in summer 2023.
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