If my fifteen-year-old sister ever came home from a Bruno Mars concert wearing that tragic excuse for a pair of shorts, I would simply keel over in agony and die on the spot. My body’s ten major organ systems would shut down so freakishly quick that I wouldn’t even have time to ask her urgent questions like, “Who do you think you are?”, “Are you brain-dead?” and “Do you seriously think Bruno would catch a grenade for you?”
Oh, wait. Ahem. Let’s try this again.
My fifteen-year-old sister did come home from a Bruno Mars concert wearing that tragic excuse for a pair of shorts. And so I puked on her face (love you, sis).
Nothing against Mr. Bruno – he’s got some lovely tunes up his sleeve – but come on, now. When in the history of consumerism did it become okay for females to purchase and subsequently don shorts that have the words “Property of (insert alpha male or corporation name here)” slapped across the butt? I need to know the impetus behind this sickening trend. Perpetuating these motto-ingrained booty shorts as a marketable product is basically akin to perpetuating the tenets of servitude. Newsflash for my fellow ladies: slavery ended 146 years ago and there have been about three amendments to the Constitution that passive-aggressively advise women to stop viewing themselves as the inferior gender. Please read an eighth-grade US History textbook. Or, not going to lie, HBO’s “Drunk History” series works too.
You see, the last time I checked, my sister was not a mere item or a measly piece of property. Therein lies the problem. We girls are made up of everything from blazing human emotions to fully functioning cerebrums, and you cannot and will not take the Homo sapiens out of us. We should not constitute a merchandise company’s contrived vision of property, nor should we be reduced to cocoons of obsequious compliance. We are not possessions, nor are we chattels that you can flippantly smack price tags on. We own ourselves. We are teeming with individuality. We are bastions of independence. I have no issue with marriage or anything of that sort, but you can be sure I’ll act like a stubborn grandma whenever women are referred to or refer to themselves as “property.”
Now, as for all you girls out there who willingly adorn your buttocks with the aforementioned shorts, I do get it. You’re a huge fan of Bruno Mars or Zac Efron or whoever. You would marry the dude in a millisecond, at a Taco Bell, at three in the morning. The wording on your rear end is supposed to be construed as facetious. But what you don’t understand is that society can’t be joking around about gender roles anymore. Such imprudence only counteracts the progress we’ve made in ushering women out of the ensnaring black hole that is the “cult of domesticity.” Moving forward with feminist ideals requires not only that we grapple with the super-sized issues, but also that we work to stamp out the small wrongs. The classification of a female as an object via a piece of clothing, whether intentional or unintentional, happens to be one of those small wrongs that I am not going to stand for.
So does anyone have a propane torch I could borrow? Or like, whatever fancy equipment the arsonist chick from that one Criminal Minds episode had? Those shorts are going to look so much better with a finely executed ‘charred stripe’ across the bum.
Featured image taken by yours truly.
I absolutely agree. It makes me think of a couple years ago when my boyfriend was picking at me for hanging out with my new roommate at her boyfriend’s fraternity (different from my boyfriend) so I could get to know them and I told my boyfriend that I could hang out wherever I wanted and that I did not and would never have property of his fraternity stamped across my butt lol He got very apologetic very quickly.
YES. Thanks for posting this. And I absolutely agree with EVERYTHING you’ve said.
where can i get a pair at? is ur sister selling them?
“We girls are made up of everything from blazing human emotions to fully functioning cerebrums, and you cannot and will not take the Homo sapiens out of us.”
Love this.
Bruno, I’ll pull the pin and TOSS a grenade to ya (yeah, yeah, yeah).
Love this post!
every time I hear that song, I’m like “a grenade?? you’d throw your hand on a WHAT??? dude, what the hell kind of fantasies are you having? maybe we need to get you some counseling??”
Yeah, that’s disgusting. When I was at summer camp years ago, girls made shirts with “Property of (insert boys bunk name here)”. I remember the art councilors getting so upset that their supplies and energy were being used for something so dumb. It’s disappointing to, because I think Bruno Mars is pretty cool and I can only hope that his management did this over his head…please?
Thanks for the kind input, friends!
This is bollocks.
I saw a girl wearing a pair of shorts that said “I <3 to fart" across the butt. To make matters more interesting, we were at a hot dog restaurant, and she was waiting in line to go to the bathroom. Why anyone puts words across their butt is beyond me.
You are so right! This trend has got to stop! No one is anyone’s property. Keep teaching your sister right!
Can we extend the burnings to all clothing with words across the booty? Please??
Hahahahahaha I love this!!! And I completely agree with you. Me wearing a degrading pair of shorts that deliberately insults my independence and self confidence across my rear end? Sorry, my higher educational ambitions and self respecting values won’t allow it.
“And so I puked on her face”
Right!!