Walmart under fire for 'offensive and sexist' girls T-shirt line descriptions
A group of women called out Walmart when they discovered the sexist and offensive product descriptions the website had for a girls T-shirt line. The shirts themselves don’t seem to be the issue, it was the bizarre write-ups on the site.
The shirts sold at Walmart.ca — the Canadian website of the retailer — were designed by Arizona sports apparel company Sauce Hockey. Several women complained to Walmart after screenshots of the descriptions were shared on Facebook.
The shirts had descriptions like, “[for the girl] who’s more interested in the visiting team coming to town, because there’s fresh faces and more hockey players to creep on.” Other descriptions suggested the T-shirt was designed for the hockey “super fan girl” who volunteers for the hockey crew just to get hook-up to the players. “By the end of the season she’s ‘dated’ half the team.”
Another description included a graphic story of a hockey player’s clingy one-night stand. “Bad mistake taking this girl home,” it read. “Give her a golden shower maybe?” it suggested to get rid of her. “Nope, she loved it.” The T-shirt’s name is Stage 5 Clinger Tee.
Facebook user Laura Elizabeth wrote, “Hey Walmart Canada these shirts are crude and chauvinistic and I’m shocked you would sell these. Not cool. (See descriptions).” And many others joined in support.
A representative for Walmart tells Yahoo Lifestyle the T-shirt line was immediately pulled from the company website after complaints were made. The shirts were available on their Canadian marketplace via a third-party retailer, Montreal-based company IceJerseys.
“The descriptions accompanying these tees do not represent Walmart’s values and have no place on Walmart.ca site,” Marilee McInnis, Walmart’s spokesperson, says. “We sincerely apologize for any unintended offense this has caused our Canadian customers.”
Sauce Hockey has also issued an apology and says it was unaware of the crude content, as the company came under new ownership in 2015. It says the shirt descriptions were made in 2011.
One of the current owners of Sauce Hockey, Daryl Jones, tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “Until receiving notification a few days ago, I wasn’t even aware they existed. I wholeheartedly apologize to anyone that was offended by the descriptions that are both offensive and sexist and certainly not descriptions that would be associated with any of our products today.”
Jones says that this particular T-shirt line hasn’t been sold directly from the company’s website in the last six years. He says the company intends to make sure all of these descriptions and products are removed from whatever sites they might be on.
“This is certainly not representative of the hockey culture that either me personally, or Sauce as a company, supports, and respects,” he adds. “The inventory that exists with third parties, we will buy it back and destroy it,” says Jones.
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