Mothers have called out Target and Walmart in recent weeks for “way-too-short” shorts targeted towards tween girls, with one mom going as far as calling them “hooker-style.”
Back on July 8, a mother shared a message with the Facebook page “Assignment: Mom,” slamming Target for selling “teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, way-too-short” athletic shorts to the 10 to 12-year-old demographic and not making longer shorts widely available, if at all.
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“I get that shorts are, by definition, short. But where are the mid-length shorts? The approaching-knee-length shorts? The shorts that don’t require built-in underwear she’d undoubtedly find uncomfortable? The options girls my daughter’s age have seem to be limited to these or skin-tight leggings (which she cannot stand),” the mother of three daughters wrote.
She continued, “I don’t fancy myself a prude, but neither do I take the responsibility to teach my daughters about modesty and appropriate dress lightly. We live in a culture sexualized enough as it is; I wish I could go shopping for my tween and not have to worry about her backside or her underwear showing in a pair of athletic shorts.”
At the end of her message, the mother said she will now buy boys’ shorts for her “disappointed” tween daughter.
The post has over 6,300 reactions, over 2,500 shares and 1,200 comments.
Another mother, Kate Paddock, wrote that she has had trouble finding longer shorts at other stores.
“100 percent […] but it’s not just target[,] I went to like five places before finding Bella clothes[,] it’s ridiculous,” wrote Paddock. “People are designing little clothes girls like hooker-style … yup I just said it and nope I don’t care who it makes mad. If you attempt to tell me by teaching my child modesty that I’m shaming her ‘body’ I’ll just delete you because I don’t care. Because what I’m actually teaching her is that she doesn’t need to flaunt what she has just to prove she’s worthy of value.”
In an interview with Fox News, the mother who wrote the initial post said she has “no ill-will” towards Target and knows she could just shop elsewhere. However, she is “disappointed a store like that, where so many moms shop for necessities, doesn’t offer an alternative option for athletic girls who don’t wish to wear short-shorts for sports.”
Other mothers complained that Walmart is also guilty of selling short shorts.
“I went to Walmart to get my toddler daughter a pair of shorts for soccer and ended up picking them up from the boys section. For my two and a half year old! The ones in the girls section were all basically short tights, which she finds very uncomfortable,” another mother wrote.
Target sent a statement to Fox News, insisting that its shorts have been getting longer in recent years.
“We offer three types of shorts for girls: short, midi and Bermuda,” a Target spokesperson said. “Over the last few years, we’ve actually been going longer, not shorter … this is the case even with our short shorts. We lengthened them over a year ago and have seen a very positive response to the range of length, particularly with midi and Bermuda. We’ve also expanded our offerings in these assortments.”
Photo Credit: Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe via Getty Images
