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Dick’s Sporting Goods, in the all-too testosterone world of sports, released a catalogue with virtually no women in it. Except for cheerleaders and a girl watching men play sports.

A 12-year-old calls them out on this because even 12-year-olds get equality.

Dick’s sent a FOAD brush off letter back [see below].

Here’s what Dick’s ought to do now.

1. Recognize that there is profound sexism in sports.
2. Recognize that they have been a part of that.
3. Seek out organizations that promote equality in sports.
4. Partner with them to promote equality.
5. Open up their catalogue and advertising process to expanded stakeholder input.
6. Help be part of the solution to sexism in athletics.
7. Revel in the earned media, because they’re already suffering in it, so they may as well learn from their sexism, solve their own internal problems and make the world a better place.

There. That wasn’t so hard!

A 12-year-old girl is winning support online after she questioned a sporting goods catalogue over its infrequent use of women in a recent publication.

McKenna Peterson lives in Phoenix but grew up in Regina. Her family moved to Arizona two years ago where McKenna is an avid basketball player.

She wrote to Dick’s Sporting Goods this week about their Basketball 2014 catalogue, questioning why so few women appeared on its pages.

“There are NO girls in the catalog,” she wrote, although she immediately corrected herself by noting there was one image of a woman — as an observer sitting in the stands at a men’s game.

“And there are some cheerleaders on some coupons,” she added.

Peterson’s letter went on to talk about the value in the equal portrayal of men and women in sport.

“It’s hard enough for girls to break through in this sport [basketball] as it is, without you guys excluding us from your catalog,” she wrote. “Girls buy stuff from your store.”

Where are the girls? Youngster asks of Dick’s Sporting Goods catalogue – Saskatchewan – CBC News.

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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