WHEN JENNIFER SMITH’S son brought home an invite to a school pool party, she was shocked at one of the stipulations for the girls attending.
So, she wrote a message on the invite that is being shared everywhere now:
Beside the rule that all girls must wear non-white tshirts over their swimsuits, she wrote:
I will not let my child participate in any activity that promotes girls body shaming, or tells girls they are to police their sexuality.
She then uploaded the image to the Facebook group Feminism on Facebook – and it’s now getting global attention.
Speaking to the Huffington Post about why she was so offended, Smith said:
Being a feminist and seeing things through that filter, I was just kind of enraged by that,” Smith told The Huffington Post. “They’re saying little girls need to be ashamed of their bodies and cover themselves up.
Since the invitation has gone viral, a spokesperson for the school explained to the Huffington Post why the rule was in place:
We know that for many of our families, buying an extra [one-piece] swimsuit for their children would be a luxury they cannot afford. To address the issue of appropriate dress for the swim party, we believed asking the girls to wear T-shirts over their swimsuits was the solution that addressed the issue most sensitively.
Smith emailed the school with the complaint and they changed the rules – allowing the pool party to go ahead with no tshirt rules in place for the girls.
And *that* is how you get things done.
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