bitch is a term girls may use as a term of empowerment. but only to be one step ahead of the remarks they're gonna get anyway. as a slang-language speaking of 'bitches' in it's own context can be an empowering term. but when it's used as a marketing-slogan, so out of context, it's much harder to link it with an empowering element. i have even more trouble with the whole slogan: jump the bitch. i can't think of any way in which this can be thought of as an empowering slogan. neither can i see how it could to appeal to women. being jumped at can't be empowering. it means the jumpee is being overpowered by her attacker. to advertise girls should attack other girls, or to advertise that wearing these clothes is asking for being jumped at shows disrespect to women.
as it should be we were pretty pissed off. i asked the shop-assistant if she could explain the slogan. i thought that they surely couldn't mean that you're asking for being jumped at if you wear the shirt? she got very tense and couldn't answer my questions. so she gave me phone-numbers and addresses of people in charge. we phoned immediately. after being put on hold several times i finally spoke to the woman responsible for the poster campaign. i asked her to explain the posters to me. she couldn't. it was just a more aggressive line of advertising according to her. she wondered if it was a bit too aggressive for me... i didn't settle for that answer and asked her if there was any idea behind it, but she gave me the same answer. so i asked where to address a complaint to. it had to be addressed to her, of course how convenient. so i did send her a letter. AND i sent one to her boss. AND i started to e-mail them with the help of some friends and friends of friends [cheers to you! esp. shawn]. hester and i decided that if they hadn't answered after a week, we'd start a petition. after all we were sure more people disagreed with advertising a slogan like this. just when i was making a petition-form the phone rang. it was the boss of the store. personally. i was glad that he dealt with this complaint in person. and i was surprised he decided to use the phone. he told me he understood my line of thinking. that he had doubts about this line of slogans; but that he trusted his team not to be sexist as they're all young girls themselves. he promised me that he'd trust his own instincts more in the future. right, if he had doubts he should have stopped it! he assured me that at the moment he phoned they were working on new posters and would soon remove the posters with the slogans. i was hesitant and asked how much longer these 'jump the bitch'-posters would propagandise this aggressive line of thinking about women. he promised me they would be removed very soon. the next time i passed a Wonder Woman store the posters were replaced by a much nicer poster. everywhere were 'sale' signs. it left me to wonder if mr.WonderWoman had waited with responding until the campaign was over anyway... and it keeps me wondering why a store like that would even consider using slogans like that. i'm urging everyone not to forget to complaint if you see something that you totally disagree with. i'm still astonished that we were the only complaint this store got. make yr voice one thats in their faces!