SLOGANS
Our major obligation is not to
mistake slogans for solutions.
Edward R. Murrow
David Cameron made the headlines not long ago because he refused to wear a t-shirt proclaiming: THIS IS WHAT A FEMINST LOOKS LIKE. I have no problem with his refusing to wear a slogan like that, because it is just a bunch of words that are meaningless until you act on them.
I wonder if people realize that a statement means nothing unless is indicates an action. Wearing a sentence doesn’t make it happen. I think we should pass a law that forces you to stand by what you say. For example, if you are wearing a t shirt that says WELL BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY you better get naughty or no one will believe in you anymore.
I have always loved: THE EASIEST WAY TO GET A HEALTHY BODY IS TO MARRY ONE because it gives me an excuse to have flabby arms and a sagging bum. If anyone sees me in that t-shirt, I always say, “That’s why I’m single.”
I am being an honest woman just like my mother said I should be.
Now you take the slogan: IF WOMEN WERE REALLY LIBERATED, WHO WOULD DO THE DISHES? The only women that should wear that one are female executives who get up at 6 in the morning to pack the kids’ lunches and make a hearty breakfast for the family, rush off to the office to do important things and then, at five o’clock, slip off the high heels, don the sensible oxfords and drive to the supermarket to buy dinner. They hurry home, run the vacuum as they rush upstairs to change into something comfortable and loose enough to handle pots and pans, dash downstairs, create a gourmet feast for everyone, light the candles rearrange the flowers on the table and call “Dinner’s ready.” Yes sir. That is THE t- shirt for them.
Their husbands and children should bow down to these heroines of the modern world and present them with shirts that say MOTHERS ARE MIRACLE WORKERS.
If you wear a t-shirt that says: I DON’T NEED YOUR ATTITUDE, I HAVE MY OWN you better have a smart mouth on you. Someone dressed in a shirt like that is telling everyone, “Watch out! I don’t take garbage from anyone.” Yet invariably, the person sporting that kind of slogan will be a skinny five-foot failed football player. Doesn’t he realize he is wearing a lie?
I am a woman of a certain age and I am sick of people giving me t-shirts that shout things like I AM ONE HOT COOKIE because I am not, anymore (if I ever was..but that is another story.) And what about AGE IS JUST A NUMBER. No, it isn’t . It is an accomplishment.
I have been shopping for a t-shirt that tells all you youngsters why I stay out late at night and don’t take good care of my liver and I finally found the perfect one: YOU CAN LIVE TO BE 100 IF YOU GIVE UP ALL THE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU WANT TO LIVE TO BE 100.
I bought it without even looking at the price. I wear it when I go to the pub and I admit I flaunt it when I pass the gym and see those wild-eyed, determined people sweating it out on their stationary bikes. “See this?” I say as I stick out my chest and lap up my chocolate ice-cream cone. “I have discovered truth.”
