Hi, I wanted to touch base with you to follow up on the incredibly sexist marketing in your stores, by your company.
I don’t think anything about party supplies is inherently sexist, so I find it most unfortunate that your company has embraced outdated and inaccurate and damaging gender stereotypes as its marketing model.
My daughter is currently entranced with superheroes. Given the things she could be into, I’m thrilled, superheroes are awesome and fun and culturally relevant and entertaining and all that. And they’re, when produced by companies like Party City and Marvel, 100% white male. Even when there is a female superhero as a part of a group (like Black Widow, the lone female in the current Avenger incarnation) or minority superhero (like Nick Fury, the lone Avenger of color), Party City and Marvel remove the anomaly (any female/minority) from the products that they market and send a clear message that they don’t want to include girls in the superhero world.
After a particularly frustrating day, where I went birthday party shopping with my daughter and left Party City nearly empty handed. We walked in and eventually found superheroes in what was labeled the ‘boy’ aisle. We headed toward the Avengers--after all, ⅕ of the team is female, surely they would have Black Widow--to find that Black Widow’s existence had been scrubbed from every Avengers item made. Even the group shots on things showed only the male characters. So we looked for other superheroes--and we found 2 options: Batman & Spider Man. Things were not going well for a girl who wanted ‘girl superheroes’ at her party. It’s not that there’s a shortage of girl superheroes--there’s just an EXTREME shortage of products, that include the girl superheroes that exist.
I reluctantly bought the male-superhero pencils--because we had to have a non-food give-away for school. Then I went home and between the internet and some crafting, managed to make a few things to pull of ‘superhero’ with the non-character party supplies we bought elsewhere. Then I posted on Twitter that I was frustrated with your lack of Black Widow products, some social-media person at Party City (https://twitter.com/PartyCity/status/504306877971562497) very helpfully provided a link to the eight (8!) items that come up when your website is searched for “Black Widow”--2 adult Halloween Costumes, 1 kid Halloween costume, and 1 wig to go with those costumes (the remainder of the items relate to witches, not at all to Marvel’s Black Widow Character. No party supplies. No plates, no balloons, no toys, no merchandise.
I’m not entirely sure how linking me to evidence that your company does a dismal job with female superheroes. Party City has 108 products relating to Captain America (much much more than just costumes--lots of party supplies), but 8 for Black Widow? (and before I am told that of course Captain America brings up more stuff--he has recent movies, a search for “Hulk” who has exactly the same recent movies as Black Widow brings up around 30 items).
A search for “Superhero Squad” (A show with several main female superhero characters) brings up 8 items, all of which only portray males.
A search for “Avengers” brings up over 300 items, with two of the first 100 including Black Widow (a costume and wrapping paper--she’s not pictured on *any* of the party supplies except, for some reason, wrapping paper) in any aspect
I know there are bigger sexism issues to address, but really, I want to address this one. Small acts of sexism multiply and my daughter who is saying “why aren’t there girl superheroes?” today is going to be asking “why aren’t there girl comic writers/scientists/etc tomorrow”.
I want my daughter to, when she wants to have a superhero party, be able to find the items in an aisle not labeled ‘boys’. And I want her to be able to see herself in female characters, instead of looking at rows and rows of male characters while somehow, the female characters in the franchise landed on the cutting room floor.
Party City can do better than this, please, let parties be parties, let toys be toys, and make a modicum of effort to be gender and race inclusive.
Your company is capable of better,
-Me
#wheresGamora, #@wheresBlackWidow, @DearMarvel, @Marvel, #ComicSexism