12-Year-Old Girl Shames Retailer Over Gender Equality

McKenna Peterson may only be 12 years old, but she knows injustice when she sees it. A lifelong basketball fan, she was excited to get the latest Dick’s Sporting Goods basketball catalog in the mail, only to discover that there was not a single female athlete in the pages of said catalog. McKenna was not going to take that injustice lying down.

She wrote a polite — but angry — letter to Dick’s, schooling them on the fact that women enjoy basketball just as much as men, that her hometown WNBA team were world champions, full of premier athletes, and that she herself had bought her last two pairs of basketball shoes from Dick’s.

We hope that the sincerity of the letter alone would have filled the executives at Dick’s with well-deserved shame and caused positive changes. But because McKenna’s father is a regional sports reporter with thousands of Twitter followers, we will never know. The letter has gone viral on the net and Dick’s is taking heat from all sides.

I would tell you more, but McKenna left very little for us to add with her precise vivisection of an incredibly sexist oversight.

Full text of the letter:

To whom it may concern:

Hi. I have received your Basketball 2014 catalog in the mail. I am writing about the matter that there are no girls in the catalog. I think that girls should be treated as equally as boys are treated. I, myself, enjoy playing and also watching basketball, WOMENS basketball. I had season tickets for my state team. The Phoenix Mercury. I don’t know if you are keep tracking of the ladies sports world, but they are the Western Conference Champions AND the League Champions of 2014. They have at least two of the best players in the WORLD. They have the legendary Diana Taurasi and the dunking machine, Brittney Griner. On the Minnesota Lynx there is Lindsay Whalen. She was voted MVP last year. This year the MVP is Maya Moore also on the Minnesota Lynx. So, back to the point. There are NO girls in the catalog! Oh, wait, sorry. There IS a girl in the catalog on page 6. SITTING in the STANDS. Women are only mentioned once in the catalog on page 5 for some shoes. And there are cheerleaders on some coupons. It’s hard enough for girls to break through in this sport as it is, without you guys excluding us from your catalog. Girls buy stuff from your store. In fact, my last two pairs of basketball shoes were purchased at Dicks, as well as my hoop and practice equipment. Maybe my dad will take me to some other store that supports girls to actually PLAY basketball and follow their dreams and not sit on the sidelines and watch the game to get my next pair of shoes and equipment. If you actually read this far, thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing girls in the next basketball catalog you send out. I really DO enjoy going to your store and getting new shoes. The staff are very friendly and kind.

Sincerely,
McKenna Peterson
The Fabulous Basketball Player

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  1. How about the fact that during the month of October ALL THEIR PINK-OUT GEAR IS DIRECTED AT FOOTBALL PLAYERS?! I went to buy socks and a volleyball for my team and they had them IN THE FOOTBALL SECTION! AND, the only volleyballs they had are not approved for High School play. Really?! Kudos to this girl for standing up for her beliefs and calling them out on their sexism!

    1. It just keeps getting worse and worse for them.

      Perhaps this will be a wake-up call for them to change their practices.

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