FTW- According to Adidas — the makers of the team’s shirt — for a limited time the team has replaced each player’s name on the back of their shirts with inspiring tweets about female empowerment, all in honor of International Women’s Day on March 8th.
From says Niklas Bodell, Communication Manager on the Swedish Football Association, via a press release: “The initiative is first and foremost about showing the power in togetherness, together with the national team, in which football and the womens national team’s great success are good examples. We also hope to inspire people to stand up for each other and for themselves, no matter who you are or where you come from.” --- Some would say that replacing the last names of women with inspirational tweets and encouraging them to identify themselves by nothing more than 140 characters (max) and a number is - symbolically speaking - completely contradictory to the entire point of 'International Women's Day'. What those people don't seem to realize is that the only way to truly celebrate womanhood is by draining the pockets of those who feel compelled to buy gimmicky, limited-time-only merchandise that panders specifically to them. It's not that I'm against marketing a great cause, but - as I duck and take cover - I just want to make it known that this is just a more subtle equivalent of the NFL selling a tight fighting pink version of all their products. Congrats to Adidas for targeting a proud (and thus vulnerable) demographic, but I have to imagine that it's only a matter of time before the eternally-marginalized members of the feminist movement take umbrage with Swedish women honoring their endless possibilities by turning their country's colors into a novelty tee shirt. Regardless of the importance of the messages, those jerseys are far from aesthetically pleasing and I highly doubt that anyone is going to heed the advice of a nameplate that says "believe in your damn self" when they would need the most technologically advanced binoculars to read it. I'm all in favor of equal rights, but the only equal right that is being memorialized here is the equal right to get exploited financially. Congrats ladies, you've officially made it! You can do anything men can do....including getting turned into glorified billboards by the "empowering" promotions of big business that will make undoubtedly donate a microscopic percentage of the profit to a suitable foundation!
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