Is there a better time to be a woman? Nowadays, ladies are doing all sorts of things that were traditionally left to the menfolk. We’re running for president and losing. We’re attempting to take away a woman’s right to choose. And we’re in space so often that no one even bothers to learn the names of female astronauts—just like their male counterparts. That’s equality! And nowhere is the celebration of how far we’ve come more evident than at the gift shop at the Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future.
At what is possibly the most politically incorrect gift shop on record—a new record, go for it ladies!—you can celebrate your PhD with the purchase of a red straw cowboy hat adorned with a rhinestone tiara spelling out your alma mater. We all know an annoying girly girl; why not surprise her with a pink “High Maintenance” sign? Or, if she tips a few too many, how about a wooden “Wine Chick” plaque? And for the ball-breaker in your life, we’re thinking napkins. The Women’s Museum features napkins with an array of empowering messages, such as S.L.U.T.S. (Southern Ladies Up to Something) and B.R.A.T. (Beautiful, Rich, and Thin). On our last visit, it was just so gratifying to see a local Girl Scout troop getting inspired by these towelettes. It’s never too early for girl power!
So the next time you want to celebrate just how great it is to be a woman, Dallas has just the answer. Susan B. Anthony once said, “Failure is impossible.” Boring! Thank God she didn’t go into snappy napkin writing.
Photos: Laura Kostelny
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37 comments
So if a girl isn’t the type of girl you want her to be she’s doing something wrong? She can’t opt out of what you consider to be important feminine ideals without earning your ire? She can’t even be pro-life without losing the right to check the “F” box on her drivers license? It must be tough being the final arbiter of what it means to be a feminist.
Where’s the “Don’t Bother” box for this review?
Ms. Kostelny…
Do you ever give anything a positive review? It seems your out to find something wrong with anything that touches your desk. I’ve been to the museum, and have taken my neices. I though the gift shop was very nice. It offered unique gifts that were geared toward women, and if anyone takes offense to any of the unique items, then there is just something wrong with that person….grow up.
I’m curious to see if you can find something in our great city of Dallas that you can actually provide some valuable feedback, and actually “review” it.
While I get your point about the kitschy, borderline offensive items in the gift shop, you also have to mention the fact that there are quite a few women’s history books, and other items relevant to the exhibits in the store. This post is an extremely one sided viewpoint about a minuscule part of The Women’s Museum.
Since The Women’s Museum (not just specific to Dallas) is the *only* national museum of its kind, you might want to do more to support what the entire museum is doing, instead of calling them out for a few tacky items in the gift shop.
You need to follow-up this post with a well-rounded review of a trip to the Women’s Museum. And after you pay your $5 admission fee, show some actual support for the only Women’s museum in the country by buying a Wine Chick plaque, or better yet – a membership.
“We don’t think so”? Who is “we”? I didn’t see anyone reference to converstations you had with other visitors of the museum. Speak for yourself.
The Women’s Museum is not only a treasure in the City of Dallas, but a treasure for our country.
Just plain crappy journalism…if that’s what you call this.
“We’re attempting to take away a woman’s right to choose.”
I think my name says it all. Just because we read your magazine or column doesn’t mean we’re aligned politically with you. I don’t read on this site for your keen political remarks. Keep politics out of ‘journalism’.
Thank you Colin! Couldn’t have stated my views better. This review missed the mark.
I’m fairly certain this is Front Row’s first review of anything at The Women’s Museum. Since the blog’s inception, the Museum has brought in an exhibit from the Smithsonian, honored women in the community and held free summer camps for girls. Have we heard about those in this blog? No.
And now Front Row is telling its readers “Don’t Bother” with the Museum’s gift shop. Did this post’s writer and editors stop to think that this review might impact the willingness of people to visit the Museum as a whole?
I understand the author’s perspective, but, as a reviewer, she is responsible to her audience to give an overall impression of her subject, not a rant against feminism, equality and gift items. I challenge the author to go to any museum gift shop and tell me that every item in that store is directly related to the museum’s exhibits.
And, lastly, the museum’s name is The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future. It is a national women’s history museum, and the only one of its kind in the country.
(Full disclosure: I worked for The Women’s Museum. And I’m a huge fan. My thoughts? Go see it.)
Ms. K did not say the museum was offensive. She said there is unforgiveable crap in the gift shop — and maybe it’s because I am old-fashioned but I don’t think joke napkins about SLUTs in a women’s museum is cool. I hope the museum takes this criticism to heart.
Thanks for this review. Those items are apropos for a truck stop or a mall cart set up for tourists. Why should a museum dedicated to the accomplishments of women be in the business of peddling stereotyping kitsch?
The comments here are enlightening. I did not know so many of my Texas sisters demand positive, non-political representations of the world. Further still, I think what is being considered a “political” review is strange. We are talking about trinkets sold in a gift shop. This review is not an evaluation of the museum displays. Which, for the most part, are of the highest caliber and seek to comprehensively chronicle the struggles and accomplishments of women. The museum is a place to reflect on the very political journey from there to here. Perhaps the reviewer is simply pointing out a troubling dichotomy.
@Alyssa: You write, “Did this post’s writer and editors stop to think that this review might impact the willingness of people to visit the Museum as a whole?”
Well, did the folks who run the gift shop stop to think that their selection of merchandise might impact the willingness of people to visit the Museum as a whole?
I saw the evil things in the Women’s Museum gift shop, and I did what I do in every other store that carries things I don’t like, want or need. I didn’t buy them. And I’m pretty sure a woman designed and is selling the things you don’t like. So in a way, that’s perfect. I did find a great tote that folds up into an envelope the size of a credit card. And I enjoyed my day at the museum immensely.
Laura, I’m with you. I think the fact that a museum, which aims to educate the public on women’s struggles and triumphs, is selling “gifts” that praise women for being “beautiful, rich, and thin” is scary. How backward is that? I think the gift shop takes away from the fabulous purpose of the museum. I think the Women’s Museum needs to rethink the last stop on the tour.
I enjoy reading a review with an opinion. Thanks, Laura.
I’m sure everyone who’s upset at what the Women’s Museum has to do to sell merchandise in their store and keep the doors open in these difficult philanthropic times immediately got out their checkbook and made a donation or purchased a membership.
Right?
Right?
If not, here’s where you go to help support their mission. I’m sure a little note indicating that you love the museum but hate the merchandise would reach the right ears.
http://www.thewomensmuseum.org/womens_museum/membership/MEM_membership.asp
@Tim I hesitate to assume that any museum (the Nasher, Dallas Museum of Art, even the National Museum of American History) would consider their gift shop solely responsible for their museum’s image. As Downtowner so rightly points out, the gift shop not only exists to sell items related to exhibitions, but also to maintain the museum financially.
I’m not disagreeing about these items. I’m disagreeing with the author’s review based on those items as representative of a 70,000 foot museum as a whole. I’m looking forward to Front Row’s review of one of The Women’s Museum’s (not the Dallas Women’s Museum’s) special exhibits.
Ok – no one reads this blog, but me. So Women’s Museum staff, don’t worry your attendance will not be affected by this stupid post. Tim Rogers is an idiot.
@Fan: Am not! And your momma’s so dumb that she spent a whole day in the grocery store because she picked up a can of frozen orange juice and it said “concentrate.” So there!
The boat that Laura Kostelny is in, I am also in that boat. Gift shop FAIL.
I’d shop there if they had a t-shirt that read “I’M WITH STUPID” and I could give it to my wife.
Actually I find the gift shops at the Nasher, DMA, and Crow Collection incredibly appealing to the more intellectually curious shopper which we would hope has an interest in the Dallas Women’s Museum as well. Kudos to Laura as a call to raise the bar a bit – for the museum and for our daughters.
“Cough”(as she throws away her “Wine Chick” fur-trimmed wine glass coozy that covers her plastic LED multi-lighted glass).
P.S. I said all of that “intellectually curious” stuff and still must disclose that we threw a princess party for our three year old. And the cycle continues… But we drew the line on the SLUT and BRAT napkins.
So let me get this straight… A museum promoting the accomplishments of women in history thinks it’s appropriate & aids their purpose to sell an item with SLUTS written on an item. Not funny, not cute and opposite of everything the museum stands for, I would think. And I think that’s what Laura’s trying to say. How do you explain to a young girl who just toured the museum that she should empower herself and accomplish everything she wants in life…but it’s ok and funny to call a woman a slut, and she should try to be as beautiful, thin and rich as possible. Because, after all, it’s cute!
I’m the son of a career mother who, in the 1950s, despite Mother having two Masters Degrees, I watched her struggle as a Dallas News columnist to not be patronized, sexualized, marginalized. HER mother became a widow when Mother was 2, yet she went on to get her Doctorate degree in 1922 (!) and become a professor. I also reported to a female CEO for 6 years & learned more doing so than I could type in a day. So my Mother’s milk was literally the celebration of brilliant women in a world that celebrates flashy dames.
There is NO way to justify merchandise at a Women’s Museum that trivializes women while purporting to celebrate feminine trail-blazers like Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford, Billie Jean King & Martina Navratilova, Harper Lee, Florence Nightingale, Sally Ride, Annie Oakley, Billie Holiday. Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Madeline Albright. You don’t have to be humorless about it. But offering merchandise that delights in trite and coarse clichés of girlie superficiality like an early Madonna persona song is to me Paris Hilton insulting, even vulgar. Like watching ‘The Bachelor’ with your daughter who is failing math, you think this makes sense?
That crap has no place in the Women’s Museum. The gift shop in the topless bar maybe, but not the Women’s Museum.
When I go to a museum gift shop, I go hoping I can find things particular to the genre. Plaques that say Wine Chick and High Maintenance are things I can buy in the mall.
The last time I went, I got a ruler that listed all the “Great Women Rulers of Literature,” and a cool t-shirt with a Laurel Thatcher Ulrich quote. But you know, it’s a museum celebrating women, which means that – theoretically – if a woman self-identified as high maintenance or likes wine, she should be represented, too, right?
But with something other than an item I can find at Swoozies.
I want that ruler.
@Bethany
Somehow your argument — “if a woman self-identified as high-maintenance or likes wine, she should be represented too, right” — isn’t up to your customary airtight logic. It’s the “she should be represented too” part. Where are you going to draw the line with that one? SLUTS, maybe?
I work in the Museum field and a museum’s gift shop is not only expected but legally required (because of a Museum’s 501c3 status) to represent the mission of the institution. If the store buyer doesn’t know that, the museum’s leadership should.
That’s not necessarily true. Do we know the particulars of the Women’s Museum store legal setup?
I too work in the museum field, and even if this museum is not legally set up as a 501c3 the museum store should still represent the museum’s mission. The store should continue to educate with their product offerings. Also, what makes a museum store unique is that they typically do not offer more of the “same ole same ole” that you can find in any type of retail store (again, due to being mission related). And a store buyer should know this is museum retailing 101. I personally know my director would not be thrilled to see “SLUTS” napkins as a product offering, and quite frankly I would be embarrassed for my colleagues to see these type of “chotchkies”. I will be the first to admit that you do have to be creative at times (since as someone noted, we do have a financial obligation to the museum as well), but that creativity should not jepordize the integrity of the museum.
I don’t live in the area but went to the site hoping to see what other kinds of things the store carried but unfortunately they only had a few logo items. I checked out the exhibits though and have to say it does seem the types of products referenced in this article do an injustice to the mission of this museum.
HAHA who gives a sh*t. you sell what people buy. feminism is ridiculous.. never heard of the word maleism. Many females are high maintenance, and lots of women act like S.L.U.T.S. Its there way of being a “woman”. Stupid article. Oh, and the answer to your question is; there is not a better time to be woman.
If people want to purchase gifts that say Brat, High Maintenance, etc. in a women’s museum that does not seem odd to me, nor offensive. A sign like high maintenance screams more “girl power” to me and something a 13 year old girl would love to have hanging in her bathroom than something to worry about. I grew up in the ’90′s with the SPICE girls playing in my cd player, so none of this is odd to me.
There are worse things going on in the world than to spend time worrying about a museum gift store’s tiaras, napkins, and sparkly hats.
I agree with MuseumStoreBuyer as I also, was a museum store manager and buyer–and in Texas. Items in a museum store are to be reflective of the museum’s mission and exhibitions presented. It it the responsibility of the museum store staff to offer items that normally are not available in commercial type stores. Items that drew this article’s discussion could be purchased in any mall gift store. I believe that is one of the points Laura Kostelny was making.
A few bad selections, by the sweet older women who runs the store, does not warrent an all out attack on the museum. The Women’s Museum does a great job supporting women and girls in the community. Must have been a slow news day for Laura Kostelny.
I agree with the reviewer. The Women’s Museum was a huge disappointment in so many ways. It doesn’t give feminist activists the credit and respect that they deserve and the books in the gift shop are so superficial and insulting. I remember an extremely silly interview with Connie Chung that The Women’s Museum showed. If only the museum would show the thought-provoking interviews with activists like bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Gerda Lerner, Maxine Hong Kingston, Kimberle Crenshaw. The Women’s Museum is so wimpy and superficial.
If The Women’s Museum really supported women and girls in the community, Dallas would be a much more pro-feminist city. A few years ago, I heard a woman rave about a lecture that The Women’s Museum did about the American women’s suffrage movement. However, during the lecture, nobody ever called out The Dallas Morning News for saying practically nothing about the anniversary of the 19th amendment. As I said before, The Women’s Museum is wimpy and superficial. It doesn’t have the courage to call out the community on its sexism.