T-shirt

I have mixed feelings about this shirt.

Actually, I have pretty unmixed feelings about this shirt. I don’t like it.

I don’t like it because it sends a message that a daughter is her father’s property (my princess?)

I don’t like it because it sends a message that there is conflict between daddy and the young men his daughter chooses to date, even before the young man has shown himself to want anything other than to be loving and kind to her.

I don’t like it because it rejects the idea of consensual sex between the daughter and the young man.

I don’t like it because it models violence as a normal part of human relations. 

Of course, I do like the idea of fathers holding their daughters in high regard and being willing to protect them. I would like the T-shirt more if I thought that there is no way that it could co-exist with a parent who would ask a daughter who was raped or threatened, “Why were you out so late? Why were you drinking? Why were you dressed like that?”

But you know what would make me really like the shirt? If it were directed at the sons of the fathers wearing it, if it were titled “Rules for Being Allowed to Date Someone Else’s Daughter”, if numbers 2 and 6 were missing, and if number 8 said, “She’s a precious human being with the right and power to say no, just like you, not your conquest.”