In junior high school I was placed in the honors math program at a time when girls were considered a bit out-of-their league if they excelled at subjects like math. After all, we were still slated to take home economics (you know, cooking, sewing, keeping the woodstove burning) and forbidden to take woodshop. I did write to Dear Abby asking her how I could learn those boy-only skills when school would not allow me to learn things like how to operate a drill press. (She told me to find a family friend to teach me - fat chance!) 

Young girls have come a long, LONG way since the ancient 1960's…until J.C.Penney marketed their recent shirt to girls which reads: "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me." Ugh!

After the uproar, (thank you high school classmate and brilliant writer, Carla Baranauckas,) the shirt has been taken off the market. I hope this recent action is the EndNote for messages that encourage young girls not to use their talents, to be less than they are.

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