So, a few weeks ago, I was walking through the dreaded Walmart, past the books and such. Being a reader and knowing the Young Adult genre is generally better written than most, I glanced over at the youth shelves. My eye was drawn to a Coloring Book for Girls.  

That obviously piqued my curiosity, so I decided to see what awesome modern concepts it held. I stood there in dismay as I flipped through Every. Single. Page. 

Do you know that on every page were flowers? And all of the pages with girls pictured showed them demurely posed and dressed in floaty, flowery dresses, sporting long flowing tresses? Girls were generally doing nothing of consequence, sometimes pictured with moms (also dressed in long floaty dresses with long flowy tresses). EVERY SINGLE IMAGE.

I was flabbergasted. Where were girls riding skateboards? Where were girls playing softball? Where were girls in science class? Doing algebra and math? Where were the girls dressed in jeans and digging in the dirt? Where were the girls with beakers and test tubes, dissecting a frog? Where were the girls reading books, chasing snakes, exploring in the woods? Camping? Hiking? Where were the girls building robots? Or dog houses or pinewood derby cars? What about working on computers?

While I’m thinking about it, where were the dads? Where was the diversity? (Answer: there were no dads and no diversity).

EVERY SINGLE FREAKING IMAGE! It might as well have been published in the 1800s. 

And I thought only one thing as I put it back on the shelf (backwards because I could): I would NEVER give this to a young girl. NEVER. 

So, fast forward to today. Again, I’m at the dreaded Walmart, this time for cat food (they were, of course, out of my cat’s favorite). I glanced around the checkout lane (I chose one with a human because I didn’t want to enable the loss of jobs — although I digress). Anyway, my eyes landed on a Hershey’s candy bar, mainly because it highlighted SHE in a bright bold green with the word “IS” beneath it. Then I noticed the words all over the wrapper: 

SHE
IS

COURAGEOUS THOUGHTFUL POWERFUL RESILIENT KIND

DYNAMIC CERTAIN COMPASSIONATE HAPPY BRAVE WITTY

PROUD HONEST COACH STRONG INCREDIBLE

LIMITLESS RISK-TAKER TRUSTED EMPOWERED

MAGNIFICENT OUTSPOKEN SURPRISING CREATIVE BOLD

CELEBRATE HER FOR WHO SHE IS.

Yeah, you get the gist. SHE IS all of those things. And more. 

Now, let me ask you this: which would you want to give your young daughter or niece or friend?  A HERSHEY’S bar celebrating girls? Or a throwback, out-of-touch 1850s coloring book that limits her thinking? 

I’d like to think you’d choose the chocolate. I did. And it tasted like empowerment.

Kudos to Hershey’s for supporting Girls on the Run.