That time Walmart pulled T-shirt with slogan: 'Someday a woman will be president!'
CBC Radio | Posted: July 27, 2016 8:57 PM | Last Updated: July 28, 2016
It's now official: the U.S. could, conceivably, elect a woman as president this November for the first time in its history.
And that's an idea that, back in 1995, one Walmart location in Florida found "offensive." Thanks to Twitter user Nick Kapur for reminding us of this strange story:
"It was determined the T-shirt was offensive to some people and so the decision was made to pull it from the sales floor," said Jane Bockholt, a spokeswoman for the company at the time.
The company also said the shirts went against "Walmart's family values." Here's a clipping of the article, back in 1995:
Well, when Ann Ruben heard the t-shirts had been pulled, she was gobsmacked. The Florida psychologist was the one who came up with the design.
And as it turns out, former As It Happens host Michael Enright spoke to Ruben in 1995. We dug up the interview from our archives on Wednesday.
"I was so thrilled women were buying them. And then, it was such a shock to me when I discovered they had taken them off the floor, and they were heaped up in the corner of the store room," Ruben said.
Here's part of that interview in 1995. Ruben explains where the idea for the t-shirt came from — a Dennis the Menace comic strip:
It wasn't long before Walmart reconsidered their decision, Ruben goes on to tell As It Happens.
"There was such an outcry from females all over the country. Women marched in St. Louis, Missouri, in Chicago and Phoenix ... and they called Walmart's 1-800 number incessantly. They wrote letters," she said.
By December 1995, Walmart reversed its decision. It ordered thousands more of Ruben's t-shirts, and they were back on the shelves.
On Wednesday, we requested Ruben for an interview. We wanted to hear what she thought of the story, 21 years later — now that Hillary Clinton has an actual shot of becoming U.S. President.
Ruben declined our offer. But her grandson posted this on Twitter Wednesday afternoon:
So many years later, Walmart says they regret pulling the t-shirts off the shelves.
"Wow, it still pains us that we made this mistake twenty years ago," spokeswoman Danit Marquardt said in a statement on Wednesday.
To hear Ann Ruben's full interview from 1995, you can listen at the top of the page.