Attention Tween Walmart Shoppers: Go Green at the Environment's Expense

The co-optation of social justice issues for corporate gain is nothing new. The folks in charge of marketing campaigns make a living sniffing out new ways to sell their company's products, and exploiting people's desires is a crucial part of that process. To that end, Unilever promotes "real beauty" as a way to sell bath products by running Dove advertisements that feature "real women" of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors (while simultaneously undermining and over-sexualizing women with its sexist Axe ads), and Glamour makes a stink about printing one photo feature of a plus-sized model (amid a hundred or so pages of ones who are stick skinny) to sell heteronormative relationship and fashion advice. Both of these campaigns knew the golden rule of marketing: snag the media's attention when you've got something you're trying to sell because an impressed or outraged free press provides ... well, free press.

In an attempt to grab $2 billion in tween (8- to 12-year-olds) product revenue, Walmart is discontinuing its Mary-Kate and Ashley (Olsen) cosmetics, which has been on the financial decline, to launch a new brand called GeoGirl on February 21st. A product of Pacific World Corp, GeoGirl is a so-called eco-friendly makeup line of 69 items (e.g., lip balm, face shimmer, body mist, mascara) that are made using natural ingredients that have been specially formulated for "young skin." The products will come in recyclable containers, and an unspecified portion of the company's net profits will be donated to a customer-chosen charity. Walmart representative Carmen Bauza says, “GeoGirl is about teaching this generation about beauty care in a responsible way.”

In the coming weeks, many parenting and feminist blogs are sure to rehash the question of whether marketing makeup to children for everyday wear is appropriate -- and let this post be among the ones that reignite that debate. But further exploration of GeoGirl's marketing strategy (stating that it's encouraging young girls to buy green) is necessary as well, and I hope one important question doesn't get lost in the mix: how appropriate is it to teach tweens that consumerism will solve environmental problems that are, in large part, created by over-consumption?

Reducing one's carbon footprint is all well and good, but creating a product to increase tween's consumption of unnecessary and potentially harmful products isn't teaching girls about environmental harm reduction. It's teaching them to increase spending on junk they don't need and that, arguably, isn't good for them either. So, tell Walmart and GeoGirl that you're not falling for their pseudo-environmentalist ploys and that you won't be distracted by their attempt to conceal their true intention (sell, sell, sell!) with the dust kicked up by ubiquitous feminist debates. You can also have your say on Twitter!

Photo credit: Connie Schlosberg