12-Year-Old McKenna Peterson Challenges Dick’s Sporting Goods Over Sexist Catalog

12-year-old McKenna Peterson is challenging Dicks Sporting Goods, one of the largest sporting goods chains in the U.S., over their sexist catalog.

Peterson, a basketball player in Arizona, enjoys the game of basketball, and is a diehard fan of the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury. When she received her basketball catalog from Dick’s Sporting Goods, she was disappointed to find that no female basketball players were shown in the catalog.

But instead of throwing away the catalog, she decided to write a letter to Dick’s Sporting Goods, telling the company about her displeasure of shunning female players from the catalog. Peterson wrote in part:

“I think that girls should be treated as equally as boys are treated. It’s hard enough for girls to break through in this sport as it is, without you guys excluding us from your catalog.”

Usually a letter like this would go unnoticed, or make the evening news that day, and that would be the end of it. But Peterson’s father happens to be Chris Peterson, a reporter for AZCentral Sports and Phoenix NBC affiliate NBC 12. 

Chris gave his daughter’s letter to Dick’s Sporting Goods a broader audience by tweeting a picture of the letter. Not only did regular viewers and Twitter followers retweeted the letter, but the letter was retweet by the Mercury stars Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner.

My 12yr old basketball loving daughter got the latest @DICKS catalog & had a big problem with it. She wrote a letter. pic.twitter.com/MH46ktNOaw

— ChrisPetersonTCS (@TheCheapSeatsTV) October 9, 2014

Others also showed support for Peterson:

@TheCheapSeatsTV your daughter is incredible. great parenting! — Lindsey Adler (@Lahlahlindsey) October 9, 2014

 

@TheCheapSeatsTV MCKENNA! MCKENNA! MCKENNA!! atta girl, show em what we’re made of!

— shanners (@oshanada) October 9, 2014

@TheCheapSeatsTV My daughter is a 13yo golfer and everytime we get a @DICKS catalog, she mentions the lack of women golfers in it. — iMDRW (@iMDRW) October 9, 2014

Representatives from Dick’s Sporting Goods did not comment on McKenna Peterson’s letter, but there just might be more women basketball players in next year’s catalog.

[Photo Credit: Photopin]