JC Penney Caves to Women's Rights Activists, Pulls Controversial Shirt Off Website

After drawing scorn from women's rights activists, retailer JC Penney has reportedly pulled a controversial shirt from its website. The shirt, intended for girls ages 7-16,  featured a caption that read: "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me."

The shirt caught the eye of Lauren Todd, a user of the progressive site Change.org, who quickly circulated a petition demanding the retailer stop the sale of the shirt.

Change.org women's rights organizer Shelby Knox soon jumped into the fray, spreading word of the petition on various social media sites.

CBS reports that by noon Wednesday -- a mere four hours after Knox began tweeting about the shirt to her 10,000 Twitter followers, posting comments about it on Facebook and circulating the information through the feminist blogosphere -- JC Penney issued an apology and removed the shirt from its site:

The petition had 1,600 signatures. With each one, change.org automatically sent an e-mail to JC Penney's CEO.

Penney issued a statement saying, "We agree that the "Too pretty" t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message, and we have immediately discontinued its sale. Our merchandise is intended to appeal to a broad customer base, not to offend them. We would like to apologize to our customers and are taking action to ensure that we continue to uphold the integrity of our merchandise that they have come to expect."

Todd and Knox discussed the shirt and their view that it delivered a sexist message on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday with co-anchor Erica Hill. Watch the segment below and weigh in with your thoughts: