FAQs

Why do you place math and science on your goods?

Before they enter adolescence, girls have just as much enthusiasm for math and science as boys. Their grades and ambitions show an easy, natural aptitude.

But in the United States between the time a girl is 10 and 14 years old her plans fade or become submerged. Research led by Nadya Fouad, distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, cites the vital significance that the attitudes, expectations and learning techniques of parents and educators have when it comes to encouraging girls to maintain their enthusiasm for and study of math and science.

In 2010 Pretty Brainy concluded 11 months of interviews with ’tween girls about their life’s ambitions. Seventy-seven percent of those we interviewed expressed career goals in science, technology, engineering and math/STEM. These girls weren’t just making bland, pie-in-the-sky statements. There were details and creativity to their plans. One said she wants to be a biologist and own a store that would open people’s minds to “how cool bugs really are.” Another 10-year-old knew all about how traffic patterns would determine where she placed the bricks-and-mortar side of the business she would own. She was learning about how money works — how to save, when to spend, paying herself, and being charitable.

Given such ambitions, designing math and science into preteen girls’ apparel is our innovation for helping girls build on their great ideas for everything they can accomplish with their lives.

Back to top

Do you have women’s sizes?

Yes. Pretty Brainy has women’s clothes in sizes small through X-large.

We started in business in 2008 with the idea of designing for and marketing to ’tween girls, but immediately saw women snapping up our largest girls’ printed tees for themselves and their friends as gifts. Women who buy Pretty Brainy include teachers, corporate executives, doctors, academicians and many, many other professionals. We loved meeting the mom who bought a girls’ printed tee for herself with the express purpose of reminding her husband she had a brain whenever he insulted her intelligence by calling her “pretty.” We’re gratified that among the women who get the most excited about Pretty Brainy are educators in math and science.

Back to top

Why don’t you make goods for boys?

The Pretty Brainy mission is to help the world look again, with renewed perspective, at girls and every great thing of which they are capable, so what is seen are the leaders, thinkers and decision-makers who will help solve the global crises before us.

We do what we know and love: working with classic lines and palettes and adding a design twist to create girls’ printed tees, teen girls’ tees and other gifts smart women and girls can appreciate.

Back to top

Why are your preteen girls’ clothes priced higher than what I can buy at discount retailers?

We are an American company and to the greatest extent we are able, we source our materials in the United States. Here materials cost more. Were we to source materials and manufacturing from China, as about 40 percent, or more than $250 billion in consumer goods imported into the United States are, our costs and prices would be lower, but so would our integrity.¹

Working with vendors in the United States gives Pretty Brainy the opportunity to visit factories to meet workers in person and to see first hand the conditions in which they work. We have not pursued opportunities and invitations to manufacture overseas because right now we would not have the ability to inspect those factories in the close-up way we do here at home.

Pretty Brainy goods are sweat-shop and child-labor free. In addition, while the United States continues to experience economically turbulent times and American companies need business and American workers need jobs, it is important to us to do everything we can to support the U.S. economy.

Back to top

Where can I buy Pretty Brainy locally?

Right now, Pretty Brainy mostly is available online through the Girls Clothing Boutique at prettybrainy.com.

If there is a retailer in your community who you think should carry Pretty Brainy girls printed tees and other goods, we welcome you to email us at ideas@prettybrainy.com with their contact information and the best person with whom to speak.

Back to top

Doesn’t encouraging girls hurt boys?

Healthy competition benefits everyone.

The following examples and numbers show how “hurt” boys are when preteen girls and teen girls are encouraged in all areas of their learning:

• In engineering programs in the United States, the number of women enrolling as incoming freshmen proportionately is smaller than it was 25 years ago.² In general male students continue to outnumber females by more than 3 to 1 in STEM/science, technology, engineering and math programs at U.S. colleges and universities.
• Girls who can pass basic college math are opening their lives to approximately 75 percent more career opportunities in the United States than those who quit math and science.³
• According to Assessing Women and Men in Engineering, “Males continue to surpass females in the number of undergraduate degrees awarded in science and engineering fields. In particular, computer science, physical science, and engineering show the greatest differences with males attaining more baccalaureate degrees in these fields.” A positive point from the same report states, “Females attain degrees in biology and psychology at rates equal to or greater than male peers.”⁴

Also consider this: educationally, the United States is behind other developed nations in STEM. The ramifications of the problem extend well beyond individual children, school districts, communities, even states. Placed in economic context alone, it is estimated that if students in the United States academically performed as well as their peers in Finland, the U.S. economy would be 9 to16 percent larger than it is today.⁵

On many levels we now are obligated to give all children the encouragement and incentive to pursue the fullest scope of educational opportunities available to them in the United States. We also are obligated to do our best to help them learn.

Back to top

Don’t your products encourage cheating?

Educators support and are excited to wear Pretty Brainy themselves because we are innovative in supporting their key role in young people’s lives. The learning design of placing girl-facing messages on apparel originated with Pretty Brainy CEO and founder Heidi Olinger, who herself is a former classroom teacher.

We encourage girls to experience the satisfaction of grasping math and science, subjects from which some girls begin distancing themselves as early as elementary school. We make it worthwhile to see the real-world applications of math and science. The girl-facing messages on our goods place information in a context that a girl can value because it segues with how she perceives the world and her role in it.

To lend perspective, the following honors are evidence of what parent and professional groups think of our work: 22 months after we launched, the Mom’s Choice Awards^® honored Pretty Brainy as a Gold Recipient in Gear and Accessories. This is a life-long designation. Also in 2010 CEO Heidi Olinger was named a Woman to Watch by Colorado Women of Influence for her work in forming and leading Pretty Brainy, Inc.

Back to top

² The Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology and the Engineering Workforce Commission, Engineering & Technology Enrollments, fall 1984 – fall 2004.

³ Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo, in Stout, Hilary, “Mythbusters: Who Says Women Can’t Do Math and Science?” Forbes, September 16, 2009.

⁴ “Gender Differences in Science Performance,” 2009, a report of SWE-AWE (www.AWEonline.org) and NAE CASEE (www.nae.edu/casee-equity).

⁵ McKinsey & Company, Social Sector Office, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools,” April 2009.