Myer faces consumer backlash over 'pretty' math tee: 37% STEM women spot blind spot

In a retail market where brand purpose drives foot traffic, Myer’s decision to sell Lioness’s 'I’m too pretty to do math' T-shirt is a stark merchandising failure. With women making up only 37% of STEM students, a growing female customer base sees the product as a symbol of outdated thinking. The fallout could influence purchasing decisions and pressure suppliers to enforce stricter sourcing guidelines.

A women's T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan 'I'm too pretty to do math' has ignited a fierce backlash against Australian department store chain Myer, with the nation's former chief scientist Dr Cathy Foley leading the charge. The T-shirt, produced by the Australian label Lioness and sold at Myer, has drawn sharp criticism for reinforcing damaging stereotypes about women's abilities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Foley, now president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (ATSE), intends to write directly to Myer chair Olivia Wirth, demanding accountability for the message the retailer is promoting.

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Foley, now president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (ATSE), intends to write directly to Myer chair Olivia Wirth, demanding accountability for the message the retailer is promoting.

Foley's intervention is far from an isolated reaction. It comes at a time when the long-running push to close the gender gap in STEM is showing painfully slow progress. The Australian Government's 2025 STEM Equity Monitor reveals that women remain significantly under-represented. Only 37% of university STEM students are women, a figure that has failed to budge since 2020. While completion rates for women have improved—rising from 14,500 in 2015 to 18,100 in 2023—the pipeline still narrows dramatically at the school level. Fewer than a third of girls in years 11 and 12 say they intend to pursue STEM elective subjects, compared to just under half of boys. Against this backdrop, Foley argues that any message—no matter how casual or tongue-in-cheek—that dismisses girls' intellectual capacity for mathematics and science threatens to unravel decades of work.

'You can't let these things go without talking about it because you don't want this to become this wedge which leads to the undoing of a whole lot of work we've been working on for decades,' Foley told reporters. She and other leading women in STEM, such as Dr Marguerite Evans-Galea of Women in STEMM Australia, see the T-shirt as emblematic of a culture that still frames mathematics and technical aptitude as un-feminine or incompatible with traditional beauty ideals. In a society where representation and role models are critical, a widely available product carrying such a message normalises the very stereotypes that STEM outreach programs spend millions to counteract.

The controversy raises serious questions for retailers about the curatorial and ethical responsibilities they hold. Myer is a household name in Australia, with a market capitalisation that places it among the country's top department stores. The decision to stock a product that explicitly links attractiveness to an inability to do math—however jocularly—suggests either a failure in the product vetting process or a cynical disregard for social messaging. In an era of heightened consumer consciousness, where brand purpose is increasingly tied to commercial performance, Myer's misstep could translate into tangible reputational and financial risk. No public comment had been made by the company at the time of reporting, but consumer watchdog groups and social media users have been quick to criticise the retailer.