Dear Pantene, Girls Without Dads Are Just As Strong

Dear Pantene,

With regards to your recent commercial showing football players doing their adorable daughters’ hair — kudos on finding those little gems. Those girls are adorable. And their dads ain’t too hard on the eyes either, so thank you for that.

But...and you had to know it was coming (I mean really, you had  to know)...

“GIRLS WHO SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH THEIR DADS GROW UP TO BE STRONGER WOMEN”?

Really, Pantene? OK.

1. Angelina Jolie

2. Charlize Theron

3. Christina Aguilera

4. Alicia Keys

5. Jodie Foster

6. Barbra Streisand

7. Mary J. Blige

8. Gabrielle Reece

9. Errin Paddock-Mendibles — Owner of Photo Fun Booth

10. Tamara Strobel — Senior Membership Associate w/Center for Biological Diversity

11. Luciana Upchurch — Assistant Director of BrightStar Preschool

12. Maegan Scarlett — COO of oVertone

13. Jen Sturzenegger — ESL teacher

14. Joni Edelman — Editor in Chief of Ravishly

15. Adiba Nelson — The Chick Writing This Article

Yup. There you have 16 women, all raised by their moms. I ended that list with a bunch of kick ass women I personally know, all raised by single moms, and they are strong. As. Fuck. We are normal gals — among a BILLION other normal gals in the world — who were raised without our dads in our lives, and we are a force to be reckoned with. So, yes Pantene, it’s great to have a dad in your life. Yes Pantene, it’s great that these dads attempt to do a normal parenting task with your product. But no Pantene, it is 100% not great that you’ve made this ridiculous blanket statement.

Where did you even get that statistic from? Did you make it up? I’m going to go way off writer code with you and say….

Snow White: No mama, no daddy and STILL managed a damn forest and seven annoying dudes. Yeah. STRONG. AS. FUCK.

*The author would like to point out that there are also a billion strong women in the world who were raised in two-parent households, but for the sake of this article, addressing this particular statement made by Pantene, the focus is on women who are strong as hell, and didn’t have a dad figure in their life. Thanks for reading!