Wtf? That's sexist!

[bending_sickle]

Sickle's Rant on Sexist Online Shop Choices: At the Threadless website of awesome shirts, at the bottom of the main page, there's a line saying, Chek out a jillion more designs! All very well and good until I see there's two buttons, Shop Guys and Shop Girly.

THIS MAKE SICKLE ANGRY GRR SMASH for two reasons. Firstly, they don't juxtapose "guys" with "gals", or use "boys" and "girls". No. The males get to be called "guys", which is age-indefinite, whereas females get the age-determinate "girls". Why the difference?

But not even that, no. It's "shop girly". What the fuck does that mean, in regards to your shirt designs? Can I only get stereotypically female or sexist shirts if I click that button? Are you preemptively classifying what designs a woman can buy, by only giving certain, "girly" designs in women's sizes?

And what a ridiculous and wasteful way of organizing your designs. Why not put all designs together, and then when I want to purchase them, have me select whether I want a man's large or woman's medium or whatever.

...you know what's even worse? The pages are the same. "Shop guys" and "shop girly" show the same shirts, with the exception that their models are either men or women. Quite apart from my dislike of the product being first presented on a model as opposed to how they used to do it, just showing the shirt design, what's the bloody point of basically posting your catalogue twice?

The whole thing, from buttons to labels to models to navigation and back, I just do not get. No love, Threadless. You're making me post things that sould like they should probably go on wtf_sexism if I were more articulate. But I'm not, and also their user info states, ...then come along those super-special gems of utter misogyny that just make you go WHAT. THE. FUCK. and then punch someone in the face to vent your righteous female anger. That's the kind of thing that needs to be posted here. This, well, this is just the more usual run-of-the-mill sexism. Still, grr. *shakes girly fist*

ETA: Disregard just about everything in the rant: there was vocabulary failure. rex_dart explains what's going on:

Girly tees are a type of tee, otherwise called babydoll. They have cap sleeves and are fitted for women. Threadless offers all designs on both types of shirts; there are no men's or women's designs. The only difference in shopping is that if you pick the girly option, you get to browse while seeing what the designs look like on the babydoll tees, and if you pick the guys' option you see what they look like on standard adult sizes. There can actually be a big difference between the two, especially when it comes to large or all-over designs, since screens cost money to produce and the same ones are generally used on all shirt sizes.

The only actual example of sexism I can see here is arguably in the name babydoll/girly tees. There are also some issues of sizeism in the production of women's tees, since after you get up to a certain cup size or waist size it's hard to find ones that fit and you have to jump to adult sizes, but that's really on the production end and not the fault of t-shirt printers and sellers.

Now it makes more sense. I think I'd heard the terms before, but somehow the way it was presented really made me interpret it a completely different way. However, I'm still not a fan of the names (babydoll and girly) or that the "standard adult" shirt option is apparently the one labeled "guys" (and not something as generic as "standard").

...I don't know why I've been all ranty lately.

ETA 2: Further disregard much of what was in the ETA. rex_dart further explains on what "standard" means. There's so much I didn't know about shirts and sizing!


Also, tomorrow in the afternoon my parents and I are off to Palermo, and I'll be back Sunday night, so the usual "I ain't dead" and "spoiler me and die" caveats apply for the weekend.

And in conclusion, lilithrain's Motivational. Word.



Meme: Good Things:
Day 21: I sent out applications! Four of them!

Links of the Day:
Supernatural:
amber3444's Review Mannequin 3: The Reckoning
teand's Review Like a Virgin - Dear PTB ; Dear Jensen ; Dear Jared
strgazr04's Meta S6 Title Card Theory
water_fowl182's Meta Love Hurts - In 3 parts
missyjack's Meta & Discussion Is Dean a Dead-Beat Dad? ; Meta John Winchester: Dead-Beat Dad and Manwhore - I kind of love this meta in all its capslocking goodness because while I love me some John, he really wasn't the best of fathers.
dean_sam's flocked Official Magazine #23
_vampastica_'s Icons
spn_ontheset's Photo Season 3 - Jensen and Green Screen Work - Ouch.
adrenalineshots's Fanart Dean's Ascension from Hell
Bobbinrob01's Photo Op Misha Collins - Oh, the hilarity!
Marotang's Twitvid LA Con, Sunday Panel: Jensen hugs Jim

Doctor Who:
tennant_love's embed Gallifrey One Convention - Peter Davison's Message
lady_with_cats' Fanvid Don't Panic
noblegirl91's Fanvid All You Wanted
io9's Obituary: R.I.P. Nicholas Courtney, Doctor Who's Truest Companion
Doctor Who News' Nebula Nomination for Vincent and the Doctor
The Guardian's Nicholas Courtney, Doctor Who's legendary Brigadier, mourned by fans
Pupukachoo's Threadless Design Doctor-Hoo

Other Fandom:
Blastr' Castle & Firefly 7 Firefly nods Nathan Fillion dropped into Castle
Browncoats' Firefly Fanmovie Browncoats: Redepmtion

Multifandom:
lilithrain's Motivationals - Supernatural, Merlin

Random:
The Wesleyan Argus' Classics and Comics: Examining the Hero
Zazzle's Shirt Be Nice (Or I Will Stab You)
Brenne Walsh's An Open Letter to the Women who are Telling Me There is Something Wrong With Me Because I'm Not Married - Booya!
Chris Halbeck's Comic Maximumble
Hyperbole and a Half's The Scariest Story - I believe the acronym ROTFLMAO applies.
Drew & Natalie Dee's Comic Married to the Sea


* wtf_sexism, Journal Name

Comments

[rex-dart.livejournal.com]

Girly tees are a type of tee, otherwise called babydoll. They have cap sleeves and are fitted for women. Threadless offers all designs on both types of shirts; there are no men's or women's designs. The only difference in shopping is that if you pick the girly option, you get to browse while seeing what the designs look like on the babydoll tees, and if you pick the guys' option you see what they look like on standard adult sizes. There can actually be a big difference between the two, especially when it comes to large or all-over designs, since screens cost money to produce and the same ones are generally used on all shirt sizes.

The only actual example of sexism I can see here is arguably in the name babydoll/girly tees. There are also some issues of sizeism in the production of women's tees, since after you get up to a certain cup size or waist size it's hard to find ones that fit and you have to jump to adult sizes, but that's really on the production end and not the fault of t-shirt printers and sellers.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha! Thanks! That clears things up a lot. I'll admit I'm still not too fond of the names (or that apparently the "guy's" option is the "standard adult size", from what you describe) but at least the buttons and lay-out makes sense now. I'll make a note of it in the post.

[rex-dart.livejournal.com]

Standard adult is called guys' a lot, but it's not what we'd say when we're ordering shirts from a printer. Standard adult sizes are meant to be just a generic t-shirt - large sleeves, straight down the sides, so there's a size for everyone and they're appropriate for men and women. Babydoll tees are really specialty tees for women who want a certain fit that looks a little less casual than a standard. They usually cost more, and they're a bit of a harder sell. My company only carries babydolls for shirts where we know they'll sell either because it's an artsy design that looks nicer on a fitted shirt or because we expect the shirt to appeal primarily to women. So standard adult is called what it is not because men are a default, but because they're basically shapeless so will fit both men and women, whereas most men would have a difficult time fitting into women's shirts. There are more fitted shirts for men (I buy them sometimes), usually called fitted or slim, but since big guys won't fit into them and small guys generally don't care all that much, most places don't bother carrying them.

So it's less that men are standard and women are non-standard, but that most t-shirt stores carry a special style for women, but only the standard style for men.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much again. Your last statement particularly cleared things up. I don't think I've ever actually even held a babydoll shirt, so all I knew about them was that they were sometimes sold on the internet and were a little smaller than regular shirts. They're really interesting - they remind me of petite clothes, where the proportions have been altered - and I'm glad clothes are being fitted like that.

[rex-dart.livejournal.com]

Glad I could be of some help. :D

Babydolls are really nice, tbh. They're more common online because most of the sites that sell t-shirts are owned by the printers and not the designers - I'm thinking of places like TeeFury, shirt.woot, Threadless, and the site that sells our shirts (sharkrobot.com). Since they're the ones printing, they can print a wider variety of sizes for cheaper, whereas a designer ordering shirts with their designs (like we used to and still do for convention sales) has to basically take a larger gamble on what will or won't sell. Three of the four sites I just named print to order, actually, whereas Threadless does quantity printing in batches. Printing to order is especially cheap and versatile. So that's part of why you see babydolls online but not as much in stores.

I really prefer babydolls, actually. I have a big chest and a small waist, plus a long torso, so they tend to be much more flattering on me than a standard size, which just ends up being kind of a sack that makes me look like a skinny lumpy thing and always hangs too short in the front.

[poisoned-sleep.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've never heard of a women's tshirt being called a babydoll- I've only ever heard that term refer to nighties. That said, a fitted T is WAY BETTER than the standard boxy T- as well as having no shape to them, I despise how high the crew necks generally are on a standard T. I find them very uncomfortable.

[poisoned-sleep.livejournal.com]

(OFF TOPIC, sorry: Not sexism, but the oversexualization of branding in the clothing industry.)

So all this talk of babydolls (in terms of nighties, lol) reminds me- the designer on my team has had to come up with hang tags this week for our collection. So she crossed the border to scout out the stores there, and she picked up samples with hang tags. One of the girls brands was called TEMPTED.

This is for kids. Up to the age of 10-12.

I'm so glad my company went with DREAM. Though for awhile they wanted to go with something along the lines of THE SECRET, which would have been just dreadful.

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Tempted makes me go D: while my reaction to The Secret cannot be expressed in emoticons, but rather a string of horrified senseless symbols and a horrified icon. I'm so glad your company didn't go that way.

[seschat.livejournal.com]

Sweeetie, where are you? Are you doing okay?

♥

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Squishyyyyy! I'm here! I'm back! I'm okay! I've just been pretty swamped since I got back and haven't been able to cozy up to the internet and give it - and you - and good snuggle. *smishmish*