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A few things which I hope to write about later

Jill

But I figure I’ll direct your attention to now.

1. Is Food the New Sex? I was pretty excited to read the title of this article, since food policy is one of my pet interests, and the social constructions of food and sex (and how they overlap and relate) is something I’m perpetually fascinated by. I mean, it’s food and sex — do I need to explain further? Unfortunately, the Hoover Institution (a right-wing think tank at Stanford) managed to make the most interesting of topics overly-moralizing and boring, complete with cookie-cutter caricatures to illustrate a very tired point. However, kudos for this line, which made me laugh, even though my juvenile take on it is probably not what the article was going for: “The mindful vegetarian slogan, “you are what you eat,” has no counterpart in the popular culture today when it comes to sex.” Heh.

2. Designers and retailers ignore the average American woman, who is a size 14 and 163 pounds. It’s an interesting article. But why the classist commentary? For example: “I don’t want any more polyester, hip-hop gear, frumpy jeans and themed capris! I want the designers not to assume that I am a frumpy 55-year-old, middle-management employee. . . . Is anyone listening to us?” via Knit Me a Pony‘s Twitter.

3. All the major players on Obama’s health care team are women. via Baratunde on facebook.

17 thoughts on A few things which I hope to write about later

  4. Re the classism in the LA Times: Because, in fact, those are Madison Avenue’s main offerings for the larger woman. And even cheap-and-chic, like H&M, has ignored the plus-size market. (To be fair, they did introduce plus sizes into the US stores for a time, but no one bought anything because they only carried really boring clothing in larger sizes instead of the trendy stuff.)

  5. Lynn, I think she was referring to the polyester as “middle management”. I empathize. I think the only mass retailer who sells wool-blend suits for women above a size 16 is Lands’ End.

  7. There are some brands that do carry wool blend suits in plus sizes like Jones NY, Anne Klein and Tahari. I was able to find them at Macy’s and Lord & Taylor. However, even those stores hide the plus size department on a different floor from the rest of the clothes. And don’t get me started on Neiman Marcus, yes they carry plus size clothes but only online. And if you think the suits are frumpy, take a look at the evening dresses, can you say “mother of the groom”? Are those my choices? Mom jeans and mother of the groom dresses? (Please note that I’m not putting down mothers, I’m a mom myself but I still want to dress fashionably.)

    I make a lot of money and I have the disposable income to spend on very nice clothes. I have this annoying habit of trying on clothes before I buy them because I want to know if the the 16 or 18 fits better and you can’t do that when you order from a catalog or online.

  8. Why is the average size called plus size?

    And where are all the economists to explain why demand isn’t causing supply?

  9. There needs to be more possibilities.

    I am unhesitatingly, positively fat and wear a 24. But damn it, I have good legs and ankles, so why the hell are all the jeans at Lane Bryant (who have the pattern that fits my rise, hip, and waist) made fat-legged?! I am not the only fat chick with good legs out there! And if I want fabric sloshing round my ankles, I’ll wear a skirt, damn it.

    As it is I have to alter both pairs of jeans I bought. Feh.

  10. i can see the classism in the piece on clothing for the average woman, but i think what the author/commenters are trying to get at is the fact that clothing designers assume that women who aren’t super skinny don’t care for how they look, or about fashion.

    my personal example: i’ve got a large chest and it irks me to no end that most bra designers don’t make bras for me except in plain old beige, white or black. maybe brown, but even that’s only occasionally. for anything more exciting than boring, you’ve gotta go to a specialty store, or buy online… and buying online for bras, well, i don’t know who that actually works for.

  11. Retailers and designers have a customer in mind when they make their clothes. In the “regular” sized world, that means that if the clothes at one store don’t suit your fancy, you can go to the one next door.

    With plus sizes, there is no store next door. You’re pretty much stuck with what you’re offered. And if you’re not the customer they have in mind — or you like a natural fiber here and there — you’re SOL.

    There’s a lot of hip-hop fashion in the plus-sized world because hip-hop designers have embraced the plus-sized customer, and the plus-sized customer has embraced them right back. Other plus-sized retailers have followed suit. But the thing is — just as in the “regular” sized world — not every plus-sized customer wants to wear hip-hop-inspired fashion. I’m a 40-year-old white woman, and I’d look like an idiot in a Baby Phat sweatsuit that another woman might rock the hell out of. But the alternative seems to be boxy, frumptastic suits in polyester, cheaply-made and ill-fitting.

    Lane Bryant will, in fact, sell me pants that actually fit me and that I can wear to work — but they’re polyester. But I buy them, because they fit, they look pretty good, and there are creams available to deal with the inevitable consequences of wearing them in the summer. I’m more at a loss with tops, because those are uniformly boxy, and I’m very much not boxy. So I figure as long as I can get pants that fit me, I can live with the boxy tops of polyester satin that make my waist disappear.

    At least they’ve got nice jewelry. I always get compliments on the jewelry I get there.

  12. I’m more at a loss with tops, because those are uniformly boxy, and I’m very much not boxy.

    Which is really weird because very few actual human beings are boxy. Especially women, especially in the torso. Shit, I am very much in the realm of not plus sized, and I still avoid anything boxy. Because I’m not a box. I’m a person.

  13. I’m not sure what’s “classist” about saying you don’t want to dress like a middle management employee in her 50’s. I mean, the majority of managers are middle class. And “frumpy” tends to be ageist, not classist.

    To be honest, we can’t win. When I was thin I couldn’t find clothes because I was short. Now that I’m fat I can actually find clothes, because size 12 is more common in the kinds of clothes *I* want to wear than size 2 is. But I am the opposite of a fashionista and in fact I am specifically *looking* for comfy sweatpants, turtlenecks, sweaters, and other things that the interviewed woman who complained about the hip-hop and the polyester would probably have called frumpy.

    I long for the day when women’s clothes have bust size, waist size, neck size, and torso height, and we can just buy based on our measurements. Ditto pants. My husband is a weird size, but we can go through an entire pile of Dockers and pull out the two pairs that will fit him and he doesn’t have to try them on because he *knows* those are his measurements, so the pants will fit. Why can’t I get pants that way?

  14. “Why can’t I get pants that way?”

    Because as women, we tend to have funkier curves in our waist/hip area than men do. Sadly, it’s just the way the pants have to be constructed. What *I* want to know is why men’s dress pants are constructed such that the waistband can be very easily let out up to 2 inches (TWO INCHES!!!) and women’s aren’t.

    Oh, that’s right. Men’s “fashion” changes more slowly than women’s, and women are expected to turn their wardrobe over entirely about every 2 years, or at least before their weight ever changes. Feh! 😛

  15. “Because as women, we tend to have funkier curves in our waist/hip area than men do.”

    I’d buy that, except that women’s sizing provides less information than men’s: instead of objective numbers measuring length and waist size, women get one number or letter which means very different things, store to store. Sure, with a sane sizing system, those female “funky curves” might still mean you have to try on pants to make sure they fit right on you. (Although if we used the male sizing system and added a narrow/wide hip indicator, even that might not be much of a problem.) No matter what, though, you’d at least be able to walk into a store and grab clothes in your size range to try on, without having to figure out whether you’re a medium, large, or extra large (!) in that store’s sizing scheme.

  16. Although if we used the male sizing system and added a narrow/wide hip indicator, even that might not be much of a problem.

    The narrow/wide hip indicator is already starting to be available, btw. I think the Gap has a system like “curvy”, “boyfriend”, and I forget their cutesy euphemism for “somewhere in the middle”. I don’t know how this actually works, because I don’t do Gap jeans. And of course they’re still using the traditional unintuitive systems for waist size and inseam. In fact, I stopped doing Gap jeans when they added the hip variable, because it just suddenly seemed way too friggen complicated due to all the cutesy euphemistic metrics that ultimately mean nothing and are specific only to their store.

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