Short Pants Touch My Feet, Okay?

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Girlfriend's Day
Lughnasadh (Wiccan)
National Night Out
Respect for Parents Day
Rounds Resounding Day
Anniversary - MTV
Anniversary - World Wide Web (Amelia Sez: Happy birthday, internet!)
Birthday - Jerry Garcia (musician)
Birthday - Francis Scott Key (writer US National Anthem)  (Amelia sez: Thanks a lot, Frank.)
Birthday - Herman Melville (writer) (Amelia sez: Have you ever read about this guy?  His life was like the most swashbuckling sailor story ever written.  They should totally base movies on Herman Melville's life, not just his epic tales.)
Admission Day (Colorado)
Emancipation Day (Trinidad, Tobago)
Abolition of Slavery Day (Jamaica)
Independence Day (Benin)

 

I learned about this first back when my friend and her mother took me shopping for suitable bridesmaid stuff for the friend’s wedding.

 

We were at some department store or other when her mother decided she wanted a new outfit and began to wonder where they kept the “women’s sizes.” “Let’s go see if they have women’s sizes,” she said, and began to wander the store. I followed, confused; there were a great many women’s clothes nearby. But as I listened it gradually dawned upon me that “women’s sizes” was not referring to “sizes for persons of the female sex,” but rather to “sizes for substantial persons of the female sex.”

 

First I thought it was just my friend’s mother’s peculiarity, but now that I work at a clothing store I have had a few customers come in inquiring as to where we keep our women’s sizes, so apparently that’s what they’re calling it now.

 

Because I am not nearly as rude outside of my head as I am in it, I generally reply with “I am sorry; our sizes run from zero to sixteen.” Then I will suggest a couple of stores for people with their specific size in mind.

 

What I do not do is stare at them in disbelief and go, “Of course! You will notice that four-fifths of our store is taken up with women’s clothing. Or did you mean particularly large women?”

 

Please understand. I have nothing against large women. What I have a problem with is that using the phrase “women’s sizes” for only large sizes excludes all the other women in the world who are not large and yet are still, you know, technically women. Me, for instance. I realize that marketers are forever struggling to come up with inoffensive phrases to describe sizes beyond 16,* but d’you think they could come up with one that doesn't exclude so many of their other consumers?

 

The very delicacy irks me. I myself have to buy what they call, last I checked anyway, which was a while ago, “petite,” which makes me sound like a waifish little pixie when in fact I look more like a Chris Sanders drawing than anything. I am not particularly small; I am on the short, curvy side of normal-sized, but the thing is that my ratio of torso-to-leg length is rather high, so that I have to hem all the pants I buy and I can’t wear capris because they make me look about two feet tall.** I would be totally fine going into a store and saying, “Do you have a section for people with stubby legs?” Which is probably some gross breach of etiquette, and they would have to come up with some genius codeword for those sizes. But it means that I often wonder why people don’t just say what they mean, and quit coming up with all these ridiculous euphemisms.

 

It never did cause me as much annoyance as now, though. I think this just went too far—there’s something so obnoxious about the new phrase. I mean, if they’re women, what are the rest of us?

 

 

In a related story, my siblings have gone down a different route for size euphemisms. They suggested the following:

 

Small

Medium

Large

Conservative

Patriot

All-American

 

My siblings are cynical bastards.

 

 

*Hell, they have a hard enough time getting women to buy size 8s if the women are totally convinced that the 8 is a temporary phenomenon and by next week they WILL be a 6 again because they are ALWAYS 6 GOD DAMMIT and they will NOT buy an 8 because they are NOT 8s and we must run small and there is NO WAY they are buying an 8 because they are a SIX FOR GOD’S SAKE. That sort of logic is hard to argue with.

 

**Which is actually a clever costuming strategy I noticed in the Lord of the Rings movies. One of the ploys they used to make the hobbits look diminutive was to give them all pants that were cut to exactly the length to make the wearers look like, well, hobbits.

Comments

[shriekingsnape.livejournal.com]

I work at target and for a while, I didn't realize what "18W" stood for (my first thought was wide). you make a good point, though. I'ts PC to the extreme. Ironically enough, above 'the Women's' clothing there is a sign that says 'plus sizes'

[luinmir.livejournal.com]

AHH! Thank you for posting the day thing. It reminded me that today is to be Lughnasadh or Lammas. It's my tradition to bake bread on the first of August, and I would have just forgotten!

Also, your siblings are pretty awesome for making that up. *chuckles*

[blackbyrd2.livejournal.com]

"Oh, you know? You're right. I'd forgotten, we got this shipment of size 6's in, and they'd all been marked as size 8's. That's why they're on sale right now, but shh, don't tell anyone."


You'll sell em like hotcakes. :)

[bluetara2020.livejournal.com]

Your siblings rock!

Speaking as one of those women who wear something quite a bit above a 16 (about half a dozen sizes more, though I am working on it and everything, la) I find it offensive that they call them women's sizes. Speaking from the other size of the spectrum, as it were, part of me wants to ask what was I before?!?!

Kinda makes me want to desolve any ties that bind me to the human race. In which case I would then identify myself as a particular type of ogre, although I don't have nearly enough battlescars to be considered beautiful by said culture.

I say we go by the following:
Hobbit/Halfling
Gnome
Dwarf
Elf
Human
Ogre
Ect...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like your sizing! It would encourage fashionistas to be geeks!

[annotated_em]

I'm afraid I have to disagree on this one. *wry* I know I'm fat. I don't really need the reminder every time I go shopping, since shopping at the fat girl's store is already bad enough.

...but I guess my opinion and a buck will buy me a diet coke, hn?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Then I'm curious about your opinion of the phrase "plus" size. Is that acceptable?

If you appreciate the delicacy, that merely makes you a less blunt and irritable person than I am, which is also fine. But darlin', there's no need to worry about your size unless you have health issues. I'm sure you've heard that Everyone Is Beautiful and all that, so I'm not going to belabor the point.

[annotated_em]

Plus size doesn't generally bother me. I just appreciate the attempt at being delicate. *wry*

*shrugs* There are health issues, so my weight is something I dwell on a lot. They're issues in potentia, I suppose, but I'm fairly high-risk for Type I diabetes. But that is a rant for an entirely different post.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, here's hoping the health issues don't ever blossom. *salutes*

[nixve.livejournal.com]

I myself have to buy what they call, last I checked anyway, which was a while ago, “petite,” which makes me sound like a waifish little pixie when in fact I look more like a Chris Sanders drawing than anything. I am not particularly small; I am on the short, curvy side of normal-sized, but the thing is that my ratio of torso-to-leg length is rather high, so that I have to hem all the pants I buy and I can’t wear capris because they make me look about two feet tall.

hee! That happens to me, too.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I mentally translate the 'W' as "wide" because I am cynical and jaded that way, both when I worked retail clothing, and also when I actually wore those sizes (which wasn't all *that* long ago, really).

I have the other problem with pants, which is that I am 5'7", which is usually just slightly taller than the manufacturer intended for that size. Women's pants usually come with a 29" inseam. Mine is 31".

[enigmania.livejournal.com]

"Womens" is actually a pretty old category for sizing, with the smaller complement being the "Misses" sizes. In the early 20th century, Misses pattenrs were intended for teenagers and had smaller bust-to-waist proportions, and then Womens were for more adult proportions and styles. Over the last hundred years or so the Misses sizes grew larger (partly to flatter customers and partly as people got taller and bigger), and the Womens range was pushed out to become today's plus size range.

Also I'm 5'9" and pants are rarely long enough, until I go into expensive trendy stores and they're all too long. Sizing is so weird.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'd heard "Misses" and always been puzzled by that. But I didn't know "Women's" was around.

For some reason, every time I hear "Misses" my brain says you should say "Maidens." It's funnier.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

"Women's" should be renamed "Hits"

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Newport News (www.newport-news.com) has what they claim are "the best-fitting jeans on earth". They lie--the rise is way too short for me. BUT, the inseams are freakishly long, too long for me and my inseam is 31". So you might have luck there.