Women's Issues

There's a problem in general with women's clothing all being tailored for a single shape and just scaling that shape up or down. Men's pants are made with two sizes: waist and inseam, so if they know their measurements they can be fairly confident that just grabbing something with matching numbers off the rack will fit.

Women's pants have one size, a number (or sometimes letters) whose exact definition is at the discretion of the manufacturer.* So not only are our clothes more expensive, but we have to spend extra time trying on even the most basic of articles to make sure they'll fit.

And we almost never get decent pockets.

Things like this might seem trivial, but it really adds up.

* In the U.S., anyway. I hear international sizes are more standardized...but there's still only one of them for women's garments.

edited 23rd May '15 6:08:58 AM by Karalora

Not quite. In the UK, clothes are labelled with both UK and EU sizes.

Bras are also not just for looks. Even smaller girls can have a lot of pain by trying to run, climb stairs, or other activities without a secure bra.

I have to order all of my things online. Which adds another problem of hoping the measurements on site were accurate.

I also have to wear office clothes daily. It is a dreadful balance between being professional, comfortable, and yet not "asking for it"

Casual clothes are even more frustrating. Girl's clothes are sexualized at young ages, dress codes in schools and cultures enforce the idea that a girl's body is innately sexual and segregation of genders encourages a us against them issue.

Then if something happens to you, it is your fault for dressing or being that way.

Just feels like we have built a system where a girl is screwed over regardless.

America fuck yeah!?

It isn't just America.

True, though in the western world you guys seem particularly bad. Though that still doesn't excuse the fuck up that the rest of us do.

Anything outside the norm will cost more, it's just a fact, it doesn't really matter in the article of clothing. People can not really stock those once in a blue moon orders.

I have to special order my shoes because my feet are to wide and one foot is bigger than the other and I end up paying like 300$+ for a pair. It's just what I gotta deal with.

edited 23rd May '15 9:20:47 AM by Memers

"Anything outside the norm will cost more, it's just a fact"

The problem is that the "norm" is so narrowly defined to begin with for women, whereas for men it's broader.

I hear it a lot from women that they have trouble to find something to wear. Men never seem to have that problem and I certainly never do despite not being quite normal sized.

edited 23rd May '15 9:25:38 AM by Antiteilchen

The average cup size for women in the US is actually F if we were all wearing bras that actually fit us. In England it's H. The highest cup size that's carried in stores is about a DDD which translates to generally about an E cup. So that means that the bras in stores are sized for less that half of women. The majority of women don't fit in women's clothing, and yet we have less shape variety in our clothes then men do.

Shoes are the same issue. The average shoe size is a 9 for women. Most stores have very few shoes in 10 and almost none in 11, and nothing at all for women with bigger feet, despite those women being a huge percentage of the population comparatively.

edited 23rd May '15 9:35:03 AM by shimaspawn

Unless a man is very endowed, chances are two guys of close enough size can wear the same pants.

Just one cup size different and two girls of the other measurements can put on the same outfit, but the larger girl may not be able to even get into it.

And then that goes back to the sexualization of women.

I have actually tested this. I wore the same outfit, the same neckline, everything as a coworker. She is smaller in the chest than me. She got complements. I was called into the office and told it was too revealing and unprofessional.

When I pointed out the issue of why can the smaller girl do it but not me, my boss never even noticed it. And my neckline was higher than hers.

I didn't think it was easy but I never thought this stuff would be so complicated.

I've read an article about women and men's clothing manufacturers explaining the difference between making male and female clothing.

It boiled down to body shapes, the clothing manufacturer noted that men tend to have what would be almost called a standard body where the only metric that varies is length and size, which makes relatively easy to deal with since there are only two metrics to account for male clothes.

For women clothing it has more metrics to take account for like bust, tight, height, waist and length. All of which made harder to mass produce the clothing sizes because there isn't a common template for women bodies.

Now compare the variation in size and shapes for men◊

to the different shapes women bodies have◊

If your boobs are big enough, you are always a slut no matter how well you cover up. Even if there's no cleavage showing. Even if you're more modestly dressed than the less busty girl, you get told your very body is lewd and inappropriate just for existing.

I've seen that happen. There's also the issue that I've seen that it's hard to find any clothes that really fit properly.

One of my friends was extremely well endowed in the chest area and there was almost nothing she could wear that didn't show off a huge amount of cleavage. Those few that did cover up her chest where practically form fitting around the chest which was arguably worse.

Always had to borrow my jackets and cover up.

edited 23rd May '15 10:28:15 AM by LeGarcon

Another difference between men's and women's clothing is that the former is usually designed to be roomy and comfortable. Tight clothing on a guy is treated like Camp or a joke. So if a guy gets a pair of pants and the fit is slightly off, it's usually no big deal. Women's garments are generally designed to be more tailored and form-fitting to begin with, so the fit has to be quite close in order to be comfortable and look right.

So to recap, women's clothing:

• is often more expensive than the equivalent for men.
• is often a lot flimsier than the equivalent for men.
• typically requires more individual garments in order to considered "fully put together."
• is designed in a way that makes exact fit more important, but
• is manufactured to fit only a narrow range of sizes and body types (which aren't even necessarily the most common).
• is supposed to be rotated out twice a year, whereas a man can get away with the same suit until it wears out.

And that's not even getting into expectations concerning cosmetics, jewelry, etc.

Today was a big day for me. I am normally very sensitive to my clothes because I am very aware of how different people can be because of your clothes.

I wore a dress today when Aprilla and I went to the movies. And I showed far more chest than I normally do simply because finding a cute sun dress that would cover it all anyway is an issue. And even though my dress covered equally with my bra line I was able to forget about it and enjoy the movie and enjoy his company.

Big improvement for this bear.

Oh and Mad Max: Fury Road is a badass movie. Besides having solid female characters, it is just a well crafted movie where people are developed through action, great practical effects, and an awesome soundtrack. Just a solid, smart, and fun movie.

Yay for bear

I wish I was smart enough to give further words of encouragement about something I know is a big problem for bustier women but sadly I'm not but yay anyway

edited 23rd May '15 8:08:38 PM by LeGarcon

(Hugs)

It is appreciated. Growing up I was given so much shit for having a big chest that it really fucked up my self esteem, confidence, and made me feel like I was always doing something wrong just for having the body I did.

Aprilla used to get upset with me when I would ask him, "Do I look trashy?" before leaving in an outfit but he kinda gets it better and luckily has more patience with me.

That is one thing I try to stress to my friends with daughters. I am almost 30 years old and I am still trying to get over that hurdle.

I'm personally worried my younger sister is gonna be I'm the same boat. She seems fine now but she's only just starting high school and that won't be fun.

Happy times are good.

I just don't understand asshats at times, it's a pair of boobs for gods sake, if a bit of them showing is causing you trouble with focus and work then the problem isn't the boobs, the problem is you!

I do wonder how much this may hit my friends, due to my boarding school the idea of anything being "trashy" never really came into existence until after we left, I'm happy to be part of such a free loving group. They're all relaxed enough with their bodies that at house parties someone tends to end up on "boob patrol" to make sure everyone doesn't get their tits out at once.

edited 24th May '15 8:40:13 AM by Silasw

The concept of "trashy" doesn't exist to me either. I have no problem respecting a woman regardless of how she dresses.

edited 24th May '15 7:56:30 AM by Luminosity

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/RmAjE

I love this.

seriously, how hard is it for people to react to rejection with "fair enough, If you're not interested you're not interested". Rejection sucks and all but get over yourself.

I told a friend of mine who was complaining about friend zone after being rejected a joke.

Q: What is the difference between the Phantom Zone and the Friend Zone?

A: You can escape the Phantom Zone.

He got a bit pissed and I just told him to accept it and move on, since keeping himself down due to some unanswered love wouldn't do him any favors and even if he loved her, he couldn't and shouldn't force someone else to love him the way same way he did. It did work out, instead of sulking he did managed to find someone who loved him.

edited 24th May '15 7:02:53 PM by AngelusNox

So I just got back from seeing the new Mad Max movie, I can see what everyone was going on about with the feminist angle. Imperator Furiosa has to be one of my favorite characters from anything now.

Plus holy shit that was an epic rush.