Things I find irritating: Retail

I’m putting off doing important stuff so here’s a procrastination blog.

These are things that retail and other vendors do that I find irritating:

1.) Charge me more money for clothing because I am tall.  This makes no sense at all. I’m 5’9″ tall, which is 5 inches over the limit for the average American female.  It’s not like I could help being tall.  I just grew like Topsy well into my 20’s.  (2 inches between 23 and 27, go figure).  So, it’s really irritating to go to a site like Eddie Bauer and see that every item for a tall person is $10-20 more expensive.  At the risk of pissing off a lot of people who read this blog, I find it really unfair that a size 14 doesn’t have to pay one cent more than a size 6.  Most people can lose weight with diet and exercise.  But I can’t lose inches in height without surgery.  You’d *think* that if they are going to add more fabric in the middle of the garment without extra cost that they could add a few inches in length without extra cost but for some mysterious, inexplicable reason, this isn’t so. Petites?  Noooo problem.  They have their own section, also not more expensive.  But even if you can’t find exactly what you want if you’re minute, there is more than enough fabric to cut off or take in.

So, to recap, you can be average, plump or tiny but women are not allowed to be tall without penalty.  And 5’9″ isn’t extraordinarily tall.  It’s not like I’m playing professional basketball or beach volleyball.  I’m not 6 ft tall.  My height is model size, not amazon size, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It’s just not that unusual anymore.  There are a lot of us around these days.  The average height might be 5’4.5″ but it’s not like there isn’t a huge gaussian distribution in America where there might not be in a place like Japan.

I’ve talked to various clothing company representatives about why the cost differentiation penalizes the tall and not the wide or itsy-bitsy and I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer that doesn’t sound like a flimsy excuse covering for a money making opportunity.  So, basically, tall women are screwed.

It’s bad enough that there isn’t the same size gradations in women’s clothing as there are in men’s clothing.  You don’t get a variation in sleeve length or in-seams or anything like that in any women’s clothing stores.  And I do understand that men who are really tall have to go to special stores and pay a premium.  But there aren’t any tall stores for women and what is offered in tall sizes is limited and usually dowdy.  Compared to what the average height woman can choose from, the tall woman’s choices are usually more limited items without the style or seasonal colors.  Forget soft, flowy or romantic.  And at many stores, you have to pay more for them.  It’s just outrageous.

2.) Stores that make bigotry a feature.  Anthropologie and its sister retailers (urban outfitters, Free People) went off my buy list earlier this year when I found out that the owner was a fervent Rick Santorum supporter.  That was a shame because Brook looks great in everything in the local Anthropologie store that is a size 2.  She has an Anthropologie quilt on her bed.  I was going to save my green stamps to buy her a nice dress for her Germany trip but couldn’t get past the Santorum thing so Anthropologie was out.

The same thing goes for Chik-Fil-A.  There’s a store in the next town up the road and not too long ago, I was tempted to stop in and buy something because I heard the food is pretty good for fast food.  But since they’ve made such a big effing deal about being “Christians” who wear their anti-gay bigotry on their sleeves with pride and promote their “morality” to their employees, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever set foot in a Chik-Fil-A.

What I find particularly revolting about Dan Cathy’s commitment to families is that he fails to see the children of gay couples as being family members themselves.  Those kids are frequently on the losing end of legal battles over inheritance, pensions, social security, etc, when one of their parents die.  It’s disgusting and hypocritical for Cathy and his ilk to value one set of children over another because of the sexuality of their parents.  Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.

I’m sure this is a selling point to their fundamentalist customers.  Bully for them.  Too bad that the homophobic church lady demographic is shrinking.  On the other hand, Chik-Fil-A will find out exactly how the free market works!

Excellent.