Wednesday, September 20, 2006
real girls don’t wear pink
But my hat is not a woman’s hat. And as I became more interested in acquiring Mets merchandise, I was appalled to discover what MLB and the Mets considered to be appropriate (or desirable) wear for female baseball fans.
Case #1: the dreaded pink hat
It’s not just the Mets who are guilty in this regard. Every MLB team - and I do mean EVERY - has the anemic, wussy pink hat. Even the Red Sox have pink hats. No real female baseball fan I know wears a pink hat (again, apologies to Zoe, who does rock the pink hat, and I do mean rock).
The pink hat exists for one reason, and one reason only: So that the girls who get dragged to the game by their boyfriends have something to wear. The pink hat exists so that boyfriends or husbands (or heck, lesbian partners of girlie girls), who feel guilty that they have dragged their girlfriend to the game, can go to the team store and buy something to placate them: “Oh, it’s pink, it must be for a girl.”
Give me a break.
The pink is weak, the pink is boring, the pink is not reflective of most women who sit in the baseball park, and surely, MLB could get some real designers to make something more attractive for female baseball fans to wear. And it’s not just the hats: the same yucky pink is used on t-shirts, sweatshirts, you name it.
To quote Zoe, in an email exchange we had today: “I love pink, BUT AS AN ACCENT.”
Case #2: anything that implies that the only reason I am at the ballpark is because I want to bone David Wright
Have you seen this crap? No, really, have you seen it?
Any variation on “Mrs. Wright,” “Looking for Mr. Wright,” “Wright-aholic,” etc. The only thing resembling official bling on Mets merch is down this aisle, which, besides pandering, is also sized for a woman who clearly never eats any of the food at Shea Stadium (more on that below). In fact, the largest shirt would barely fit my 6-year-old niece (and her father is from Boston so she won’t be owning one anyway, not that I would set that kind of example for the young lady in any event).
[I could say something here about merchandise indicating my intent towards Mr. Floyd, but TBF reads the blog, and Zoe is likely to hunt me down and pummel me. Besides which, I still wouldn’t wear it for the insulting/pandering/etc. reasons mentioned above.]
Case #3: Real Women Are Not Cookie-cutters
If you are a woman and have ever tried on anything at Shea Stadium, you would be frustrated. It’s not entirely that the people designing this clothing gathered their opinion about what real women’s bodies are shaped like from Playboy and Budweiser ads, it’s that real women HAVE DIFFERENT SHAPES.
TBF and I just bought sweatshirts for the playoffs. Listen, I know : it’s a sweatshirt. For women, they had teeny tiny flimsy hooded ones that stopped at my bellybutton, or sturdy ones that will actually keep me warm in the upper deck next month - for men.
Guess which one I bought?
Zoe, on the other hand, had to buy a child’s size.
Listen, it’s not like I’m trying to walk into the Limited and trying to buy clothing that is inapropriate for a grown woman to wear. All women who are baseball fans should have choices.
Case #4: Other Teams Have Cool Stuff Designed For Women
I’d like a Mets jacket - I really, really would. But what they have is unattractive for a woman. So I bought a 1986 satin jacket on eBay and I go retro, which at least has some style and flair involved.
But I know other teams have items for women because I’ve seen female fans of these other teams wearing them, and I am envious, and jealous, and pissed off.
Forget that nonsense about “updating” “Meet The Mets” to make it more “inclusive” (a bigger crock of nonsense I have rarely enountered, and MG is a bra-burning feminist type) - be inclusive by giving me something I can buy and happily wear. Do you know how much money I would spend?
Wait, maybe it’s better that I don’t like anything in the store after all.
Zoe also has some words to say on this subject.
Oh girl, as soon as I have the time, I’m going to photoshop some clothes I WANT to see.