Where are all the nerdy t-shirts for women?

                                                         [Traducción española en cursiva, al final, después del salto]

This past Tuesday I was shopping for Winter jumpers with a friend and I entered a C&A shop to take a look. I usually stick to the women's sections, not because I particularly prefer women's fashion over men's (I actually favour several "traditionally-made-for-men" styles and clothing) but because it is very likely that nothing in the men's aisle will fit me, personally. But to the point: That day I felt curious (or maybe disheartened) and decided to take a look at the men's aisle for a change. Well, I did, and this is the very first thing that I saw:

    A Star Trek: Into Darkness T-shirt featuring John Harrison aka Khan. As a nerd girl, a Trekkie in the making, a very hardcore fan of the newest movie, and a Benedict Cumberbatch admirer - well, the first thing that I did was leap around a bit in geeky exultation. Then I realized that I was in the men's aisle, and that the smallest of these shirts was probably wider than me and way longer than I would have liked. There were no geeky T-shirts in the women's aisle at all (and no, Disney doesn't count).

   This isn't the first time this happens to me. The Superman and Big Bang Theory T-shirts at FNAC didn't come in 'female sizes'. The T-shirts that came to the stores as part of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey merchandising didn't come in 'female sizes'. And I came across some great R2-D2 T-shirts last year, and guess what - they didn't come in 'female sizes'.

The Hobbit T-shirts, all with the male symbol indicating they're male sizes. The only ones available at the store. When I asked one of the shop assistants why that was...He shrugged as if it was no big deal and looked at me as if I was mad :/

   

  Summarizing:

                                       

Or to be more specific: 99.9 of the nerdy/geeky T-shirts on the stores are made for men.

   Not cool.

Apparently, geek girls don't compute to the majority of the clothing making/nerdy merchandising industry. 

 This other pic I took at the store pretty much summarizes what these kind of shops usually look like: The girls' section features cute, 'feminine' clothing,  the boys' section is all about casual wear and (you can't find these in all the stores) geeky, fun T-shirts. I actually have a liking for short dresses and that sort of thing, even though I dislike the fact that the 'feminine section' often doesn't have a lot of variety. But I also have a liking for nerdy T-shirts.

 It's the blatant sexism and gender bias which gets to me.

 Why can't both men and women (and enbyes) have similar styles in their respective sizes, so as to make it all truly 'unisex' where gender doesn't really matter in clothes, and so that all of us can choose around a bit more? When is the merchandising industry and the society in general going to realize that there are actually a fair share of women who like fandoms and comics and miniatures and all the stuff that can be considered 'nerdy' or 'geeky'? And that the fact that 'geek girls' are still a minority is not because all those hobbies and fandoms are "meant for boys/men", but, to a great extent, because all the 'geekdom' is still blatanly androcentric and offers their products mainly to men?

   People often buy mainly what they are offered. Women who already identify as 'geeks' or 'nerds' will delve in online stores to find products and T-shirts that they can wear (this particular Star Trek T-shirt is actually available in women's sizes, but only online. Which is still discrimination, and includes shipping). But many others won't, because they aren't offered those products, and will stay oblivious to them or will think that because they are only to be found in the boys' aisle, they're not meant for them. Either way, they will loose the ability and the possibility to choose them.

  And now I'm not just speaking about the fact that it's sexism and discrimination and gender bias, and thus wrong and unfair. I also think that the managers who decide these things seem to be so brainwashed with sexism that they don't realize that they are actually loosing money. Let us focus on the Star Trek T-shirt. How are they so sure that only boys would like to buy it? What about enthusiastic geek girls (like me)? What about girls who do not call themselves 'geek' but who like to dress in this style? And what about girls who are not hardcore Star Trek fans but happen to admire Benedict Cumberbatch (and there are a few of those, not all girls like the shallow, unhealthy models that are Justin Bieber and sparkling abusive vampires, society!)? How are they so sure that women would not buy these kind of T-shirts?

    My friend had the idea of writing a customer complaint/suggestion form so that the manager would at least know that someone thinks that they're showing gender bias and discrimination, and maybe something will come of that, but unfortunately, I think that more than one person would have to write suggestion forms and in many shops, and even so, day-to-day sexism has a nasty habit of clinging on for a long time. This is of course not the worst example of day-to-day sexism, but in my experience it is irrational and mightily frustrating. I think that it is high time women were offered geeky T-shirts too, but I'm afraid this still seems to be a long-lasting 'Geek Girl Problem'.

Feminism is about equality

 [Traducción española en violeta y cursiva]

I found a great quote in Facebook yesterday, and I agree wholeheartedly with it:
 Ayer encontré un cita muy buena en Facebook con la que estoy 100% de acuerdo:

Here is my translation of it:

  "Feminist movements do not want to impose a matriarchy based on violence against men, just as patriarchy has done until now. They do not want to deny them a vote, or rape them in the wars, or mutilate their genitals to uphold a cultural tradition, or confine them in the domestic sphere, or kill them for commiting adultery.

   Feminist movements do not expect men to be the property of their mothers and then of their wives, nor do them wish that men earn lower salaries, and neither would they want to banish them from the media, business and political spheres of power.

   They don't want to traffic with male bodies for the enjoyment of the female ones, nor do they wish that the male children be malnourished or abandoned in orphanages, nor, of course, would they promote their social or economic marginalization.

   They would not ban male children from going to school either, or deny them access to health service and university.

   Understand that all these insane ideas are not what feminist movements promote. Feminist movements have always fought for the equality between women and men."

  Coral Herrera Gómez

Public space sexism: Egalitarian stickers on buses and bathrooms

          Gender bias in public signs: The "woman as nurturer" stereotype.

                                                [Traducción a español en verde y cursiva, al final]

   For years, this had been the reserved seat sticker I had been familiar with every time I took the bus. The one informing us that the front seats are reserved to blind, old and injured people, pregnant women, and women with children.   Then, a year ago, I noticed that this sticker was on one side of the bus' front rows, but that in the other one there was a variation:

                     

                                  

  Here the blind person and the old person are not depicted as male, but as female. And while the figure holding a child was female in the classic sign, now it was male. Well, I was very glad to see this. Even if I haven't seen this variation in all the buses (I did see in the underground while in Austria, too, though).

   Because what was wrong with the first sign, equality-wise?  Gender stereotypes.

What does it matter that the blind/old/injured person, or the person carrying a child, be a man or a woman? Only in the case of the pregnant woman could the sex of the person relevant, and not even then (as we know that trans men and afab non-binary people can get pregnant). And yet, the individual depicted carrying a child is a woman. Which means that apparently it is the women who always care after the children, only the women. It is no man's territory. The sign was perpetuating the classical stereotype of the woman as the nurturer, the one who has the obligation to care after the children, because, apparently, it is 'in her nature', all that biology determinism rubbish.  The blind person, the old person, the injured person, those don't really need to be recognized as female, they are either recognised as male or as standard human depictions  - which is the way everyone should be depicted unless sex/gender are really relevant, in my opinion. But apparently the gender of the person looking after the child is relevant somehow. And it is always female.

Which bugs me, because:

 a) It is unfair that women be told that it is in their nature to have full responsibility in looking after their children, leaving the male partner (if we're talking about a heterosexual relationship) free of any duties in this respect.

 

 b) It is equally unfair to say that it is not in men's nature to care after children, because taking on a nurturing, caring role is 'not masculine'. And although things have gotten better, fathers are still either mocked and gaped at for caring after their children openl (or instead praised to no end for doing the bare minimum, which is also a double standard). You know, it's that stereotype where a man with his child in a park is surrounded by mothers and feeling awkard (questioning his manliness, even) because they generally gape at him, surprised at seeing such a rara avis. Reactions go from 'He must be gay' (ie, a man with a nurturer side must loose his masculinity or be considered as gay, yet another stereotype, not to mention the homophobia of these kind of statements) to 'Wow, you're so cute and/or admirable, you're actually looking after children!' - putting the man on a pedestal for doing his duties as a father, same as all mothers are expected to do without any sizeable recognition. 

   Men should have both the same rights and the same obligations as women when it comes to taking care of the children. They should feel that taking care of a child is not going to lower their masculinity, and that they should be able to enjoy showing care and affection, if they wish to. They should also know that caring for one's children is not only the mother's responsibility. The father had a part in it all, too, and should act accordingly.

 The new signs seem to take that into account, which is good. A step towards equality. Little things, but those also matter.

Update, September 2016:  This bathroom sign in Cardiff's Waterstones subverts gender roles and shows equality by depicting the male figure being the one taking care of the children (the sign for the child-caring part of the bathroom, which was a shared bathroom in this case).

 I feel, however, that the fact that so many signs feel that they must specify the gender of the person depicted often only perpetuates gender steretypes. In the case of the first bus sign, they were perpetuating the 'women are the child-carers, not the men' stereotype. It can be solved showing both men and women, in alternate possitions, doing the same things, as they have done here. But is it really necessary to show all those skirt vs trousers variations? The skirt vs trousers issue is another rather unfortunate stereotype used to differentiate between men and women, although yes, it is hard to find a better alternative with such simplified depictions, and a stereotype-free one. And showing the genitalia in the stickers would be problematic as well, not because our society, otherwise highly used to hypersexualization and objectification, might be scandalized about it (the irony), but mainly because that would uphold the limited sex and gender binary and would be very exclusive to trans people, for example. So no easy solution there.

   If the world were as I'd like it to be, signs like these would not need to make a difference between women and men, because we would be simply considered as human-beings, and their sex/gender would only be specified when it were really important (like, for example, in bathrooms signs and the like), and all the rest of the signs would only show human-stick-figures, representing both men and women.  There are quite a lot of apparently 'unisex signs' out there, true, although I sometimes wonder if they're supposed to be humans or just men/male. Because patriarchy has often made "men" a synonim of "humans", something which is widely seen in literature and other writings. So in a way, I do like seeing "trousers" and "skirts" in equal measure...even if these differentiations can easily perpetuate unhealthy stereotypes when used incorrectly. But in an ideal context, I'd much rather see unisex stickers.