Plus Size Problem: An Open Letter to Geek Fashion

AN OPEN LETTER TO GEEK FASHION
By Courtney Lockhart

Dear Nerd Wear Companies,

I want to start by saying thank you. You are wonderful, creative people who have put your talents to good use.  You make us ladies able to rock our fandoms in beautiful creative ways.  I have found myself truly inspired by you to take the time for me and dress in ways that make myself feel awesome.  I love you.  So please try not to see what I’m about to say as an attack. This is a friend, coming to another friend, to try to make the relationship better. 

You hurt my feelings.

I know you didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  It’s not the first time either. It happens quite a bit actually. I found something you made and fell in love with it. I really wanted it in my wardrobe and wanted to show of your wears to the world.  But you didn’t make it in my size.  Or you made it in something you call my size, but is actually much smaller.

Most retailers 3X is a size 24

I’ve talked to you about it before. Usually you blame the manufacturer. Or tell me it’s available in that size in the unisex style. Or tell me that you did have one of them in that size but someone already bought it and you’re not sure if you’re getting any more.  You agree it’s dumb, you apologize and sympathize but  considering not much seems to change, I wonder if you really get what your actions are saying to me.

When you tell me the manufacturer just doesn’t make that size, that means that when you chose them to make your product, one of two things happened. One: You didn’t think to ask the question, or  Two: You asked about it, but didn’t consider limiting your offerings in that way was to be a big enough problem to not give them your business.  That makes me feel like I’m not very important to you.

When you tell me it’s available in unisex, it means that you thought about the big guys, but not the big girls. I know there are lots of  ladies who like unisex shirts and that’s great, but with very few exceptions, straight cut t-shirts make me feel awful.  They hide the curves I like and amplify the ones I don’t.  Despite having the same design, they are not the same product. It’s like asking for a ballet flat and being offered a sneaker. Both will cover my feet but one makes me feel better about myself and the other will simply do the job. It makes me feel like I don’t deserve to be pretty.  

When you make the item in my size, but in a small quantity, to be honest, this one perplexes me the most. You know that we are out there, that we want  to spend our money, and in a lot of cases you charge up more than the regular sized folks. So if you get three dollars more per shirt than a size small, why wouldn’t you stock just as many 2X shirts as you do XS?  It makes me feel unwanted. 

So, friend to friend, can we fix this?  

Courtney Lockhart lives in the west end of Ottawa with her husband and step-cat.  She is polishing her skills to pursue one of her dream careers as either a costume drama character, Torchwood operative or executive assistant to a billionaire vigilante. You can follow her daily mission to DFTBA on Twitter @corastacy.

Guest Post: Hollaback! Ottawa and #YesAllWomen

#YESALLWOMEN

by Julie S. Lalonde

2014 has proven to be a really important year for folks dedicated to ending violence against women in Ottawa. Unfortunately, it’s taken a series of tragedies for much needed conversations to happen. From the threats of rape thrown at the University of Ottawa student president  to the arrest of a much-sought-after “serial rapist” haunting women across the city, residents have had to face the facts that Ottawa’s reputation of being a safe city really depends on who you ask.

 The reality of gender based violence came to a head with a recent horrific shooting in California. When it became clear that the shooter was motivated, in large part, by his misogyny, feminists took to social media to remind folks that #NotAllMen commit violence against women but #YesAllWomen are affected by it.

As an organization dedicated to ending gender-based violence in public space, we were moved by the amount of stories on the #YesAllWomen hashtag that related specifically to street harassment.  For many women and queer-folks, street harassment is a rite of passage; a daily reminder of their gender and gender presentation.

Yet the most common negative response we get to our work is the idea that we should just relax because it’s not harassment; it’s a compliment! Those men who are making you feel uncomfortable in public space are just trying to brighten your day, honey! 

Street harassment isn’t about “flattery”. We know that because we’ve read far too many stories of women who’ve refused someone’s “compliment” only to be told “Fine, bitch. You weren’t that hot anyway”.  

Not to mention the amount of street harassers who skip trying to be play nice and head straight for the insults, the homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, etc. 

Street harassment is about maintaining the status quo. It’s a reminder to women and queer folks that public space doesn’t belong to them and that by leaving the house, they’re “asking” for scrutiny. 

Sadly, the reminder that “This space is not for you” isn’t unique to streets. 

This past May, we attended our first ever ComicCon where we hosted two panels on the issue of harassment at Cons and in particular, the notion that Cosplay =/= Consent.

Both our panels were well attended and more importantly, generated lots of important conversations about the reality of harassment in Geek spaces and the fallacy that all geeks are in this thing together. We wish Geek spaces were this amazing kumbaya environment but our presence at the Con and the very existence of the Capital Geek Girls is proof that sadly, that isn’t the case. 

As #YesAllWomen trended around the world, people got a tiny glimpse into the ugliness of misogyny. It was an important, albeit rare, opportunity to shed light in dark places. But unless we insist on continuing the dialogue in every space of our lives, these conversations will be relegated to the occasional headline. We can’t let that happen. There’s too much at stake. 

Julie S. Lalonde is the director of Hollaback! Ottawa, the local chapter of an international movement dedicated to ending street harassment. 

Short Cut to Criticism: Felicia Day's Haircut

TREND OR TRAVESTY? THE TALE OF FELICIA DAY'S HAIR 
By Emily Towsley

Felicia Day, the popular vlogger, and creator of the Geek & Sundry, cut her hair off. Did you know? Or better yet, did you care?

The male blogging world was set ablaze with the news that the geek-girl extraordinaire had chopped off her long ginger locks. “Love your videos, will be back when you grow your hair out” became a hurtful refrain that Day has finally decided to speak out against. 

Though Ms. Day is on the record as stating that “We are gamers first, and female incidentally.” The attacks she was facing over her recent hairstyle choice got her to take a stand for feminism, and against misogynistic trolls.  

In the vein of the blog post “Why Patriarchy fears the Scissors”, Felicia Day posted on her tumblr

her thoughts and opinions on being a woman with a newly chopped coif. 

“My hair doesn’t affect what words come out of my mouth dude? But he can’t see me as anything else I guess. Guys like him tune in because I’m attractive to them. Without long hair, I’m no longer attractive to them. Ergo…goodbye.” 

However Day doesn’t mourn for the loss of these particular fans, “It makes me sad for THEM actually…they might be missing out on meeting an awesome girl/woman for themselves” 

For as Felicia points out, we are still living in a society that treats women as inhuman dolls, whose only real purpose is to be attractive to men. 

This idea that women must be attractive to men, and that long hair is the only attractive option, categorizes women with short hair as destroying their femininity to 'punish' men. To distil the argument even further, “men like long hair, and what sane woman would ever want to do anything that decreases her capacity to please men?” 

When the argument is brought down to its brass tacks like that, it’s easy to understand why criticising women for cutting their hair is uncomfortable, and inherently misogynistic. 

To take it one step further the manosphere decided to protest her new chopped ‘do by placing before and after pictures of Felicia Day side by side, with captions like “What boyfriend allowed this type of self-harm?”  

The kicker? The before picture was not even a picture of Ms. Day. These fans had reduced her traits to her hair, and did not even know what her face looked like behind the ginger locks. 

Felicia’s conclusion; “Think I’ll be keeping my hair short for a long time”

I think we can look forward to witty and on-point contributions from Felicia Day in the future, no matter the length of her hair. 

Emily Towsley, can be found either teasing her cat, or philosophizing with a customer over coffee in her second-life as a barista. Messages of support regarding her addiction to Netflix, and news of vintage teacup sales can be left on her twitter.  Her spare time is spent reading copious amounts of books,  or working on her latest blog. 

The "I Hate Fangirls" Shirt Debate: why are YOU mad?

by Jordan Danger

THE 'I HATE FANGIRLS' SHIRT AT WONDERCON: WHAT'S THE REAL ISSUE?

So this past weekend at WonderCon, a shortsighted (and in my opinion, PR nightmare of a) company called Tankhead Custom Tees was selling this shirt:

It’s offensive, right? Well, a lot of people thought so. Whenever something like that happens though, where people are getting riled up, I like to ask, what is the core issue here?

Is it that the shirt denigrates fangirls? The tee producer says that a ‘fangirl’ is a specific type of geek, loathed by all. Here’s their official explanation, actually, after the fallout that happened after WonderCon:

So I thought to myself, why IS this shirt so offensive, if there's a boy version, too? 

Can't we all just agree that we all seem to dislike each other, and move on? But somewhere in this shirt was definitely something offensive. What exactly was the problem?

So I thought about the shirt (which, taking the 'fangirls' word out of it, is kind of clever), and made some substitutions to see if it would still be something that causes torches to be lit and fists to be waved:

How often do we see the redneck community denigrated in our humour? Pretty darn often. My guess is, though, that no viral internet outrage would have ensued over this shirt. (Comment on this post and share your opinion, though. Seriously.)

I really despise poodles, so this was an easy one to think up. Because dog breed fanatics are just as fanatical as the most stalwart comic book fan. (Trust me, I'm a pug fangirl of the highest order.) As a pug fan, I obviously think all other dog breeds and their fans are out to lunch. However, aside from being only funny to people who PVR the Westminster Dog Show, this shirt is also unlikely to incite rage across the Web.

Oh MAN, who doesn't hate tailgaters, right? I suppose someone who tailgates because they have poor depth perception could be offended. Or someone who was rushing to the hospital with their pregnant wife in labour and had to tailgate that one time...still, unlikely to get me punched in the face.

So then I thought about more words, like:

'black people'

'autistic people'

'poor people'

'Italians'

...and the reality is, I couldn't make mock-ups of these words on the tee because I couldn't handle the thought that someone might copy the images and spread them across the internet and actually mean what the shirts would say.

So the line on the 'piss people off and sound like an asshole' meter seems to be when the shirt attacks a human group based on their attributes, culture, ability, etc. Basically, anything that someone would be bullied for in grade six.

Okay, but then how come I can totally see THIS shirt being sold at many of the queer women's festivals I've been to, and no one would freak out....

My point right here is that there's a weird 'offensiveness blindness' that happens when men are the brunt of the exact same joke as a woman. Comment below if you've got thoughts on that, but please for the love of Stan Lee, don't rely on the same tired argument that men have all the privilege. I think it's more complex than that. Give me something new to think about.

ANYWAY, I wondered if the Tankhead Tee people were fully aware of what the problem was here (using the word 'hate' in conjuction with reference to an isolated minority). They didn't seem to understand why this would be hurtful. I wanted a way to illustrate for Tankhead how it feels to be the brunt of people's discriminatory hatred--something they'd understand. So this is what I came up with:

I hope they see that, and I hope they have a little moment where the lightbulb comes on. "Ohhhhh, it DOES suck to have a tee shirt making fun of you." And hey, if they say they're offended, I'll just respond with, "You're being over-sensitive. CLEARLY I was referring only specifically to one kind of Tankhead, and it's not YOU. I swear."

Okay, so assuming I have your attention now, Tankhead, I'd like to propose some uses for your clever catchphrase that are pretty universally agreed upon:

Preach it, sister.

It's like Hunger Games with math.

RIGHT?!

Needs no explanation.

Come on, WE'RE ALL THINKING IT.

I'd really like to hear what people think about this tee shirt mess. Comment below, won't you please? I hope we can hear from supporters AND non-supporters of the shirt. I'd also like to hear which of the above alternate designs you think should be in production.

Jordan Danger is a veteran blogger, writer, and marketing consultant based in Ottawa, Ontario. She is also President and Editor of CapitalGeekGirls.com. Jordan blogs at GirlCrafted.com, a lifestyle blog about crafting life both literally and figuratively. She loves DIY projects, her dog, and Oxford commas.

Sexism and Cosplay: CGG on Geek Inked

by Jordan Danger

I wrote a post that just went live on Geek Inked Magazine, talking about my experience at this year's Montreal Comiccon where a fanboy tried to call me out on my Green Lantern knowledge. You can check out the post here.

While I found the situation incredibly frustrating, I have to appreciate the fact that the Universe sent ME this particular experience to contend with...the same ME with the blog, the Geek Girls group, and my status as a contributor to Geek Inked Mag. It's a running joke that when sh*t happens to a blogger, they just roll with it because it's all good blog fodder. I gotta admit, two seconds after it happened, my only thought was, "I am SO blogging this."

An Open Letter to DC Comics on Homophobia & Heroes

This post was originally shared on our sister site, GirlCrafted.com
by Jordan Danger

An open letter to DC Comics on Homophobia & Heroes

credit: Adam Tupper

To: DC Comics

From: Jordan Danger, President of Capital Geek Girls

Dear DC Comics execs and editors,

I am heartily concerned over learning the recent news that several creative minds have left your projects after institutionally-sanctioned homophobia has been affecting their work. This year’s debacle with Orson Scott Card and his outspoken homophobic beliefs was enough of an alarm bell for me regarding your sensitivity to GLBTTQ issues—it took creatives leaving the team, and a giant online petition before you took Card off the Superman series—but now I hear that you’re also refusing to let Batwoman (Kate) marry her sweetheart Maggie. Top this all off with the suspicious and untimely death of the Golden Age Green Lantern’s male lover, and we’ve got a pattern forming. So I’m writing you this letter. Hey, there.

Surely you understand that the comic book world is in enough upheaval after the casting of a certain Ben Affleck as the next Batman was just recently announced, and that nerves are indeed on edge. It seems like maybe this would be the time to give people a bit of what they want, don’t you think? And what people want is for Batwoman and Maggie to be allowed to marry.

DC seems to be (accidentally, I hope) sending a repetitive message that you are not very gay-friendly, and that’s a serious concern for me and many other fans. I don’t understand how a company that promotes superheroes could be comfortable with abetting discrimination against a minority group of any sort, let alone one that would totally support your superheroes’ proclivity for rock-hard abs and public displays of lycra. I don’t remember ever seeing Wonder Woman ignore a man’s pleas for help once he’d been identified as ‘light in the loafers’; I do, however, remember seeing her at the Ottawa Pride Parade in all her 6’2” glory, and only the barest hint of an Adam’s Apple.

credit: Edith Chartier

Clearly the gay community has embraced your work, DC; so why haven’t you embraced us back?

Well, DC, I just can’t rationalize it for you. I think you’re going to have to come clean: there’s a streak of dark, poisonous homophobia running through your veins. Okay, that’s bad news. But maybe I have a solution.

Bring me in to help you.

Meet with me, give me a year, and we’ll convert your whole team to rainbow flag-waving allies. (Does the word ‘convert’ make you nervous, boys? Oops, sorry.)

I, Jordan Danger, am a longstanding, award-winning GLBTTQ activist and sexual health educator. I joined various committees and youth groups when I was in my teens, and spent countless hours educating parents, teachers, counsellors, doctors, and other professionals on the GLBTTQ community. We taught them acceptance—that we’re just like you, and we deserve representation, too. I have hundreds and hundreds of hours doing this kind of work, and I once even stood at the front of a Muslim youth group for over an hour defending my very existence, so I think I could handle your staff meetings.

credit: Adam Tupper

I’m not even joking: bring me in and we’ll get your whole team on board. Before you know it, you’ll have a company that’s popular, respectful, and actually abides by the values of the heroes you create. We’ll start from the top down, and I promise I’ll be gentle. You can ask me anything ‘cause I’ve heard it all—if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me how lesbians ‘do it’, I’d have a nice summer home in San Fran, let me tell you. You cannot offend me in your quest to learn and grow. The only thing offensive right now is your ignorance and uneducated bias.

I see your recent actions for what they are: you are shining a batsignal into the sky, begging for help. Well, let’s have a chat. I may not be the hero you want, but I’m the hero you need.

And if we can get you back on track, I think you can be the creators of the heroes we want, too.

Love,

Jordan