Equality in Clothing Stores

Happy Tuesday (again!) I am going to try to make a blog post every Tuesday for ten weeks in a row. It is the only day I do not have class so keeping up with it should be pretty easy.

During the first couple of Women's Studies classes, we got on the topic of gender equality; my Gender and Discourse class also had a focus discussion about how much more privilege men have versus women. Our discussions included the wage gap, political figures in office, the negative stigmas of men and sex, etc. There is definitely one area where women have an extreme advantage over men: clothes shopping and variety of stores.

Let me give you an example to illustrate the point I'm trying to make. The Fox River Mall, located in Appleton, WI has an extensive variety of clothing stores - http://www.foxrivermall.com/directory. Without counting the department stores, (Target, Younkers, etc...) I counted 38 stores that sell women's clothing. An overwhelming number of stores are exclusive for women too, such as Discovery Clothing, Aerie, Ann Taylor, Catherine's, Victoria's Secret, Christopher & Banks, the Deb, J. Jill, Maurices, White House Black Market... do I need to go on? Only 12 stores sell men's clothing and four of them are exclusive to men – which are all formal-wear .

I went to Panama City Beach in late August 2012 with family (and obviously did some shopping, too.) We went to an outdoor mall where the clothing store ratio was the same as I was used to anywhere else. As I was walking by Forever 21, I noticed an advertisement for men's clothing. I walked in to check it out and had a pretty good laugh at the selection. I was trying to think outside the box in terms of my fashion palate and almost bought a shirt, but realized I would probably never wear it - http://www.forever21.com/Product/Category.aspx?br=21men&category=m_whatsnew. It is at least a good attempt to expand their consumer prospects even though the “men's section” took up about 10% of the entire store.

So for the men:

1) What do you think about the tiny selection of clothing we have to choose from in comparison to the ladies?

2) Would you like to see more clothing stores exclusive to men, or just more equality among stores? Why?

For the women:

1) Do you think I should just stop complaining already? 

2) What do you think about my observation?