{"id":18606,"date":"2019-11-15T01:33:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T01:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=18606"},"modified":"2019-11-17T01:56:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T01:56:25","slug":"lady-backpacks-and-manly-beer-the-folly-of-gendered-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/lady-backpacks-and-manly-beer-the-folly-of-gendered-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady backpacks and manly beer \u2014 the folly of gendered products"},"content":{"rendered":"

Samantha Brennan<\/a>, University of Guelph<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

As women started counting steps and walking to work wearing running shoes and fitness trackers, there was one work-related item that had to change: the briefcase. It\u2019s not suited to walking fast and gets in the way of drinking coffee en route to the office. Enter the working women\u2019s backpack. It\u2019s a trend.<\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/em> announced<\/a> that this is the year professional women started wearing backpacks, even though some of us swear it\u2019s been going on for a while. The sale of women\u2019s backpacks is up by more than 20 per cent in the past year, but the sale of men\u2019s backpacks has flat-lined.<\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/em> headlined their story \u201cThe Rise of the Lady Backpack.\u201d<\/a> Of course they did, because women can\u2019t just use backpacks. We have to use \u201clady backpacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s with the gendering? \u201cGendering\u201d occurs when we ascribe stereotypical ideas of gender to an object or activity. Cupcakes, salads and white wine are feminine. Beer and steaks are masculine. But it\u2019s not just food. It\u2019s everywhere.<\/p>\n

There are lists of needlessly gendered products ranging from girly pink pens to manly blue Q-tips. Such products reinforce the idea that gender is significant in areas where it\u2019s not, they reinforce the gender binary, and they leave out people who don\u2019t fit in either the male or the female category.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u2018Lady backpacks\u2019 may be built for a smaller frame \u2014 but does that mean they are only for ladies?<\/span>
\n(Joonas Sild\/Unsplash)<\/span>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A friend explained that lady backpacks are built for the female frame. They\u2019re smaller. \u201cBut what about small men?\u201d I asked. Well, replied the friend, they can buy a lady backpack too.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re not ladies! They are small people. Wouldn\u2019t it be easier if backpacks came in sizes to match differently sized people?<\/p>\n

A girly bike<\/h2>\n

Another friend recently raised the issue of step-through bike frames. He wanted one because he\u2019d had knee surgery and couldn\u2019t swing his leg up over a traditional cross bar. The bike shop told him he wanted a women\u2019s bike. He said, no, that he wanted a step-through frame. How hard is this to understand?<\/p>\n

When I was a kid the difference between a boy\u2019s bike and a girl\u2019s bike was the top tube. The one on a girl\u2019s bike slanted down to allow modest access to the bike and ease of riding in skirts. This isn\u2019t the issue with adult bikes. When it comes to road bikes they look pretty much the same.<\/p>\n

I ride a regular unisex frame road bike, not a women-specific frame. Lots of women ride regular bikes, and the geometry of women\u2019s bikes is a great fit for some men.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A woman rides a step-through bike.<\/span>
\n(Lucian Alexe\/Unsplash)<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ditto bike shoes. Men\u2019s shoes are wider. But some men have narrow feet so they wear women\u2019s shoes. Some women wear men\u2019s shoes and other than colour choices, there is no other difference.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t we just call the backpacks big and small? Can\u2019t we just call the shoes wide and narrow?<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t we just call the bike frames long torso and short torso?<\/p>\n

When difference is handled well<\/h2>\n

In the sailing world, when people race lasers, they come in two rig sizes, a full-size standard rig and a radial rig. The Laser Radial is a variant of the Laser Standard, with shorter mast and reduced sail area, allowing light sailors to sail in heavy winds.<\/p>\n

Radial rigs are raced by lighter people with less weight and body strength but no one calls them \u201clady boats.\u201d They\u2019re raced by young people of all genders, older adults, and small- to medium-sized women.<\/p>\n

There are two models of inclusion at work here.<\/p>\n

In the bad old days, everything was sized for men. Bikes were really men\u2019s bikes. Backpacks were really man-sized backpacks. Gender wasn\u2019t explicitly taken into account but the male body was the default and the norm. Sometimes this has deadly results, like when crash-test dummies are man-sized<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there are different approaches to fixing the problem. One is to add the category \u201cwoman\u201d and make a new set of assumptions about the size and shape of female consumers. Manufacturers create idealized men\u2019s and women\u2019s versions of products based on typical men\u2019s and women\u2019s bodies. But this version of inclusion runs into its own problems. Guess what? Not all women are five foot five and weigh 150 pounds. Also, not everyone identifies as either male or female.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said it before<\/a>: a women-specific anything is likely just a bad idea. Humans come in lots of different shapes and sizes. A second, better approach includes a range of shapes and sizes and lets individuals choose.<\/p>\n

Leave gender out of it, thanks.<\/p>\n

[ Like what you\u2019ve read? Want more?<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s daily newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Samantha Brennan<\/a>, Professor and Dean | College of Arts, University of Guelph<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samantha Brennan, University of Guelph As women started counting steps and walking to work wearing running shoes and fitness trackers, there was one work-related item that had to change: the briefcase. It\u2019s not suited to walking fast and gets in the way of drinking coffee en route to the office. Enter the working women\u2019s backpack. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":18601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[5587,839,1180,365,184,185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18611,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18606\/revisions\/18611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}