rant of the week: sports team apparel for women

It's officially april, which means that baseball season is finally here! sadly, that also means the reappearance of the dreaded pink baseball hat.  which brings me to my annual rant: WHY is sports team apparel for women so fucking awful?


unfortunately, those hideous pink baseball hats are just the tip of the iceberg.  there are so many revoltingly horrific items out there marketed at women that i'm not even sure where to start. it's bad enough that people rarely take you seriously as a female sports fan (how many times have i had conversations with dudes who automatically assume that i know nothing about baseball? SO MANY TIMES. my favorite is when they immediately look past you and talk to the guys you are with, because OBVIOUSLY any guy, how ever disinterested in sports, would know far more than a woman would. honestly, the degree of sexism and gender stereotyping that still exists when it comes to sports never ceases to amaze and infuriate me).  but then insult is only added to injury when you look at the wonderful selection of team apparel that is available for women. i take great offense at the assumption that the only way to get women to wear sports team apparel is to a) make it pink, b) make it sparkly, c) make it tiny, or d) all of the above. 99 percent of the items marketed at women look like something that only a playmate from the 1990s would wear, i.e. bedazzled shrunken slutty t-shirts where the team logo is barely detectable due to all the rhinestones. and i'm not even going to mention the shirts with cutesy sayings like "Mrs. Ellsbury", "chicks dig diamonds" or "caught looking". 


though i realize that there may very well be women who like these things, there are also tons of women out there who don't. many of the women i know who are sports fans have actually had to resort to buying XL youth t-shirts, because that is the only way to get a normal looking team t-shirt in a size that comes at all close to fitting properly. essentially, if you want to wear your team colors, the choice is to buy an ill-fitting men's shirt (have you ever noticed how long the sleeves are on men's shirts?) or buy the largest size available from the youth section and hope it fits. how sad is that?


one of the things that i really don't understand is why many of the women's items are barely recognizable as team gear. look at this hat - other than the shape of the 'B' absolutely nothing about it says 'Red Sox' because everything else about it says "i am an airhead with fake blonde hair who enjoys sororities and country clubs":

who the fuck would buy this?

i was recently reminded of how awful sports team apparel for women can be when KM was kind enough to forward  an email to me announcing that victoria's secret (always so classy!!) has just come out with a "limited edition major league baseball collection". just what i was hoping for: more slutty team gear! in addition to undies with cutesy baseball-themed sayings ("meet me in the dugout!") they also have a wonderful line of tight shirts. leave it to victoria's secret to ruin a perfectly nice baseball team t-shirt by shrinking it to child size and affixing a gigantic sparkly "LOVE PINK" on the back. 

i do NOT love pink.

seriously people. all that i ask is for a plain old, unadorned team t-shirt that actually fits. that cannot possibly be too much to ask.


sigh.