This shit makes me blood boil.

This morning I read (rather, viewed) Lauredhel’s documenting of the bullshit uni discrepancies for the Olympic athletes. Remember, these are athletes; there are surely performance advantages to skin-tight Lycra vs. baggy poly or vice-versa depending on the sport, but why then are women always mandated the Lycra and covering as little skin as possible (yes, this is in the rules) and men sometimes skintight, sometimes baggy, but always covering a modest amount and always far more skin than their counterpart women’s unis?

On that note, I was wandering around our discount store today after a job interview, grabbing some band-aids and bathroom products and a few more Fuji apples (divine!). I meandered by the sport care section, looking to replace my late shower chair and see if there was any sort of wrap to keep a heat pad on my back. I noted the name of the manufacturer of the products available there, and came home to print out a few product pages to discuss with my physical therapist.

While browsing the site, I curiously clicked on the “ Life Care™ for Her” link. This is the page that comes up:

What is wrong with this picture?

Oh yeah. The sexy vixen with smoky eyes trying to seduce you to come…tighten her knee brace.

WTF?

You’ll notice the pictures on the packaging, of course, includes more pictures of hairless poreless fatless pigmentless sssssexy chick. And they helpfully spotlight them in the middle of the page!

Mmmmm, check out my soft, silky, supple, b……races.
Why don’t you come support me, baby?

Targeted Support for Today’s Active Women. “Active,” huh! Smirk, wink, amirite amirite

I included the full first screen of the page to give a context as to the site it’s on. This is sports medicine. It’s hot/cold gel packs and creams, and tapes and wraps and braces. By contrast, here’s another picture of a woman on the site:

She’s wearing skin-tight midriff-bearing clothes, but at least she’s wearing any at all — and she’s up and active and at least her awkward position is actually doing something.

And here’s another page for one of their product series (as opposed to just a category of products). Notice that all but one of the pictures have been converted to grayscale and digitally edited to look like an understated grey model.

I don’t see why the same approach couldn’t have been taken with the women’s series of products — which appear to be designed so as to be better marketed, not so as to be a better product for women’s particular needs. They say they are thinner and sleeker so as to be less conspicuous under clothing, an advantage that I see no reason to be confined to women. Surely men in business suits would benefit from a non-bulky ankle brace too?

The message this sends to viewers is, simply put, even when you are injured or sick, you must always be sexy. What it tells women is that they need to shave their entire leg before they put on that knee brace. And white women should preferably tan, without tan lines. WOC need not apply, of course. Nor fat women.

There is quite simply no time that we, as women, are permitted to escape from the exacting standards set for us to be on-the-ready for any male passersby. Not when we are sick, not when we are injured, not when we are active or participating in sport, not even when we are altogether disabled. We must always be aware of our appearance, not in terms of presentability, but in terms of sexual attractiveness to a hypothetical mainstream white heterosexual male.

Even when no one can see us at all.

Chew on that for awhile.

Extra credit: The store had a different women’s-series set of products: they were “for her” and their distinguishing characteristic was that they were sized larger for a “plus-size” body. Apparently only women get fat.