Fail: Woman Within “Plus Size Living”
Last night when I got home from work I grabbed the mail as per usual. I had gotten two catalogs and some ads and headed upstairs. Later that evening as we were winding down and nearly ready for bed I started flipping through these catalogs. One of that furniture company C2B, mega-cute stuff, but hella pricey! Then I grabbed the Woman Within catalog not realizing it wasn’t clothing within.
The first pages were full of wider and more weight bearing office chairs and their accessories. “Cool!” I thought, having bought an office chair last year (a Herman Miller used for $20, I love craigslist) I knew it can be tough with wider ass/hips. I hadn’t thought of finding one through Woman Within! Page 7 had all of these gorgeous & wider chairs! With notations like “500 LB capacity” and more…Loved them! Showed my hubby a gorgeous silver tufted chair that I long for! So cute! I continue to flip through ogling the various home furnishings and such. I genuinely thought it was super cool to have these options for more weight bearing things like bed frames and chairs and wider desks and such.
On page 57 my eyes are suddenly hit with diet books! WTF?! Look, I was fine with the exercise videos and equipment, but I don’t need to see Jillian Michaels smug-mug smiling back at me with that smirk of judgment! More diet books on the next page and then a short reprieve with some cook books and such. I do love cookbooks. Ha!
I get towards the back of the catalog and I’m finding kitchen things like pots & pans, juicers and blenders, storage containers and things. Cool! Then I get to page 71 and my disappointment grows. “Biggest Loser” products! Food scales, body scales, Mini Grills, steamers and more. Now I’m fed up & tired and am too angry at this catalog to even chat about it with the hubby. UGH!
Why is this all a big fail for me? Because here I was fairly stoked about the pretty chairs and mobility helping items and think that was pretty dang cool, more options for fats! Then I get hit with the typical bullshit about dieting, weight, etc! NO THANKS! I was feeling good until they threw all of that in there. I mean, let’s just say for one second that dieting works (That is hilarious!) why would I buy your bigger chairs and things if I’m still buying into the fantasy of becoming thin? I wouldn’t! Hello? Ya hear me? I would not buy that stuff because I would somehow still be buying into the thin myth! Please keep this shit out of my catalog and perhaps I’ll buy one of your gorgeous chairs one day. Yes? Thanks.
Yeah, I got a catalog from Roaman’s that had the Brylane Home plus+size living stuff in it with 2 pages of Biggest Loser branded kitchen items (nothing about diet books or exercise videos or Jillian Michaels, thank Maude).
I wrote them a letter, telling them that I spent a lot of money on their denim leggings, and wouldn’t be buying any more from them as long as they were going to be selling Biggest Loser branded merchandise, that I didn’t watch BL because it was hateful to fat people and espoused unsafe weight loss practices, and was emotionally and psychologically abusive to fat people. And for a retailer of clothing for fat women (I told them I identify as fat, that it’s not a pejorative, it’s a descriptor, just like short or tall or blond or brunette) to advertise merchandise that pushes fat women to lose weight, made by a show that hates fat women, is indefensible. I have yet to hear back from them, and it’s been 6 weeks since I emailed them.
Well thank you for writing the letter. I am so tired of hearing from others how writing letters make no difference and no one cares and blah blah blah. I believe that it is important to use one’s voice to speak up to the powers/retailers that be and let them know what they are doing right & wrong. Without this feedback business go on and on in their arrogant ways thinking everyone adores them. Hence the horrible banking situation the last three years (speaking from personal previous emploer experience). Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, too. I have been pondering a post on the topic of communicating to retailers and this has helped. Thanks for reading & commenting as always…you rock my socks! =0)
(criez and criez)
WW can’t have it both ways. Either they’re trying to make life better for larger people or they’re trying to make us smaller people.
And there are so damn many places I can get all the same diet junk if I really want it. I don’t want to have to look at it while I’m looking for someplace to sit my fat butt down comfortably.
Give me a place where I can get furniture that holds me, exercise equipment that matches my girth, and practical things I need to live my day-to-day life. Believe me, if I ever want to try dieting again (and I’ll be riding a pink unicorn through a parade of magical elves on that day), I know a bazillion places to find everything I need to hate myself.
Yes! Exactly! You hit the nail on the head. If I wanted to be made to feel like crap, I’d go watch those shows and head into my local GNC for all of the diet bullshit. And damn those chairs were gorgeous! Wish I had the money & room for them. Ha! I daydream of a grand drawing room with gorgeous tufted chairs of various fabrics and patterns. Ha-ha! Thank you for reading & commenting my dear. You are fabulous!
It’s like they have to justify the products that are fat friendly with the usual diet malarkey. Burns my bread!
Yes, I think you’re right. It makes me sick, but I do thing you have something there.