Ditz

Issue date: 11/2/09 Section: Can You Hear Me Now

Media Credit: Getty Images Shoe Shopping: Time Consuming for All Genders

My flip-flops broke last week. As any Californian can tell you, this is like temporarily losing a part of your soul, especially in mid-August. So, on my lunch break, I decided to go in search of a new pair.

I first went across the street, where they had stuffy dress sandals, but not one pair of flip-flops.

"No worries," I told myself. "GAP will have them."

So I went across the street to the GAP store located next to my office. I meandered around, only to discover they did not have men's dress sandals or flip-flops.

Curiously, they had women's sandals and flip-flops. Why is that? Do men only buy sandals/flip-flops at the beginning of spring or summer? Do women, on the other hand, compulsively buy these items continuously throughout the year?

I jokingly told a coworker that I was the victim of sexism. While it started as a joke, as I thought about my unresolved situation over the course of the day I realized something... this is sexist! Where are my flip-flops? Where are all the man sandals? It's pushing 95 degrees in D.C. with humidity topping 80 percent! My feet are sweltering! They are boiling! They are sizzling! They are suffocating beneath these shoes and socks that I am forced to wear because of the sexist, oppressive GAP store!

As a white, middle class male, I have rarely, if ever, experienced discrimination. So I was stunned when this revelation occurred. I would like to know which fashion exec decided that men only come out of their caves once a year to buy flip-flops. I'd like to meet them face-to-face, tell them how stupid they are, show them my broken sandal and proceed to slap them across the face with it. And if I were a badass, I might add "The truth hurt, don't it!"

But this is not only sexist towards men. Does this instance not suggest that some marketing and sales executives identify women as compulsive shoppers, or at least more so than men? The more I think about it, it's the only explanation that makes sense. If they carry women's sandals, then clearly they still consider it sandal season, so why not carry men's sandals as well?

To take this argument a little further, I am not sure women are even aware of these strategic marketing tactics. If a woman was in that GAP store the same day, looking at sandals, I doubt she would stop and think, "Wow, these sandals are great. I wonder if they also have men's?" Just goes to show that sexism is oftentimes invisible to the naked eye--or in this case the naked foot.

I didn't end up slapping any executives that day, but if anything, I learned something valuable--retail marketing is never accidental. It can actually be pretty harmful in terms of furthering stereotypes. My personal experience with sexism opened my eyes a bit to the ways different genders are targeted by retail stores and marketing in ways that I had never considered. It's easy to ignore this when you're finding everything you need in a store. But for the sake of people like me, who can't find a pair of freaking flip-flops, I think we all need to stop and think about how we're being marketed to before we give more money to this backward system.

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