About a week ago (*cue immature guys yelling out rap lyrics*), a family friend of mine texted me complaining about how she had chafed through another pair of jeans and needed to find new ones. Of course, as a Plus-sized woman, chafing through jeans is all too real and all too common. You can be walking down the middle of the street, or bending your leg to sit into a car, and split! goes your pants, tearing right at the center of the seams on your inner legs. It sucks then, because you have to make sure that the hole doesn’t wrap around too far. Or, that if you go back inside and change your pants, you won’t be late to wherever you were going beforehand.
But the reality is that this isn’t something just plus-sized women face.
All women do.
Two of my coworkers save their hole-y jeans for the weekend shifts because they know they’ll get food particles on them anyways, so why buy new jeans? Here’s the kicker, though: they’re not plus-sized. In fact, my jeans have never torn, but theirs have, and the holes are so huge that you can notice it from a ways away.
And I think we don’t hear a lot about thinner girls having hole-y jeans because it’s not something girls with a “thigh gap” would – should – experience.
Which, I guess makes a little bit of sense. Theoretically, if a woman has thighs that will never touch, the jeans will never rub together, so there will be no holes.
Except for the fact that the thigh gap trend is ridiculous.
And it’s not just jeans that get holes. I always have to purchase new yoga pants and leggings every six months to a year because I’ve chafed holes into them. And, if you know anything about me, then you know that I adore yoga pants and t-shirts because they’re the most comfortable and practical things in the world.
And maybe it’s the materials that designers use nowadays. In order to profit, manufacturers are using cheaper materials, so it makes sense that even the tiniest of women will experience frayed seams. But is that really okay? Is it really okay for us to not only decide that only a certain type of woman will experience something and make items using materials that will allow companies to make more money?
We say we don’t think so. We say that it’s not fair. But we don’t actually do anything about it. Instead, we go to a different store, buy more of a “different” brand of the same product, and go back again when we get new holes.
Sure, you might not experience getting hole-y pants. And that’s great for you, because you get to save money. But, pleeease don’t act all weird or boast about how it’s never happened around you to a girl who has had this issue before. Chances are, she’s already upset because her jeans or pants have ripped on the inner seams, and she’s not to be held liable for the sass she gives you because of it.
And, if you’ve ever been a victim of hole-y jeans, at least – like my dad always says – they’re connected to God!
Stay classy, Captains!