Tuesday, June 24, 2008

ERA For Lab Coats

So Tyler gave me a doctor's white coat as a Christmas present. He is tired of me ruining my clothes every time I paint. I get lulled into this false sense of security that of course a person can paint without getting even the tiniest splatter on their clothes by watching too many redecorating shows on HGTV. I, apparently, can't paint anything, from a small picture frame to an entire wall, without getting paint on my clothes somewhere. I know this about myself, and yet I still feel that changing my entire outfit just to do some quick painting isn't worth it. 15 minutes later I am always thinking how much better it would have been to have just changed my clothes rather than spend the next half hour at the kitchen sink trying to wash paint out of my black capris. Because Tyler knows this about me, he came up with the doctor's coat solution. He figured if I wasn't willing to remove anything, maybe I'd be willing to put something on. I do wear it - sometimes. Usually I put it on over my head - I'm not a fan of needless buttoning and unbuttoning. The other day though I was putting it on and I actually used the buttons for the first time and something struck me. The buttons were on the man's side. Now, I've never quite been sufficiently satisfied with any explanation as to why buttons are placed on alternate sides of men's and women's clothes, but the fact is that they are. I found it -well, a bit offensive actually, that the buttons were on the male side. Perhaps they have doctor's coats in male and female versions and Tyler didn't know this and just got the first one he saw. Somehow I doubt it though. I don't normally consider myself an ardent feminist, but sometimes little things do get me riled up, and truthfully this incident did a little bit. They should just replace the buttons with zippers and the issue would be resolved!(Or use Velcro. What would the world do without Velcro? It's only draw back is the noise. My mom used some super strong Velcro on some activity pages she made for my kids to take to church. Let's just say after one Sunday of repeated "Rrriiippp"s followed by searching glances from everyone in the congregation looking for the offenders they were designated "Not For Church Use".)

2 comments:

themayerfamily said...

That is totally a stereotype. I must say that I have been in the hospital this past year a little bit and a good portion were women. Something must be done. Wendy--I think you could make some money off of this one.

Liz the Poet said...

I'm with you, Wendy. To me, it's the little things like this that I find most offensive.

It's like the manufacturer is saying, "Why bother making female coats, the four of them will just make do. It's a man's world!"

Ugh.