Stumping on the catwalk

I realize I usually use this space to address all things political, so my other passion–fashion–may seem a bit out of place.

But if you think politics and fashion have nothing in common, you're probably a man–who gets to buy much of his attire by precise suiting dimensions and have it tailored for free, and enjoys a range of inseams and versatile cuts wherever he treads. The world of women's clothing is all about constant battles, power plays, petty sniping and, everyone's favorite, tawdry mudslinging.

Take the recent controversy over major department stores attempting to drop their "petite" departments, then reneging after the shrill outcry from incensed petites with penchants for boxy separates that sounded from across the land.

It simply wasn't fair, they argued–the average American woman is 5'4" and a size 14. Those under 5'4" simply NEEDED departments of clothing specially constructed to their proportions, they cried, and stores obliged.

Well, I've got news for you, ladies of smaller stature–pants can be hemmed and sleeves can be shortened, increasingly in-store. Try being 5'9" and a size 2. We don't get special departments in actual, physical stores where we can go try things on our elongated frames–we get to go online for limited selections from a handful of boring retailers who carry "tall" sizes, who seem to think we're all big-boned to boot.

If it makes you feel any better, "real women," though we tall, thin presumably therefore "fake" women may get all the pages in fashion magazines and get told on the street that we look like supermodels and it was a joy to merely walk past us (true story), we can't find clothing that fits us off the rack to save our freaking lives.

And you do not know true shopping frustration until you order a drop-dead gorgeous, expensive dress you've been drooling over for months, only to slip it on and discover it's cut for someone six inches shorter than you, with its rear hip darts bulging out at your lower back and its waist an inch under your chest.

Then, to add insult to injury, you get home from exercising to maintain your svelte figure looking to relax with your new issue of Vogue containing the eagerly awaited fall fashion preview, when after a few page turns your eyes are assaulted with one of those blasted Dove ads featuring a woefully underclothed "real" (read: chubby and ordinary looking) woman, rather ironically sporting bleached hair and hawking tan-in-a-bottle.

Now, I'm sorry if it makes me a traitor to my gender, but I don't want to see lumpy short chicks in their underwear proudly displaying their complexion imperfections when I'm flipping through my goddamn Vogue–it's supposed to be my glossy aesthetic reprieve from the lumpy short chicks who proliferate everywhere else.

You already have the retail clothing market indulging your bulges and too many of you already hog all the tall men–is it really asking so much that you keep your munchkin yet somehow more authentic selves out of my decadent fashion publications?

But, I suppose, woe is the scrawny Amazon. I guess I'll just have to console myself with the fact that, even in clothing that doesn't fit perfectly, I still look better than many of you "real" women.

And that, when your heads are turned, your boyfriends like to stare at me while they're holding your pudgy hands.