Following on from my last post, I went to buy some boxing gloves today for fear of having to use those awful smelly ones at the Academy again this Saturday. Bumbling into Jim Kidd Sports, Rebel Sports and A-Mart All Sports, I was excited and confused by the myriad of red boxing gloves there was... bag gloves, competition gloves, sparring gloves, open mitts, you name it!
Anyways, in the corner of my eye I managed to spot what was unreservedly LADIES GLOVES. All bright
pastel pinks, pastel purples and baby blues.I asked the Sales Assistant whether I could get plain red ladies gloves, or if small normal gloves would be okay. He looked at my hands and told me I needed the ladies ones and no, they were all pastels.
Heartbroken, I went into the next shop.. and then the next.. and then the next.. only to be confronted by scores of pastels and only pastels.
Now, I'm all for colours and I especially love pastels, but in a sport like kickboxing, I just wanted plain red ones. It's enough that ladies have their own class, and that they're often excluded from many sports because of a perception of weakness, but do we really need to further distinguish ourselves by our pastel boxing gloves??? I'm appalled though by the stereotyping that is out there when it comes to simple things like colours. When it's mother's day, all you ever see is pink phones, pink toasters, pink pink pink. Granted, some of it is pink because it is for breast cancer, but the majority of the time, it's pink just because it's female. Why don't they offer the choice of pastels, AND normal colours. Why must it be one or the other??
