Veronica+M’s+OpEd+Article

With money in my wallet and determination in my heart, I waltz into the clothing store. Pop music blares from the speakers, employees fold clothes, and people roam, carrying purchased items. I walk over to a rack of shirts. After perusing the section, I am met with disappointment. All way too big for my small frame. No worries, just move on to the next section. I head over to where the jeans are held. I scour through the different washes. As usual, they have regular, long, and plus size but no short. I don’t even bother looking through the shoe section. Not worth the effort to try to find size 6’s that I know won’t be there.

There is a crime in the fashion world: the crime…of discrimination.

Clothing manufacturers don’t even consider small people when making their clothes. This needs to end, now. While taller brethren can strut around in the latest fashions, us small people are stuck shopping in the children’s section.

Clothing companies such as JC Penny's and Target need to design and produce shirts that fit small people. I really //don’t// feel like wearing a shirt-dress that goes down past my knees. There need to be coats with shorter sleeves. I can’t even say how often I feel like one of those balloon people with the flappy arms flapping away in front of car lots whenever I put on a sweater. And I don’t see myself going into the auto business.

Don’t even get me riled up on jeans. To all clothing companies: how dare you not even put short sizes on the racks. Do you really think a 4’9” person like myself can fit into regulars and longs? They’re as tall as I am! I don’t want to wear pants up to my shoulders. And the shorts that most companies put out? They’re still way too long; plus, they’re always a size 0-6. Companies are discriminating against girls with wider hips. Although most short girls are skinny, there a few, me included, who are curvy. I don’t want to cut off my circulation by putting on jeans with a smaller waist size. Essentially, companies are thinking that every short girl has the same body type, when in reality, //every body is different.//

Shoes. __Shoes__. //Shoes.// Shoes are infuriating to no end. For a long time, I had to shop for my shoes in the kid section, because the adult section never carried my small size. Even brand name shoes like Converse and Vans didn’t carry my size, except for in the children’s section, which looked like sugar high teeny boppers bedazzled the whole place. Us with small feet don’t want to wear light up Sketchers forever. (This is the moment where I applaud Nordstroms, the //only// high fashioned department store that carried fashionable shoes in size 4's, 5's, and 6's. You have my customer service)

Small people: it is time to speak out! We cannot tolerate this discrimination. We need to wear clothes; we can’t let clothing corporations prevent us from purchasing clothes because of our size. We must let top name clothing companies know of our predicament. This giant problem can disappear if we will it so.