Just traipsing through TJMaxx and I see hundreds of racks of all kinds of small sizes, and 2 small racks of 16-3x Maybe 10 feet of clothing. I asked the mgr to ask mgmnt to stock more larger sizes and here is the comment, Division Mgr said "if they sell more, they will get more large sizes to sell". Well, the caveat is IF they had more, they could sell more. Ridiculous.

The place is packed with smaller sizes. Didn't the message get to them that the average size in USA is 14/16? AVERAGE.

Why is it the designer/manufacturer of said larger sizes, think that we need larger Arm HOles, we need larger sleeves-usually.

Also, why are they all so damn ugly, the larger the size, the uglier the print.

Other gripe is that in Macy's Plus size as well as other stores, "THEY" stock primarily, casual shirts,shorts, pants, sweat suits, jogging junk, you name it, but to find a business attire, or dressy style, FUGGETABOUTIT.

Skinny designers, I hope you 'eat a hamburger'.

I can't even find a decent pair of heels that fit, not to mention a rhinestone cat top... while it is true that most clothing is geared toward slender women, men from slim to fat have only a small fraction of commercial clothing options to express themselves... when's the last time you saw a simple men's skirt at Target (not a "kilt")? We don't even have interesting basics. And I'm not referring to crossdressing (which is fine to do), but rather the pathetic selection of clothes cut specifically for men.

...you may not want to hear it from me, a sometimes fierce (some might say, onbnoxious) critic of feminism, but I think plus size women are sexy. Women are supposed to have curves, dammit. The anorexic ideal is a perversion of God's plan and I'm still against it. That's how much I like plus-sized women.

>"Men of every size have lots of options..."

Spoken like a true feminist. We all know how EVERY fashion show struts 99% guy models and one or 2 female "walking clothes hangers." There are TONS of male supermodels, too, like, er, uh....

>"women...are much harder to fit than men are and arguably need tailoring more than they do."

So send your bills to Yaweh.

> "it takes a pretty tough lady not to feel demoralized when she's wearing ugly clothes..."

Gawd. Who said feminists are over-indulged pampered babies? Think how inspired male combat grunts must be sashaying around in dirt-covered, water-logged, drab UNIFORMS.

>" some of the unkind comments here."

You mean the routine male-bashing that gets cheered?

The economy might be tanking, war breaking out all over, but leave it to the feminist section of Salon to deal with and delve into the REALLY important issues of the day. Remind us again how stupid men are who spend time pimping their rides.

I am old enough to actually remember the 80s as reality and not just some sort of retro cool, as I imagine Beth Ditto thinks of it. And I agree with the posters here who say that EVERYONE was wearing that slouchy big sweater (hanging off one shoulder) and leggings look. It was a legacy from the movie "Flashdance", I believe. And frankly, it does not look good on anyone who isn't a size 2, LONG LEGGED, very fit dancer -- it is hideously unflattering.

But on the other hand, it is also loose and stretchy (those leggings). So it could accommodate that tiny dancer and her 200 lb friend. In fact, heavyset women clung to this style long, well into the 90s, long after slimmer women had abandoned it. Though I really don't know if it will come back, Ditto or not.

In the last forty years, we have witnessed a somewhat unusual re-occurring fashion motif, of revisting fashions from the past, usually about 30 years later. When I was in junior high (late 60s), there was a BIG revival of the "thirties look", the Bonnie and Clyde thing. My mother and grandmother were horrified anyone would to wear those ghastly old styles. But I thought they were cool! After all, they were so different than the "mod" styles of the 60s that they seemed both quaint and "new".

I imagine it feels just like that to someone as young as Ms. Ditto -- to wear something so quaint and out of style and unfamiliar that to YOU, it seems fresh. And naturally to Kate Harding, who I guess must be in her mid to late 30s, it's not "new" at all, but a nasty flashback to an awkward unflattering era she'd rather forget.

I can tell you, Kate, that there hasn't been any kindness to fat women since maybe the Italian Renaissance, and since about the mid nineteenth century (when industrialization and mass production got started), we have seen the decline and virtual disappearance of custom hand-made clothing. If you were a fat woman in 1850 or before, you could wear anything you liked, including the newest styles...because you had to make it yourself, or the local dressmaker did. There were no sizes, and no concept of being a "2" or a "20". A skilled dressmaker could (and can still, if you can find or afford one) subtly make any style flattering.

Of course, we really can't make our own clothing anymore, even for the tiny number of people who can actually sew. It's partly what someone said about the lack of access to quality fabrics (unless you live in the NYC garment district), and partly because we have unusual modern needs for clothing that is very hard to sew -- performance gear, swim suits, exercise clothing, complex winter coats etc. -- and partly because we can no longer make do with just 3-4 outfits like ordinary people did in the past (in fact, most people were fortunate to have ONE decent set of clothes). You could not hold down a decent job today if you wore the same clothing day after day. We also have incredibly high expectations of being able to launder things constantly; no vintage garment could ever stand up to that.

But back to the trauma of being plus-sized: I believe the problem is NOT having enough clothes for heavyset women. There has never been more of a selection of specialty stores, or wide size ranges in mass market stores (Walmart, Target, etc.), and most of the established designers today have plus lines.

I think the problem is (and was even in the 80s) how fat women FEEL about their bodies and hence, the clothes they package their bodies in. The vast majority of fat women absolutely hate being fat and despise their looks; they are always "just about" to start on a "big diet" which will shrink them down to an ideal size. Therefore, why pay for good quality clothes? They will just get discarded when you "lose the weight".

Most heavyset women I know have several entire wardrobes, in different sizes from wistful pieces saved from 20 years ago (in the hopes that a 40 year old will attain the body she had at 18) to nasty "fat clothes" -- shapeless floral tops and stretch pants in navy, black and brown. Oh they have plenty of actual clothing -- Americans own incredibly vast amounts of clothing by historical standards -- but they are "hate clothes"...things you detest but buy because they are all that fits, or they "cover you up" or they are "OK until I lose the weight".

People who don't love themselves, don't bother to buy clothes they love (let alone SEW them) and don't/won't spend the kind of money required to buy beautiful things of quality. Our culture teaches women, even women of fairly normal size, to constantly critique their bodies, find the tiniest flaws and then hate on themselves. A lifetime of doing this is incalculably exhausting and demoralizing.

And tunics with rhinestones cats on them are honestly the very least of the problem.