A Black Friday Rant

*trigger warning for first-world problems*

I had seriously intended to return to this blog with a deep, reflective post about my continuing education, a wrap-up from Pennsylvania, migrating birds, etc. Instead I have been inspired by the time of year to instead write a post about blatant consumerism, how much I want to spend all my hard-earned money on outdoor gear instead of my electric bill, and why I haven't done that (and it's not because I'm mature and responsible).

First of all, I would like to state that I have a terrible weakness for outdoor clothing. If there was nothing holding me back, I would have the equivalent in half an REI store in my house by now. I can barely tolerate the grocery store for 15 minutes, but I will stand for an hour weighing the relative benefits of boot socks or hiking packs or all-weather vests even though I have no intention of buying any of those things. Give me a good pair of waterproof pants and I'll be showering the cashier with credit cards. However in my years of attempting to buy outdoor clothing, both for personal use and for jobs, I have repeatedly hit a frustrating wall.

I speak, of course, of the desolate wasteland of women's outdoor wear. This phenomenon grows more frustrating to me the longer I'm in the natural resource field. Of course, there are small oases in the wasteland, mostly online; stores like REI and Outdoor Research tend to have practical women's outdoor clothing (often with a heftier price tag) and mid-level chains have wider selections online than they often do in stores. But here is a broad generalization of what you find when walking into the women's department of your average outdoor store: Yoga pants. Pink camouflage hoodies. Pink camouflage yoga pants. Decent hiking boots that, inexplicably, are trimmed with pink. Tons and tons of jogging gear. And if you like pink, more power to you; but I don't, and I don't understand the need to have all our lady stuff denoted as such by color. Are companies afraid if they make the shoelaces brown I'll mistake them for men's hiking boots and not buy any? Will my feminine sensibilities be offended by olive green and grey?

Then there's the heartbreaking "almosts"--when you find exactly the article of clothing you need, but it only comes in garish colors that make you look like Barbie got lost in the woods. Check out Exhibit A below. A very typical example of this color issue, this is a nice fly fishing shirt from Gander Mountain.

Here we have the men's version. With his rugged jawline and practical clothing colors,
 this gentleman is ready to hit the streams.

And the women's. No wildlife watching for you, because every animal
saw this pink nightmare coming from a mile away.
Also, no one wears their hair down while fly fishing.

There are 10 color options for men, most of them fairly muted with a couple bright options thrown in if you're feeling adventurous. There are five color options for women, none of them outdoor-appropriate. I wanted to buy this shirt for working in Pennsylvania over the summer because it is genuinely a very nice, high quality, breathable shirt. However I was doing bird research, for which one generally tries to remain inconspicuous. "Limelight yellow" is not a good look for someone looking to fly under the radar.

I'm not trying to pick on Gander Mountain because I do think they have good gear in general, and also this issue with women's clothing occurs across almost all companies. There's no escaping the pink camo. (Who even came up with that idea? What's the point? Are there pink woods? Why do you have yoga pants in the hiking section? Do you realize what a decent patch of greenbriers would do to yoga pants? Why are the shoelaces on all the shoes pink?)

Why?

A lot of the times the best option is to buy men's clothing and improvise. Sometimes this works out all right; for example, I own men's gaiters, simply because there were no women's options available in my price range ($50ish). In all fairness, I had a Cabela's gift card, so I was limited to that store; note that you can go over to Outdoor Research and find a decent pair of women's gaiters (in black, no less) in that price range. So the options may be out there somewhere if you're willing to dig for them. I guess my hope is that one magical Black Friday sometime in the future, I'll be able to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and have a fairly-priced, practical selection of outdoor clothing in women's sizes, and none of it will be pink.