Sometimes I Hate Being a Woman

[lunamoth]

What he said!

"You're right, you're right, I know you're right." (clue: from When Harry Met Sally)

 

[Djamila]

By way Lunamoth, please do PM me your height/weight, hair color, and skin color. I'll start a thread later today and suggest things for you. Without revealing the information you've shared, of course!

It's what I do for a living, after all.

 

[lunamoth]

By way Lunamoth, please do PM me your height/weight, hair color, and skin color. I'll start a thread later today and suggest things for you. Without revealing the information you've shared, of course!

It's what I do for a living, after all.

Oh, now that's an offer I can't refuse. But right now I need to get a million things done to get ready to go out of town tomrrow.

Thank you!
luna

 

[Guitar's Cry]

He he, actually I do cut my husband's hair and I will be happy to cut yours if you don't mind coming to Colorado and don't mind having a hair cut that looks just like my husband's.

But seriously, I know guys can also have a hard time finding someone to cut their hair. My hub just does not have all that much to worry about anymore.

That'd be cool. I'd love to see Colorado! Unfortunately, I don't think any trips like that are possible as of yet...

I wonder if Gentoo would cut my hair...

 

[Gentoo]

That'd be cool. I'd love to see Colorado! Unfortunately, I don't think any trips like that are possible as of yet...

I wonder if Gentoo would cut my hair...

I'd end up cutting you... and well, you know how that scalp bleeds like there's no tomorrow...... Better leave that mass to a professional At least afterwards, you won't look like a long-haired hippy, if I did it, you'd be extremely lucky to have it all one length

 

[Mavrikmind]

I have it extremely simple. For one, I shave my head with electric clippers. Secondly as far as clothing goes, flip flops, carhart shorts and any type of surf t-shirt or any of Guy Harvey t-shirts. I do have a couple of nice suits in case I need them

 

[lizskid]

I cut my son's hair, and used to cut my mother's...very fine and thin, we cut it very short and it just looked like more hair but cute and casual. I used to cut my own, I have much thick hair and it hid the nightmare I left in the back, since I couldn't adequately see it. Now, I am very picky about my hair, and used to spend about 100 a month, then decided to stop driving to the next state and get it done faily locally. Now it's about 50 every 6 weeks, since I have to deal with color and highlights now. Bad hair can wreck your day from the first thing to the end, and that is the one time it seems to grow slowly!!!


Clothing? I gave up on that a long time ago. I have certain things I'll buy and that's about it.

Shoes, love Clarks, Merrills (can't wear too much in the way of pumps or the like due to heel spur)...can't wear women's tennies because they are normally not wide enough. But, since those are pretty unisex, it works out.

 

[Booko]

OK, this is something of a rant... but...

I sympathize with your urge to rant. :yes:

[quote[Sometimes I really hate being a woman, and one of those times is when I have to find someone new to cut my hair.[/quote]

You have put your finger on exactly why my shadow has never crossed the door of a hair salon and why I look like a reject from the 60s, with straight hair that goes down to my waist. My husband cuts my hair. I cut everyone else's. I hate salons.

And yes, I'm afraid to put myself at the mercy of hair stylists. I had enough of that when I was a kid, and they always made me look really stupid.

I like to have my hair cut short, but it needs to be a precision cut because my hair is very fine.

Mine used to be baby fine, but one of the advantages of menopause is my hair got coarser (i.e. NORMAL) and has developed a slight wave to it. You might get lucky this way too.

Yesterday I went to a new place. I could tell we were in trouble right away. But this is the worst cut I've had in a long time, the stylist cut one side of my bangs way too short so there a huge gap in front, and then cut the top too short so it sticks up!!@!

*sigh* I see what you mean. Well, here is some consolation you can feel free to tuna whack me for. :tuna: New Year's Eve is around the corner, and you can always use that as an excuse to wear a lampshade and no one will notice. God, I hate salons....

The other time I hate being a woman is when shopping for clothes. I go past the men's department and see all the pants and shirts and ties neatly laid out and easy to find, colors and styles all are similar and coordinated...then I get to the women's department and I feel like I've entered the maze of the Minatour.

And the men's clothes are timeless styles and made well, while ours fall apart after you wear them a few times, or you have to sew the buttons on before you even wear them, and then next year they look so...last year. Blech.

It's not like I have a hard to find size or anything, but even in the best department stores (OK, except maybe Nordstrom's which I don't dare enter) the women's clothes are all over the place with styles and colors. If all I want is a nice pair of black pants and a blouse, I have to go through almost all of the racks to find these simple items.

Oh no...Nordstrom's prides itself on customer service, and my theory is, if they want to make it difficult to find basic stuff, they can go bring it to me. bwa ha ha!

I quickly flee to the jeans and t-shirts section after finally fiding the same classic black pants and white sweater combination. Heaven forbid I ever had a job I actually had to dress for...jeans were great in the lab.

My theory is, as a garden designer I can keep wearing the same stuff I wore in lab, minus the acid stained holey lab coat.

And, last but not least, I hate women's shoes. I know, I know, the horror! The blasphemy! Djamilia and Zombieharlot and swooning as I type. But seriously, the styles are ugly/freakish and I really wonder if the fashion industry is playing some kind of elaborate and expensive joke on us.

They are playing a joke on us.

Who in their right mind would make those extended-pointy-toe styles in a size TEN???

Yeah, and if it doesn't have one of those toes, then is has spikey heels (uh...not an option since I smashed a toe years ago), or it looks like something you'd either wear with slacks or something our grandmas would've worn. aaargh!

Shoe shopping is only fun if you're a size 7 or less.

 

[Tigress]

I totally understand where you're coming from. Especially about the shoes. It's hard finding a nice pair of dressy shoes that aren't don't have elevated heels. I can't walk in high heels, so this irritates me to no end. And like you, I have fine hair, so it has to be cut with certain precision. Luckily for me, I haven't had any really bad cuts, but they do often 'over-poofify' my hair in trying to make it look a bit thicker. :cover: Thankfully it dies down a bit once I walk outside.

 

[Booko]

I know it's a conspiracy on the part of department stores to make us have to look through every single article of clothing they have to find the one or two items worth buying.

Sometimes I actually like the adventure of finding something worthwhile. It's like hunting, but uh...less messy.

Other times, well, I've made my own basics and accessorize from there. I guess all that time I spend with the theater folks in the Costume Shop was worthwhile after all. And besides, if I design and sew my own, I get pockets in my clothes. Whee!

My clothes just have to have good lines that suit my shape. My jewelry is mostly unique art pieces -- they make all the fashion statements needed.

Purses -- I hate purses. They seem designed to make women's necessary things like keys and money more easily stolen.

You know, men have dress shoes that are great for work or for going out in the evening, same for clothes.

Yeah, men can get by easily with 2-3 pairs of shoes. One pair dress shoes, tennis shoes, and sandals (optional).

For women's shoes you get one pair for one outfit for one specific occasion that comes up maybe once a year, and then the whole outfit is out of style.

No, I refuse to do that. I have closed toe black dress shoes for winter. They go with anything. Sometimes I tart them up with shoe clips, but that's all. I have a pair of white and a pair of black dress sandals for warm weather. I have a pair of dress boots for colder weather. One pair tennis shoes, but that's for digging. I wear Land's End summer mocs for casual. I have a pair of casual sandals. That takes me anywhere I need to go.

Some of my shoes I've had for about 2 decades, and they look in style, but not *faddish*. Your basic black pump is always in style.

Maybe I'm cheap but I hate spending hundreds of dollars for one ensemble that I'll wear just once or twice.

No, you just don't like the waste, and neither do I.

My solution is to have suits in good neutrals with timeless cuts, and skirts with lines that are timeless as well.

I don't mind going crazy with shirts and blouses, if I must.

I'd rather keep the clothing palette clean lined and not busy in the pattern department, or the jewelry disappears.

Um...amethysts! Yay!

 

[Booko]

So shopping is still frustrating, you have to go from store to store to put together simple outfits (more than two items), but once you're in the store it's not as hard. You should try visiting small, private-owned boutiques in the downtown district of your hometown.

I wish! Those stores can't stay in business when the big box and national-level retailers move in with their cut-rate Chinese slave labour prices. Sorry, but cheap always trumps quality and style with a lot of Americans. (Just look at our food. :faint

The best places to find really nifty clothes in Atlanta is a place called Little Five Points, where there are some stores that sell vintage clothes. They have just beautiful stuff, especially Stefan's.

I like shoe shopping, it's probably the most enjoyable form of shopping for me. Shoes generally fit. It's all about style, but the fit is almost always good. That gives you a lot of freedom without as much frustration - and makes it fun.

Some fashion idiot decided a few years ago that brown was the new black, so there's a lot of brown in clothes, and mostly brown in shoes.

I hate brown. My mother painted her entire house with a pallete of brown and beige. I look dead in brown. Brown is for oak leaves in winter. Brown is for dirt. Brown is for bears. blech.

If I could sew my own shoes -- I would.

 

[Noirhaired]

Luna, the crazist part about your OP is that men don't care about how a woman's shoes or hair or dress look. Women dress-up essentially for other women. Women make interpretations and preceptions based on appareal much more quickly and often than men. To me and most other guys you would be the same woman if you wore tennis shoes and some jeans or if you an expensive skirt and shoes that hurt your feet.

That is so full of crap. Men do care about how women look-- after all, why do women need to be "hot" for a guy to find them attractive? have you honestly ever met a man who didn't care that a woman was wearing baggy, shapeless clothes,, had unkempt hair and wore no makeup? Men do not find that attractive, sorry....maybe if you're an ugly guy yeah but not a good-looking one.

 

[Hope]

Shoe shopping is only fun if you're a size 7 or less.

I beg to differ!! Not in my experience. Maybe if you're a size 7 it'd be fun----7s are everywhere---but definitely not if you wear 6 or smaller, as I do. Depending on the shoe, I wear between a size 5 and a half to a 6. And, by golly, do I often get frustrated at not finding shoes in my sizes. It's really depressing. I think the average American women wears a 7 to an 8. So anything bigger or smaller is sold in smaller quantities. The best luck I've ever had with shoes was in Brazil, where I was told the average woman wore between a 5 to a 6. I had no problem at all finding shoes there that fit me (another reason I love Brazil!). My sister-in-law has even smaller feet than I do---she wears a 5---and sometimes she is forced to look for shoes in girls sizes. So we "small-feet women" have a hard time too!!

As far as shopping goes----while I like stylish clothes, and I like looking nice, I'm not a slave to fashion trends. I'm not gonna buy certain clothes or shoes just because they're suddenly the "in" thing. If they're "in", and I think they're cute, and they flatter my figure, then I'll get them. Otherwise, why bother? I am my own person, I know what looks good on me (usually!)----I don't need to conform to some designer's current whim, or wear something just because every other female out there is wearing it. Right now, I think a lot of the "trendy" stuff out there is flat-out ugly. It doesn't fit my own personal sense of style, therefore I'm not bothered with it.

Sometimes I do think being a woman can be a pain, with the clothes, makeup, etc. But, at the end of the day, I'm still pretty happy God made me female and not male.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

I beg to differ!! Not in my experience. Maybe if you're a size 7 it'd be fun----7s are everywhere---but definitely not if you wear 6 or smaller, as I do. Depending on the shoe, I wear between a size 5 and a half to a 6. And, by golly, do I often get frustrated at not finding shoes in my sizes. It's really depressing. I think the average American women wears a 7 to an 8. So anything bigger or smaller is sold in smaller quantities. The best luck I've ever had with shoes was in Brazil, where I was told the average woman wore between a 5 to a 6. I had no problem at all finding shoes there that fit me (another reason I love Brazil!). My sister-in-law has even smaller feet than I do---she wears a 5---and sometimes she is forced to look for shoes in girls sizes. So we "small-feet women" have a hard time too!!

As far as shopping goes----while I like stylish clothes, and I like looking nice, I'm not a slave to fashion trends. I'm not gonna buy certain clothes or shoes just because they're suddenly the "in" thing. If they're "in", and I think they're cute, and they flatter my figure, then I'll get them. Otherwise, why bother? I am my own person, I know what looks good on me (usually!)----I don't need to conform to some designer's current whim, or wear something just because every other female out there is wearing it. Right now, I think a lot of the "trendy" stuff out there is flat-out ugly. It doesn't fit my own personal sense of style, therefore I'm not bothered with it.

Sometimes I do think being a woman can be a pain, with the clothes, makeup, etc. But, at the end of the day, I'm still pretty happy God made me female and not male.

Couldn't say it better myself, Hope. I wear a size 5, and shoe-shopping, as much as I love it, is certainly a real adventure.



The good news is that the tween market here in the U.S. is that much more sophisticated now with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen marketing their clothing line and shoe line for 12-year-olds.............and don't forget Hilary Duff's "Stuff"...........I always do without the butterfly-embroidered jeans, but I've found some nice looking shoes that have impressed me more often than not.



I usually go to Baker's though, for most of my shoes that seem more "Sex in the City"-looking. I think that's the best bang for your buck. And they usually have shoes in the back in my size in most of their stock.



Peace,
Mystic

 

[Shadow Wolf]

For the hair, try a chain hair cutting place. I went to a great clips when my old boss demanded that I get my hair cut or get fired. They did a good job, allthough I'm still upset over my hair being cut 3 1/2 inches, and isn't quite as long as it was.

For the style of clothes/shoes, find a style you like, and just stick with that. I have worn the same exact type of shoes for years, everywhere I go, and allthough they are running/all terrain shoes, no one complains about them not being "formal enough." And with a style of clothes you like, you'll eventually remember exactly where to find them.

 

[Booko]

For the style of clothes/shoes, find a style you like, and just stick with that. I have worn the same exact type of shoes for years, everywhere I go, and allthough they are running/all terrain shoes, no one complains about them not being "formal enough." And with a style of clothes you like, you'll eventually remember exactly where to find them.

The think is, Luke, that none of this works for women. We can't just stick with a style of shoe, because it soon looks outmoded. And no, running shoes with a skirt look dorky, though they may look just fine with Dockers.

And finding a style of clothes and keeping with it doesn't work either. If I find something, I might be able to find it again the next year. If I'm lucky, it will still be in a color that's part of my wardrobe.

An example -- this year I was looking for a long-sleeved, v-neck not-too-heavy cotton knit shirt. I could find them easily for the last 2 years.

Well some idiot in the fashion industry decided all us wimmen should take up "layering" and so the v-neck is sooo low that you have to wear another shirt or camisole under it.

I'm a middle-aged woman living in Georgia. I need another layer of anything like hell needs a fireplace.

WHAT were they thinking???

It this some evil conspiracy between the fashion industry and deodorant manufacturers???

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The think is, Luke, that none of this works for women. We can't just stick with a style of shoe, because it soon looks outmoded. And no, running shoes with a skirt look dorky, though they may look just fine with Dockers.

I didn't say women should wear running shoes with a skirt. I just said I have worn the same style for years, as a suggestion to make it easier.

And finding a style of clothes and keeping with it doesn't work either. If I find something, I might be able to find it again the next year. If I'm lucky, it will still be in a color that's part of my wardrobe.

Go simple. Can't beat a T-shirt and jeans. I also find women wearing casual clothes like that more atractive.
*Wonders why women are so complicated with fashion*

 

[lunamoth]

Update (as I know you have all been waiting with bated breath on my haircut situation): today I went into a place called Fantastic Sam's and got a $12.95 plus tip haircut and it is much better than the last cut I got for $45 plus tip.

I had to wait until the very bad cut I got last time had grown out a little, and in the meanwhile I resorted to cutting it myself as it was freakishly long on the sides.

The young woman who cut my hair today seemed fairly inexperienced, but she luckily she hit upon some language that made sense to me ("like a modified wedge?") and away she went. So now I know, if my haircuts are going to be hit or miss anyway I can at least save myself about $35 dollars per month and get the same or better results.

 

[SPQR]

Shave your hair all off. You'll seem like a rebel and some men will like you more for it.

Hell, I didn't cut my hair for an entire year once. I told one of my friends that happens to be a girl that I planned to cut it, and she almost screamed at me. Everyone else said my hair looked like crap but she liked it; to each his own.

Then again, I'm male. Must be different for you womenfolk.

 

[lunamoth]

Shave your hair all off. You'll seem like a rebel and some men will like you more for it.

Hell, I didn't cut my hair for an entire year once. I told one of my friends that happens to be a girl that I planned to cut it, and she almost screamed at me. Everyone else said my hair looked like crap but she liked it; to each his own.

Then again, I'm male. Must be different for you womenfolk.

I don't mind being a rebel but I think you need to be a really stunning-looking woman to pull off the shaved head look.