No, straight-sized women! Plus-size clothing should NOT cost more money

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No, straight-sized women! Plus-size clothing should NOT cost more money

I’m not shelling out more cash for being thick

Before I became a member of the the fat girl squad, I was shopping in the regular sizes from every store on the block. However, in my transition from straight size to plus size racks, I noticed the difference in how much more I was spending for bigger clothes.

Lots of straight size women feel plus sizes should pay up

A viral tweet from earlier this week voiced an opinion a huge portion of straight-sized women share: they think plus size clothing should cost more.

It uses the faulty logic that comes up every time plus-sized clothing is mentioned in a conversation, primarily that it costs a manufacturer more to produce a larger-sized garment. And this will come as a toootal shock (lol, I know) but that's just not true.

Hate to break it to you, but we already do pay more for the same garments

I sorted Forever 21 bathing suit prices from low-to-high to find out what the least amount a straight-size girl could pay. The cheapest suits rang in right at $16 each, which is reasonable — conventional beauty queens they don't even have to drop a $20 for a poolside look.

These one-piece swimsuits start around $15

But that's not the case if you have curves.

Plus size one-pieces at Forever 21 start at $23. I already knew about the uneven pricing, I was shocked that my colleagues were shocked when I told them that clothes for curvy women already are more expensive.

Swimsuits were the best example to exemplify the marginalization between straight size and plus size prices because swimwear uses such little material to begin with. Regardless of body size, there's typically a difference of just a few fabric inches. So if a tiny piece of stretchy fabric comes at a 40 percent markup, just imagine what a dress or even a pair of size 20 jeans would cost us fat chicks.

And it's not just happening in the American retail market

Online retailer New Look was recently forced to reevaluate their pricing because shoppers noticed the same pair of green striped trousers were being sold at different prices. It's neither right nor fair for women who are naturally bigger or thinner to pay on a scale for the same item.

But more material means more money, right? WRONG!

A size 2 is bigger than a 0, a size 4 is bigger than a 2, and a size 6 is bigger than a 4 — duh! But the price for all of them is exactly the same. So this argument of “more fabric, more money” that everyone keeps pushing becomes completely null and void…unless you want to start paying by fabric even for variations among the straight-sized collection.

This fat tax is just a tactic to shame bigger people. You might as well affix a label to plus-size garments that say “you are not the everyday woman, so we’re going to charge you more for being different from what society wants."

Think about it like this: What do you pay for shoes?

Picture walking into a shoe store. There are shoes of entirely different sizes piled on top of one another, and they're all priced exactly the same. When it comes to shoe shopping, there's no foot discrimination or pricing scales.

This is a size 6 sandal for $49.99

The fashion industry doesn't discriminate feet whatsoever. I wear a size 10 in shoes and I have very wide feet, but I've never been forced to conform my foot so I could wear a particular stiletto. Despite the fact that more materials are required for shoe designers to cater to different size feet, the price is completely unaffected. Interesting, right?

People have the body type that they do, and we need to accept that. While I'm sure all us fatties could "just lose the weight" to achieve a socially acceptable body, that's a choice — and it's one that takes time in the same way it would to squeeze my size 10 foot into a size 7 Manolo Blahnik.

The way I see it, designers believe every inch of your bodies are for sale

And pricing scales are just another way for designers to nickel and dime customers by what I call PPF: price per fat. And that's fucked up.

Whether retailers want to admit it or not, charging more for plus-size is straight up sizism and discrimination. But what we're not going to do is bend to the will of the predominantly straight-size mold we're constantly pressured to fit into. Sorry, sis!

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