Angry Feminist Rant

First off, the Ottawa Senators unveiled their new jerseys yesterday and full pictures of the new threads can be found on Scarlett Ice.

I'm really torn on this one. I don't love it and I don't hate it. I'm glad they kept it simple but the lack of anything else on the body of the jersey gives it a practice jersey feel to it and I don't quite understand the need for the under-arm art. However, I am glad they kept it clean and avoided pointless piping and random colour blocking.

My real gripe however, is seeing this lovely t-shirt that was also on sale at Sensations as part of the new Senators merchandise available. It was taken by my friend Lydia who attended the jersey unveiling event:



Christy from Behind the Jersey also uncovered a similarly themed t-shirt available for the Red Wings fans.

Look, I know a lot of women like pink. I, myself have always disliked the colour but I'm not about to judge and ostracize you if you have a preference to wear it. The thing is, you can't pigeon-hole the female fanbase and say you're catering to their needs when all you offer them in their sizes and cuts are jerseys that completely eliminate the point of offering team merchandise in the first place. What's the point of shelling out for a team's jersey when they're all the same colour?

The whole pink jersey debate aside, I fail to see the logic in placing swirly, sparkly hearts on a t-shirt and think women will be rushing to buy it. Maybe this is an inappropriate generalization, but if you're a female hockey fan you're probably not the type who enjoys wearing pink hearts on a regular basis. If you do, you probably don't like it associated with your favourite hockey team.

Really, I know I shouldn't be surprised since you don't have to take cultural studies courses to realize that most of the media and culture is controlled by middle-aged corporate executives who try to tell you what you should or shouldn't like just so they can fatten their wallet. I'm sure there is a market for these things of men who purchase these shirts for their girlfriends who don't particularly care for hockey themselves but will wear it to make their boyfriends happy when they're being dragged to hockey games.

I don't mean any offense in my ranting. I'm sure there are a lot of passionate and serious female hockey fans who see no problems in this kind of merchandise. However, this type of design hardly screams 'take me seriously'. If you think about it, it shows that the marketing department in fact doesn't take their female fan base seriously because there's a problem when people think that women will only want to buy merchandise that's stereotypically "cutesy" and "girly". It's not the presence of pink hearts and butterflies that attracted us to hockey in the first place, so why would we need to see it on the clothing to get us to buy it?

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