Shopping for clothes seems like such a simple, possibly even enjoyable, thing for most people to do. I've always thought so, too, until the last few times that I've gone from store to store to store without finding a single thing. I'm not a particularly super-skinny girl, and not too particularly girly, either, meaning I favor comfort and sturdiness of clothes over what's in fashion at any particular moment. When I go into the Gap, my eye immediately drifts over to the men's section where all of the clothes look very comfortable and broken in, and slightly loose and baggy without being huge. The women's section, however, includes jeans which are tight and form-fitting, skirts which are short and form-fitting, and T-shirts that would fit a 4-year-old, they're so tiny.

All I want is a pair of shorts that aren't short-shorts. Evidently, that's too much to ask, because hanger after hanger is filled with shorts so short, they barely cover my butt. I want long shorts like the boys! I want my cargo pants to be a little baggy, not cling to my hips and ass so I have to suck in my stomach all day! I want T-shirts that aren't skin-tight! Can we do away with this Baby-Tee thing already? Who buys those things? I swear, they look like they could fit a Cabbage Patch doll, and not only that, they're like $30 each! And speaking of prices, why are simple flannel-type shirts $48 – $54 apiece? I refuse to pay this kind of money for something that may fall apart in the wash two months from now. I once got a gift certificate for Ann Taylor, the fancy-schmancy women's store. After finally finding something in my size (a long black skirt&#41 I used $80 of my $100 gift certificate and happily took it home. A couple of wearings later it ripped right down the back, and I've hardly ever worn it since, even though I tried to sew the skirt back together. That's why I'd rather shop at Old Navy. If I only pay $20 for something, I don't mind as much if it rips or shrinks or gets a stain on it as I would if I spend $75, or even $50 on it. Old Navy men's department, here I come!

I have to say that it's horrible that we as Americans put multiculturalism over traditions. Don't get me wrong, I believe in multiculturalism. I think that every culture's stories have the right, and responsibility, to be heard. However, it galls me that we take some of our most cherished stories and either distort or ignore them in order to help the esteems of other cultures. Case in point: Disney's new Cinderella. During the Emmy awards tonight, Brandy sang a song from Disney's new version of Cinderella, and during the song, they cut away to some scenes from the production.
Cinderella is a folk story from Central Europe. It is a great, historically set story in a land that in the time it was written, was almost 100% caucasian. There was no Asian Prince (I think the guy on the clip was Asian, he might have been Latino, it was a fast, blurry shot) and though you might think that this is racist, Cinderella, as written, was white. Of course, ripping the story to shreds in order to include every culture in the world is considered an endeavor that is worth merit. But if we re-told Mulan with the main character being a WASP, it would be considered racially insensitive. I guess people of the born into the cultural majority in the United States don't need pride anymore.
In a number of school systems in our great land of the free Samuel Clemens' seminal work: Tom Sawyer is banned because it used the word "nigger." Yes, we all know that in the 1990s, the term "nigger" is offensive, but in Clemens' day, it was the appropriate word. Do we keep our children from reading one of the classic pieces of American literature because of a word? Let the teachers do their job and teach the kids why the word was used… but don't put a perceived self esteem issue above education.

If you want to build self esteem in children of other races, tell their culture's stories. Have children read the classic works of all cultures. Produce movies based on these stories. But, please stop destroying the classic European stories to make them more accessible to other cultures, just because it's politically in vogue these days.