Stories about offensive T-shirts getting yanked from store shelves are practically a dime a dozen these days. Usually, it's thanks to some jerky or sexist phrase printed on its front that was intended to be funny but instead fell flat. This week, though, Macy's is at the center of the heat — for carrying offensive dinner plates, of all things.
Wondering how a dinner plate could be "offensive"? Honestly, I was too, until I laid eyes on them -- and then WOAH boy.
The plates, which are made by a brand called Pourtions, first caught public attention over the weekend, when writer Alie Ward of the podcast Ologies tweeted out a photo of two of them.
"How can I get these banned in all 50 states" Ward asked in her tweet, which has since been shared more than 3,000 times.
Of the two plates shown, both feature several circles, which seem to suggest "acceptable" and "nonacceptable" portion sizes.
Alongside each circle is a different phrase, which gets a little more — how shall I put this? — sassy as the circles (and presumably the food portions) grow.
On one plate, the smallest food portion is labeled "skinny jeans," whereas the middle one is labeled "regular jeans." But if you choose to fill your plate up a little more? Well then, you're officially in "mom jeans" territory.
A quick browse through the Pourtions website also shows a plate that says "al dente" by the smaller portion size and "al don'te" by the larger one — which honestly might as well say, "Slow down there, fatass," because that's exactly the message I got when looking at it.
The brand's website says the plates provide "helpful -- and hilarious -- visual cues” meant to “spice up your dinner table, and your conversation.”
… Um, and make you feel hard-core judged while you're eating? I mean — COME ON, PEOPLE!
Ward's tweet Sunday immediately drew a ton of comments from people who were similarly outraged.
"Oh yay, commodified starvation," tweeted one user. "Very healthy. Such jokes."
"Macy’s just casually promoting eating disorders and body shaming," wrote another. "MOM JEANS FOREVER."
To its credit, Macy's responded swiftly -- not just to Ward's tweet but also to the larger issue.
That same day, a Macy's representative tweeted back at Ward, saying "we appreciate you sharing this with us and agree that we missed the mark on this product." What's more, the tweet confirmed that the plates would be removed from all Macy's locations, where it is being sold in the retailer's STORY pop-up shop.
Pretty incredible response, right? Well apparently, not everyone feels the move was warranted.
In the hours since, Ward has been hit with a bevy of negative comments from Twitter users who think she should lighten up.
And let's just say, there was a certain theme to all of the comments that was hard to ignore.
"If you don't like them, don't buy them," tweeted one man. "The world doesn't revolve around you. Sit down."
"Can we ban you from all continents?" wrote another.
"That's funny," added another man. "Does nobody have a sense of humor anymore?"
And if those comments didn't irk you enough, how about this one — which again, it bears repeating, was written by a man: "After reading the comments, I realize there are a lot of single cat owners that can't control their food intake."
AHEM.
Therein lies the problem with this line of joking in general, which perpetuates size and food shaming and once again implies that a woman's personal value is somehow directly tied to her jeans size.
Sure, there are a lot of things people could lighten up about these days. But food and size shaming? That's not one of them. If anything, we need to be doing more work on this front — so kudos to Macy's for recognizing a problem and solving it fast.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go rage-eat something.
And you better believe I'm gonna make it a big 'ole "mom jeans" portion. Just for the hell of it.
