Why women's gear sucks

ARGHHH tooo many ladies have been in my store and HAVE to have ladies boots. This is my rant.

respond if you want to. (or post a link on skidiva and let me know too)


Why women's gear sucks

The whole idea of woman's gear is a crock. Women don't need different gear, specially made for them. All people do. Yes ladies move differently, and are shaped differently then guys, but all women are not the same (nor are all men, all skis, all beers, or all cars) Every person needs gear that works tor them.

If a person skis fast, aggressively,and in powder then they need a long, fat, stiff ski, Great, so go get one. Does that person ski better with the bindings mounted forward? Fine, then get your ski tech to mount the skis that way. Is that ski then a "ladies" ski as it is mounted forward of the "normal" mounting point? Nope, it is just a long, fat ski that is mounted ahead of the center. The ski doesn't know, or care, if you are a guy or a gal. A few companies are catching on to this and making the same ski in different flexes. (PM gear and the Bro model) They don't have a ladies or a mens flex, just a soft and a stiff, (and extra soft and extra stiff if you ask
nice) Anyone can ski them, you can get the skis mounted forwards or back of center, and put what every type or brand of binding you want on them. The skis just don't care.

A beginner skier, with a narrow foot, that is non aggressive will need a soft, narrow boot. That particular boot might marketed as a "ladies" boot, might be a "Jr. boot" or might be called a beginner boot but, why can't an intermediate adult man use that boot if it fits him? Why not label that boot as a "soft and narrow" boot ? People with large calf's need boots that fit lower and larger on the leg, people with a limited range of motion in the ankle need a boot that is stiffer, people that are lighter and less aggressive need a softer boot. So buy a boot that is the right size for you, is the right
flex, and the right shape too, and then get you local boot fitter to help make the boot right for you.

If you have small hands then you need a pole and glove that are smaller too. So buy a ski pole that has a smaller grip, and get a XS glove. Heck save some money and buy a kids glove. If you want pink ski pole with sparkles then go get one. It doesn't mater if you are a guy or a gal. Get the gear that you like.

Look at the top skiers in the world. No race boots or skis are marked ladies or mens. Some are stiffer, some are softer, some are better for SL and some are better for SG (and the equipment is all different too).

Take the best option and then make it better for you. I know a lot of men that will ski better in a softer boot and ladies that should be on longer skis. YOU need to find equipment that works for YOU, not just gear that has a "W" or a "M" on it. I think that ladies stamp mark on equipment is a great starting point for some ladies, but just that, a starting point, for some. But really, why limit your search for the perfect boots or skis by 50% right off the start. People are all shaped differently , and have different needs. Some are tall , some have narrow feet, some like stiffer skis, some have wide hips, some ski SL gates all the time (and we still don't know why?) and some like lime green pok-o-dots on the skis top sheets.. So ignore all the
marketing, and find some ski gear that work for you, not for the person in the lift line behind you, not for your best friend, not for your partner, but great gear, for you.

Sure that sounds like a bit more work, and time, then just buying the lavender boots, or the flowered skis. But with the help of a shop with professional, knowledgeable staff, and lots of good product, and maybe some money spent on demos, you can find the one that works best for you. Don't limit your self to what some sexist corporate Euro decided that you can or can't use, just because of your sex.

I kinda think the ladies gear looks really nice...I keep offering to buy one of those Royal Shaft poles in aniaml or flower print and the new ladies Head skis also very nicely decorated. Surprisingly she does not want them and sticks with some plain Jane silver poles and her metal Volants.

mtlion, Thank you!!
The most popular Women's Skis/Ski Gear that interests the most accomplished women skiers tends to be the ski gear that is designed from the ground up and will smoke any unisex ski of the same category.

Those skis that are in the "pink it and shrink it" category are usually not desirable to the accomplished woman skier.

There are some threads on SkiDiva that have been significant in this regard.
A couple examples:
This one started by me
http://www.theskidiva.com/forums/sho...ma nufacturer

This one started by Altagirl:
http://www.theskidiva.com/forums/sho...ma nufacturer


-Graphix matter to a point, but that is no different than men's desire for skis.
-Mounting point matters to both genders, and you'll find some women don't embrace the forward mount.


The three women's skis I've liked the most have been the Blizzard Eos, Nordica Olympia Firefox, and the Elan Wave Spice.
All three of those are substantial skis and would hold up under any man, and have been reviewed by men who wish they could get them but won't because they are "womens"


A question to this point:
Do you think the reason for the Women's line, besides the Jeannie Thorne influence toward forward mounting, has a lot to do with the idea that most women ski gear purchasers were directed toward the intermediate skis(at best) prior to Women's ski Marketing?
Does the market see a woman buying the expert ski in a womans line which is actually an advanced ski in the unisex line, and feeling better about her purchase, because its an expert ski?

That doesn't work in my way of thinking, nor the thinking of many of the women on SkiDiva, but it is a possibility.

I just looked at my current quiver. Two women's skis and the rest unisex.
hmmmmmmm.

Here's the hole in your argument.

I see it as a problem that many women doesn't look for a good boot for skiing but rather a boot that is good for walking around and a boot that is easy to get into.. Ridiculous!

Agreed.
I'm one of the men who does consider the graphics when I'm looking at skis. Bad graphics wouldn't prevent me from buying a ski, but I am happier when I buy a ski that looks nice. I'm a little old for skis covered by bandits toting machine guns, but my PEs are still my go to ski when conditions aren't known.

However, I'm looking for new skis for my girlfriend. She has some Stockli Laser Cross skis which have a fairly non-descript graphic, but in seeking something wider for her I can't help but wonder if the graphics on women's skis are really what women want. Must women's skis have flowers on them? Do women's park skis need fuzzy little animals toting weapons? (She's a veterinarian, so this concept may work for her.) But do women really like the graphics on the women specific skis?

SOME graphics they like and some they don't. But they definitely pay more attention to it than men, generally
My daughter (14) loves the graphics of some freeride skis despite she never vent off-piste. She even feels sorry that she is a skier, not a snowboarder, just because of the style and fashion and graphics and all that rubbish

First and foremost, the graphix have changed. Gone are the days of flowers and pink bows on womens skis.

Nordica has implemented the Goddess Olympia silhouette, with a classy look.
Volkl has implemented the same type of grphix you would see on the line skis that the women's ski of the same line has. The Aura/Mantra, appeal is an example.
Blizzard has some beautiful, I'll be it plain, graphix on the eos.

Heck, look at my quiver.......the only ski with anything resembling a flower is on the speed magic, and they are subtle, southwestern ish looking.

A true story:

A girl (17 maybe) comes to the shop for skis with her mother. She looks at the skis and says they are all ugly! She will not have ugly skis. After some more looking she finds the Fischer Vision Breezes are not so bad. Then she says she prefers the shorter length. After some advice on what she needs (it's a big girl and the longer skis are the minimum), she still resists and the reason why she wants the shorter ones comes out: she thinks it looks weird having longer skis!!!???? Unbelievable. A good thing she finally gives in under protest and in the end she had workable skis (a little light maybe, but her level was not so high). But she would have chosen totally wrong skis if the print was better. Her last words: 'Mom, now you have to buy me a new ski jacket that fits better with these'.

Disclaimer: this was just a single case, I am not saying most women are like this ofcourse. Luckily

Having said this I am not opposed to womens gear as such. For my small and not-so-strong girlfriend with tiny feet womens gear is just plain essential. Smaller versions of male boots and skis will just not work. The print on her skis is also something she really likes (Cool Thangs 06-07), so that is a nice bonus, however she would never choose a ski just for that.

On the other hand I do understand your frustration. I sell a lot of walking shoes - mountain boots and find the same problems you are saying (as well as even more issues on how they look). On the other hand, that is where you as a salesman/advisor come in. It is your job to explain the differences and come to the right conclusion. In my experience in more than 95% of the cases people can be persuaded. If someone still wants a womans boot (or mans boot, the other way around happens as well) it is their problem, not the industries. The industry may help a little by also making things like boots size 24 with a bit of a male look or slimmer size 28s, but I think with the current collections and some creativity most people can be helped.

Agree with your basic premise. Skis are skis. Boots are boots. And the most important thing is what works for you. Some people seem to be really hung up on the graphics on their skis. If you are skiing on them and not posing with them, looks don't matter much. On an aesthetic level, I do find most skis to be gawd awful hideous and designed with no sense of taste whatsoever.

C'mon. Give the marketing guys SOMETHING to work with.

Agree to a point. But graphics can matter to guys too (I won't buy a ski that plays racist subtexts for the adolescent suburban white thug wannabe, chiefly some K2's and a lot of Atomics.) And frankly, you're overlooking real sex differences in average muscle mass and strength even at the same weight and height. "Women's" skis help many buyers eliminate skis that would be inappropriate anyway.

Trekchick, it's unclear to me how you differentiate a ski designed for women "from the ground up" from a flowery unsex with a different mounting line unless you know a good deal about the design history and materials. Volkl's Aura, for instance, gets strong reviews from most good women skiers, but it's just a Mantra with a feminized topsheet, a lighter mix of woods in its core and a slightly different mount point. Not a "ground up" redesign. Alternatively, the older unisex Sollie Fury was a great ski for many women because of its design and weight. So how does the average buyer know ahead of time?

I like the way Skipressworld does it; their women's section has a mix of women-specific skis and unisex models that their female reviewers liked. So the same page can have a iM88 and a feathery Sollie.

Maybe its time we had a wider range of weights and flexes within each model to accommodate the real distribution of body size and strength out there. Lighter women and heavier men tend to be limited to way fewer choices than "average" size people, whoever they are.

Aw bunk. Take the hottest, biggest *ick swinging ski on the market, then change the production topsheet to pink with flowers and I guarantee you it won't be the hottest *ick swinging ski on the market anymore.

Despite what we've all been lead to believe, there is no such thing as a women's specific ski. There are skis that are esthetically deigned to appeal to specific social-psychologically bred "tastes" and technically manufactured to the anticipated physical characteristics of the targeted customer.

The company knows who they are targeting - the ski doesn't. All depends on the numbers, and my guess is that there isn't a big enough market for accomplished female skiers/riders to warrant the investment in abundant segmentation. Mntlion's strategy of unisex with varying characteristics of the same basic platform is more efficient from a cost to manufacture perspective (to a degree), but takes a lot of the "flash" out of the marketing. In the end, a bell curve distribution takes shape and the low sellers at each end would get whacked out just like they are now.

From my experience in a shop, in a different but not unsimilar area, I do have to conclude that women in general pay more attention to looks than man do. On the other hand, it is socially much more acceptable for a woman to have mens gear than it is for a man to have obvious womans gear. I cannot imagine selling a man something with pink flowers, never! A woman may decide not to like the looks but still go for it. So in the end it probably evens out (especially because men ofcourse do like cool namens and interesting abbrevations, admit it ).

I read a market study years ago that claimed 70% of women buy skis based on color. If the huge success of K2 women's alpine and telemark skis are any indicator, putting flowers or cute names on skis really does work.

I think that is only natural and there is nothing specifically wrong about that. At least seen from the situation here in the Netherlands. The large majority of female skiers here are normal 'recreational' skiers going for one, maybe two weeks a year, meaning they are happy with a good average ski. If you take in account that there are a lot of good choices in this group which are of similar quality and only differ on a very personal level that most of the time can not be tried here in the Netherlands... the choice between say Head, Fischer or Atomic in the same group comes down to... looking at them and choosing the nicer one. Most of them will have a ski that fits their needs and only a second pair after that will really be chosen for specific preferences. Ofcourse this whole story fades when the person in question is more serious and has specific needs, but here at least that group is relatively small.

Agree 100%. This is a topic I have taken under my wing at Hart. Recently I had a focus group with close to a dozen women from The Ski Diva and the results were very helpful.

Hmm, your point is rather that women's gear is a marketing gimmick. Another way to label gear aimed at lighter folks... Not that it sucks.
Does it help you to sell more skis ? Does it give an advantage to some brands ? If the answer is yes, shouldn't you thank the marketing guys ?

I look at it as having twice the options.

However, when it comes down to demoing skis, what is available in my preferred length of 160-165cm is typically women's skis. Most shops don't carry the shorter lengths of unisex skis. In some cases, manufacturers won't even build a ski shorter than 175cm. So then I'm back to looking at women's skis again, just because of the length.
If I ski them and like them, I don't care if they are women's or unisex. Currently I have two pairs of women's skis and one pair of unisex skis.

I agree 100%, but it's important to note that I also see where my point of view would be wrong. Consumers do respond to styling and the way products are marketed. Why do you think Apple has so many colors of iPods? They are one of the most non-nonsense, industrial-design oriented companies around when it comes to their products, and yet they still clearly see the importance of frilly factors like color (and it's backed up by sales). I suspect many people on Epic and SkiDiva don't care about color, style, graphics, and women-specific stuff, but we would be wrong to think we're representative of the general consumer market. In reality, I bet we're in a 10% subset of the overall market. To the other 90%, style and marketing are important.

And the other 30% are on Epic, TGR and TheSkiDiva!
Women who know what they want for performance sake!

Marketing is King. I tend to agree that you need the right ski for the right purpose on the right person, gender out of the equation.

WHEN are the boot people going to make something smaller that a 23 shell size? Super frustrating for most women that are needing a 22 and not a junior race boot?

BTW, I just got run over and my poles got tweeked and when I got a new pair, I got the poles I wanted and I chose the color that matched my skis. Cosmesis does matter to me.

Take Good Care,
Greg

Ski companies make powder puff skis for the same reason auto makers have so many models. Market share plain and simple. The odds of me buying skis with flowers on them are about the same as me buying a mini-van. If anything these ski companies may be guilty of a subtle sexism by making skis that are soft and fluffy and saying these are womens' skis as if there were no proficent women skiers. As some have noted that a few companies are making an effort to make an expert level ski with what they perceive are a womens needs. The bottom line is that these companies want to maximize profits and if the manufacturing of powder puff skis keeps your favorite brand in business, good for you. If you are offended by their subtle sexism let them know and shop elsewhere. Let us remember that these folks who buy these so called womens skis may be very happy sliding down a gentle slope on a sunny day and if they are content with this, well, good for them. It is not the skis on your feet that matter, its the smile on your face.

I have an idea...dont like women's skis...then dont buy them. I dont see the issue here. Women specific gear is made to help women, but if a woman does not like what is offered then buy the mens/unisex gear.

This is a very silly argument. Its like saying, "I want less choices!!!"

Mt Lion, here's a question for you:

would you rather sell skis to a woman who knows what she wants and wants gear that performs
or
A guy buying a pretty ski set up for the little woman?
Which is an easier sell?

trekchick: for me the easier is to the woman wanting performance.

GR8ron:

lange exclusive
lange FR110W
lange FR130
lange WC130/150
are all made in a size 3 or 265mm-268mm
salomon idol, scarlet, all in a 22 or 265
fulltilt in a 267mm


overall I agree that more options are better, BUT you can't sell a man, ladies gear, and you can only sell some ladies, mans gear.

So rather then having 2 lines, (that are very similar) and only selling 50% of them to 50% of the people, why not have one line and sell it to everyone?

the WC150 I sell in size 3-10, to people that need it.

1) I suspected as much.
2) I agree with this from the standpoint you are approaching it, but(don't you hate seeing the but come?) There is an alternative view. Women have their pride(read ego) just like men, and as a man won't buy a womans ski because its marked as a womans ski, there are some women who would prefer to buy an Expert Woman Ski, as opposed to an Advance Unisex Ski.

This reminds me of the trend in kid's names: 50 years ago, "Frances," "Pat," and "Marion" (John Wayne's name) were all popular boy's names. Then adventuresome parents started using these for their girls, and now they're no longer "appropriate" for boys.

Today, the name books warn about little boys suffering fallout in school if their name is used by girls, and at the same time we see adventurous parents naming their girls stuff like Charles, Spencer, and Harry. Before too many more cohorts, these names also will be problematic, and we guys will be down to Adam, Mortimer, and Rock, take your pick. Yep, clearly sexist linguistic conventions, but any parents to be out there willing to name your newborn boy "Sue" for the sake of your politics? Why not?

So even if we lose the condescending graphics, I don't think in this century men are going to make much of a dent in sales of any ski or boot known to be aimed at women, even if the flex is perfect. To me, makes more sense to spend your R&D on more skis and boots for a broader range of physiques and skills independent of sex. I'm a lighter guy who would appreciate more high end R&D aimed at my physique. But, naw, unlikely I'll go ski a pair of Auras...

Thanks Lion for the boot size detail. I guess the market can only support Lange in that small size, good on ya Lange.
G

Wow, too bad. They rock!!.....and they're the ONLY pair of "women's" skis I've purchased in years.
(Current Quiver - P60 SL WC 155, Racetiger GS WC 180, 6* 168, Karma 177, Aura 177, and 724 AX3 Gamma 177 that I've only been on twice)