This is how quickly Snag Tights are rolling over to males with kinks

[HardRockOwl]

Just had the misfortune to stumble across their social media. I work in the same field and was researching something and came across this little exchange .... I know MN are having paragraph issues so apologies if this is one long block of text!

Instagram user (male) .... could you remove the word 'women's' when referring to your tights? If we are wanting to be more inclusive, we could start there.'

Snag ... yes we absolutely agree! We will get this feedback sent over to the team. Thanks for the amazing feedback, we want everyone to feel included.'

They then go on to reassure another commenter called 'pretty fat boy' that they'll look into change all their packaging asap.

The world has gone quite mad hasn't it? And yes, I know men can wear tights. That's not my issue. My issue is these blokes with obvious kinks and fetishes requesting the word 'women' be erased to keep them happy.

Thoughts?

Are snag tights designed for people with a penis and scrotum? I guess they wont fit me then.

There is though. Snag have always advertised their product as fitting every woman's body. Celebrating big women as beautiful, womanly, feminine.

Now my big female body is being likened to that if a man, because that's who they are now promoting their product to. Had they never celebrated the bigger woman I may not have noticed. Had they said they would add men to their target audience, not so much of a problem perhaps. But removing women?

It is the removal that is the issue. The replacement of women. It may well harm their future, they aren't that big a company.

They have been chasing this market for a while. They do know that 99% of their market are women don’t they?

I’m confused; from a practical perspective, I want tights that are deigned for a woman’s body. Good fitting and comfortable tights won’t be unisex - or am I missing something about these tights? Are they made differently?

@floofycroissant such a loose comparison as to be incorrect. Women didn't insist or even request that mens trousers were only advertised as trousers for people. Women just bought mens trousers or made their own trousers to fit them better, until there was a market for women's trousers. Unisex trousers would have to be pretty adaptable (stretchy? loose?) in order to fit the average man and the average woman. Why can't men just buy a usually women's product without thinking they're entitled to change how it's advertised and marketed? I used to buy mens jumpers when I was a student because I preferred the styling and longer length (on me) than women's jumpers. Never would have thought to write to M&S to insist they change the labelling to remove any mention of the word "men's"!

And, yes men used to wear hose for centuries. But not for a century and more. The almost entire majority of men in the UK don't wear tights as a regular standard part of their wardrobe.

Snag also sell fishnets and suspender tights, these are commonly for kinks and fetishes?

I'm not sure about this. For better or worse, we live in a capitalist, consumerist society. Their number 1 priority is whatever they think will sell more product. There's no particular reason why tights were ever marketed only at women in the first place. In my opinion, taking the word "woman" off a packet of tights isn't comparable to taking the word woman off a packet of tampons.

Wonder if they will put a yfront in?
Like long John's have in the mens version, or would that spoil it somehow?

Barmy. More erasure of women. How can the tights even be suitable for both women and men given they have different body proportions, particularly hip shape and thigh length? Surely they should decide whether the toghts are cut to fit a female body or a male body, and state on the packaging which it is?

Not a fan of this company since they decided the perfect advertising is a man in drag posing with children’s toys 🤢

I have several male friends who love wearing Snag Tights. One is as big and burly and 'manly' a man as you could imagine. He wears them under his clothes to stay warm because he's out in all weathers and seasons on a farm.

I have male friends who wear them with a mixture of both stereotypically 'female' clothes, and unisex or 'mens' clothes.

I wear them occasionally. But not to accentuate anything 'female' about myself and I do tend to shy away from things marketed over the top to women, where by its shoved down your throat that you're buying women's clothing. I want clothes which are clothes, which are marketed to people, not to men or to women or to men and women.

This really isn't a problem. At all.

Don't like Snag anymore? Just don't shop with them. The rest of us will keep them in business anyway.

If you take this post to its logical conclusion, then clearly Snag are finding it profitable to sell to these nice chaps who like to wear tights designed for women. There must be a lot of such men, sadly.

Ironically, I bet if they did remove all mention of the word women and rebranded themselves as selling rights for every body, male or female, then a lot of men would stop buying them...

@WalkerWalking

"There's no particular reason why tights were ever marketed only at women in the first place." Umm, yes there was. Because women by social convention at the time habitually wore dresses or skirts. Wearing trousers was not generally socially acceptable still in the 1950s.

Tights not rights

That isn't true - trouser-wearing for women became acceptable during WW2. Possibly not on formal occasions/in formal venues, but it was certainly fine to wear them informally in the 1940s.

You couldn’t wear them to work though

You could if you worked in a factory.

I was working in a place in the 90s and the directors secretary has the audacity to wear trousers to work. She was sent home to change. The director was a woman.

I wore whatever I liked though, so it was obviously just her secretary she didn’t like in trousers (I never saw the director wear them).

I though the snag usp was that they fitted larger women well. So i assumed they were designed around bigger curves. Do they have different ones for different body shapes.

I don't think it's necessary to have the word women's as a descriptor of tights unless they really are unsuitable for a man's frame. Just 'tights' is fine.

It became acceptable during WW2, but at the end of the war there was considerable pressure on women to revert to their former roles. Hence the whole New Look trend and the move to hyper feminine fashion. If you look at any photos/film of ordinary people en masse in the era that modern tights were invented you will see the overwhelming majority of women wearing skirts/dresses. And more importantly, not a single man openly wearing a dress or skirt and so also in need of tights. To be clear, when modern tights were invented, the only possible market was women.

@RosesInTheHospital see this is where I'm confused, have I missed the bit where this man asked for the tights to be branded as male only? Because that's how your reply positions it.

I also haven't seen any confirmation on this thread or from the brand to the tights being redesigned for the male anatomy, I may have missed that and it would definitely make a difference to my opinion

If not then this whole thread is simply catastrophising an issue that doesn't yet exist.

Comparing women wearing male jumpers to men wearing women's tights is equally not comparable. On the whole women wearing men's clothing is a lot more widely accepted now than the reverse.

RTFT. Someone has literally said they know a man who wears them as an underlayer for warmth when working outdoors.