A lesson

Top tip: don’t buy sleeping bags in the middle of the night when you’re tired but excited about buying a sleeping bag – not without checking the volume of the packed sleeping bag, anyway.

I did that the other night, and my new sleeping bag, which arrived today, is super-duper, and I love it, but it doesn’t fit well in my new rucksack. I knew I shouldn’t’ve cut the tags off.

I dithered for ages and ages about which sleeping pad to get, and how big a sleeping pad to get. The one I chose in the end seems excellent when tested on the living room floor.

And now a rant. If you’re not interested in reading rants, move on.

Sleeping bags and sleeping pads used to come in one type only: supposedly unisex, but actually designed for men. Now they come in unspecified gender and women’s.

Women’s ones have a different shape to match the shape of women, they’re shorter, and they’re generally warmer, especially around the feet because women supposedly feel the cold more, especially round their feet.

Are you wondering what the problem is? It’s that you can get a sleeping bag and a sleeping bag for women: they don’t label the ones for men as being for men, but they label the ones for women as being for women. It’s like they’re assuming that men are the default and women are the exception. That’s what the problem is. I am not an exception: I’m what half the human population is. It’s like saying a pair of shoes comprises a shoe and a right shoe (or a shoe and a left shoe). It’s ridiculous.

That’s the rant over. Thank you for reading. I hope that if you’re a man, it’s helped you understand life from a woman’s point of view a little better. If you’re a woman, I bet you can think of other examples of being treated as the exception.

If you’re non-binary or transgender, then I don’t know what you would pick. I suppose you’d go by size and shape.