If you can believe it, the Nike brand just got gay-er.
It’s a known fact that Nike panders to woke ideologies and promotes the leftist agenda, and the company’s latest move was the announcement of its upcoming gender-neutral athletic collection.
Out with the pink laces or the blue soles, and in with white and bland.
The sports brand teamed up with professional basketball player Sabrina Ionescu to launch the initiative. Unironically, Ionescu is engaged to a man, dresses as a woman and looks like a woman. Ionescu herself doesn’t look too gender-neutral, yet she’s the face of this initiative anyway.
Interesting choice.
Ionescu was signed as what Nike calls a “signature athlete,” which means her shoe, the “Sabrina 1,” will be available for other athletes to purchase and wear. But this time, both women and men can join in on the fun.
The weird part is that normally, athletic wear is expected to fit well. If you look at a man's shirt versus a woman's shirt, it's significantly more boxy and less tapered. That’s because men have a more rectangular torso shape then women. Similarly, men may have similar waste sizes to some women, but generally have longer legs. Clothes designed with the male body as inspiration aren’t going to fit most women correctly. (Well, maybe trans women but that's another story for another day.) The same goes for women's clothes. I doubt most men are going to want to wear tight compression leggings or tank tops with built-in bras.
The obvious solution? Wear clothes that are made for your gender so they fit comfortably and well. But, again that's the obvious solution. Nike's approach with an unattractive, ineffective, one-shape-fits-all for their gender neutral line is going to do nothing whatsoever except further push a leftist narrative. But, that is likely the company's goal anyways.
Previously Nike has shown that it cares more about identity politics than pretty much anything else. On its site, Nike promotes its “Be True” collection that promotes the company’s “broader commitment to the LGBTQIA2S+ community which focuses on recognition, advocacy, inspiration and education through community grants, employee engagement, storytelling, and product collections.” The company has also publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement, and last year affirmed its commitment to abortion.
So, is the recent news that Nike is releasing a gender-neutral line surprising? No.
But that doesn’t mean it's any less annoying.
