POLITICAL-CORRECTNESS FAIL: Google’s One-Gender-Fits-All T-Shirts Don’t Fit.

Google I/O hadn’t even started when critics began unloading on how the developer conference was being run. A forward-thinking Google panel on how to get more women in tech became a flashpoint for whether the t-shirts handed out at Google I/O are patriarchal.

“They gave me a t-shirt and it’s a size small, men’s,” said Alex Maier, a community manager and heavy user of Google’s products, during a Q&A session with the panel. “That makes me feel unwelcome. I don’t want to make this a big issue or confrontational thing…. But the thing is, I show up, and I want my shirt, and I don’t want to be told that I can sleep in it.”

What, Maier asked, was Google going to do about its one-gender-fits-all clothes in the future, given that women at Google I/O are already vastly outnumbered and prone to feeling excluded?

The audience of roughly 100 women applauded the question exuberantly.

Perhaps the women should take a cue from male tech geeks, who quite clearly don’t spend much time worrying about how well their t-shirts fit.

But I’ll note that the InstaPundit store has always featured stylish women’s babydoll t-shirts as well as men’s sizes. Maybe Google will catch up one day.