A couple months ago, I discovered this pretty swell website TeeFury.com – someone on Reddit linked out to the roughly gazillion Star Wars shirts they offer. The shirts were affordable, and so was the shipping – so I was pretty excited.

You see, I LOVE nerdy shirts. It’s kind of a weakness. Well, it probably wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could find nerdy shirts that are flattering on my body type.That is to say… a female body type.

I ordered some Men’s Large Star Wars shirts, knowing I was in for something that wasn’t entirely flattering but still served as a nice conversation piece if I should find other nerds in the wild.

Then I saw TeeFury was running a $5 grab-bag special. Pick your gender, size, and take a chance on getting something random. So naturally, I was on board. I put in $10 and eagerly awaited what random goodness would come my way. Again, to be safe, I stuck with Men’s Large, and got the following:

Now I knew what I was getting into with ordering Large. Mostly, I’m glad they fit. I can roll up the sleeves or these can be my nerdy-around-the-house shirts.

I got another promotional email from TeeFury telling me to ACT NOW on the last of the $5 Grab Bag offer. And then it occurred to me…

NOW IS MY CHANCE!

Now is my chance to order a women’s size and maybe, just MAYBE, TeeFury will be the place I can get my well-fitting nerdy shirt fix. After all, what’s $10? I could take the chance. So I check out their size chart to make sure I get the most correct-ish size and was kind of surprised at what I found. In most women’s sizes, I’m a solid XL. At 5’10” I’m above average in both height and weight – so this is not really a shocker.

I was a bit surprised to see that my measurements, according to TeeFury… more closely align with a XXL. There’s even a XXXL option that I considered, but then… and this has happened to me before – what if it’s TOO big? I have one comically too-big-for-me women’s cut from the NaNoWriMo store and it doesn’t even look right as a nerdy-around-the-house shirt.

Anyhow… before I show you the result, I wanted to share what a normal XL size shirt looks like on me:

This is how I expect most women’s XL to fit on me. So surely, a XXL from TeeFury will be delightfully nerdy AND flattering, right?

….Right?

No. Observe:

So at this point you might be thinking, what’s the problem? It looks fine. No, my friends, it’s not fine. It’s tight and uncomfortable and not at all what I look for in my t-shirts. And more than that… it’s an absurd size designation.

Having to buy something at XXL is already sucky, but then to have it not fit, and the quality be far less than a men’s shirt (they are thinner and shorter than the men’s shirts) is pretty unacceptable in my opinion. And add to the fact that when you get into the XXL + sizes, you’re usually paying more.

So you might be thinking – well, that’s not a LOT. Yes, true, but my point here is that these shirt sizes are not accurate to reality.

And, TeeFury, I know I’m beating up on you here, but this is not just a TeeFury problem. This is almost a universal problem with women’s clothing sizes – the quality is consistently less than men’s clothing, often runs comically small and sometimes even costs more.

It’s an injustice we all deal with, for all our lives, and I’m getting just a little bit sick of it. So much so, that I’ve put together this lovely compilation. Please feel free to share this with the internet. This is hokum!

I am heavily investing in the first t-shirt company that has sensible sizes, quality, prices and awesome nerdy designs in women’s cuts.

Eve is the founder of Some Nerd Girl and the author of urban fantasy novels Children of the Fallen and Unforgettable as well as science fiction novel Colony One. She has been writing since the age of 13 and has been flying her nerd flag for the past 16 years. Fandoms include Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. Basically if it has ‘star’ in it, she’ll give it a shot.