[a sign reads FEMINIST CONFERENCE next to a closed door, a blue character shrugs and says…]
I don’t care
[next to the same door, the sign now says RESTRICTED FEMINIST CONFERENCE WOMEN ONLY, there are now four blue characters desperately banging on the door, one is reduced to tears on the floor, they are shouting]
DISCRIMINATION
SO UNFAIR!!!
LET US IINN!!
MISANDRY
Just buy bigger pants? Issue solved, right?
This does not work when the clothing is all spandex infused. If I were to buy a bigger size jean then they would be super tight still in the leg, just just fall down from the waist and crotch. Women’s clothing sucks
This doesn’t actually solve the issue. Buying bigger pants means the waist doesn’t fit, so you have to wear a belt. Which is fine. But when I wear pants with a waist that is too big, it bunches in places and is uncomfortable when I sit down and lean back. It can also cause weird gapping in the waistband that leaves underwear exposed for everyone to see.
This is why I don’t just “buy men’s pants and wear a belt”, like I’ve been told to do over and over again. Men’s clothes don’t fit my body and the excess fabric bunches causing uncomfortable pressure points on my back and waist. I already have enough back issues, I don’t want pants that cause even more.
The best solution is to give women more options. I know it’s “the trend” for women to wear tight fitting clothes, however, there are significant number of women that don’t like all of our clothes to be tight. Clothing companies would still make money, but they prefer to make cheap fast fashion garbage that falls apart quickly and forces women to buy clothes more often. Instead women get told that we only want to wear tight clothes because we want to be sexy and we since have no pockets we have to buy purses or we get told we look frumpy and gross in baggy clothes.
I completely agree, and thank you so much for commenting that. In my eyes the real issue is the misogyny that women are supposed to wear super tight revealing clothes that restrict the movements. Men get to wear baggy loose clothing that is not restrictive at all 90% of the time. Just go to a gym any day and look at the difference and women’s attire and men’s attire. Why do women have to wear revealing clothing when men are covered? Super frustrating as a plus size woman to have the only option of clothing be tight. I don’t want to wear tight clothing that shows every dimple and roll.
No problem! I totally understand what you mean.
Gym clothes specifically are rough for me because I can’t do all the high waisted stuff. The tight fit presses against an old surgery scar of mine and causes really painful cramping. Finding gym clothes can be so much fun! /s
The customer will always want their preferred option to exist, but if creating those additional options isn’t profitable for the clothing manufacturer because it doesn’t sell well enough, you shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do it. After all, from their perspective, it’s not a “solution”, it’s throwing money out the window for no reason. And businesses dislike doing that as much as we do.
I’m not a woman, but I am someone whose preferences are often significantly deviated from what’s commonly available, so I can definitely empathize about this sort of dilemma. But at the same time, I understand why it is the way it is.
I disagree. Women’s pants with pockets will sell just as well as, if not better than, women’s pants with fake pockets because at the end of the day, there is no difference in pants with vs without except in very limited cases like specific styles of business attire. The pants will sell because women want to wear pants and we buy pants available to us.
There is no good reason at all for fake pockets to even exist. These companies do this so they can force women to buy purses, an extra item that causes women to spend more money. It’s sexism. That’s all there is to it.
I highly recommend a book called Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close by Hannah Carlson. Women have been denied pockets for centuries and business today are just continuing that.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/pockets-an-intimate-history-of-how-we-keep-things-close-hannah-carlson/be9f2cf36a821fb6?ean=9781643751542&next=t
If the demand is there, then it’d be a golden opportunity for a clothing manufacturer to corner that market then, wouldn’t it? With how massive the fashion industry is, there must be a reason it’s apparently not been attempted in earnest yet, by any of the over 400,000 apparel companies out there.
What do you think that reason is? Not a rhetorical question.
The short answer: sexism and money
The long answer:
Sexism: Women’s clothing is seen from an aesthetic view and not a utility view. Women’s pockets give us independence and since women were seen as property for so long, we did not need pockets to hold our items. Men’s clothing is about utility and practicality because men need to hold important items in their day to day. Women’s clothing is seen as just about fashion because women just want to be pretty, which reflects how some view women’s place in the world “be pretty, attract man, find husband, make babies”. Fewer pockets means women have to carry more with our hands which leads to less freedom of movement and less independence.
Money: Fashion companies make tens of billions selling women purses. If women had real pockets, we may not need purses. This is also why fast fashion is aimed at women, our clothing is of lesser quality so we are required to buy clothing more frequently. Women’s clothes are considered a loss leader to sell more cheap accessories.
The thing is, instead of arguing that women don’t really want pockets, you should listen and acknowledge what we are asking for. Times are changing, pockets are becoming larger in women’s clothes because women are demanding them, because we are being more selective and purchasing the few options with pockets that we have. Not as many companies are taking advantage of that ask because they want to sell purses, but the change is happening. You should also be advocating for that change.
The book I linked to above goes into great detail about the history of pockets in general, then provides information on why women’s pockets not only don’t exist as they should, but have actually been taken away from us as we gained independence (during WW2 when women had to work because men were fighting, women’s clothing had more pockets). If you don’t want to read the book, here are a number of shorter articles that provide the same information.
https://www.wtae.com/article/the-pocket-problem-why-women-demand-more-better-pockets-in-clothing-for-equality-and-safety/36327110
https://lifestyle.howstuffworks.com/style/fashion/trends-looks/pockets-womens-clothes.htm
https://luxuryandfamous.com/why-do-women-not-have-pockets-in-pants/
https://mamafashionista.com/why-dont-womens-clothes-have-pockets/
https://fashionmagazine.com/style/womens-pockets/
Great quotes in the above article: Though perhaps no one has put it better than Indiana University professor Christopher Todd Matthews, who writes in the academic article “Form and Deformity: The Trouble With Victorian Pockets” that Victorian women were told that they “had four external bulges already — two breasts and two hips — and a money pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth.”
“Essentially: Men are required to act and therefore need practical clothing. Women are expected to simply appear and be watched — their beauty prioritized above all else. And these outdated gender ideals are still being sewn directly into our clothing”
https://www.thelist.com/176777/the-real-reason-womens-clothes-rarely-has-pockets/
https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/fashion/the-real-reason-why-pockets-are-always-missing-from-womens-clothes-article-151682617
https://www.dailyfashionclothing.com/archives/13499
https://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2022/09/25/in-the-pocket-of-the-patriarchy-history-behind-the-absence-of-pockets-from-traditionally-female-clothing/
https://english.elpais.com/lifestyle/2023-10-10/its-got-pockets-why-this-is-still-a-battle-cry-for-women.html
TL;DR: You’ve focused primarily on the history, and barely touched on my actual question of ‘why isn’t anyone taking advantage of this supposed demand today in 2026’? Full reply follows:
I can acknowledge this as a motivator 50+ years ago, but today, I can’t see an apparel company refusing to create something that would be profitable for this reason. Businesses, especially large modern ones, have no bias toward anything but the bottom line. That said, Gemini threw me a list of modern companies that are in fact aimed at this demand, so supporting them is the best way to get more companies to do so:
Objectively more effective than simply complaining that more companies aren’t.
The highest end luxury purses have barely any capacity to actually hold things, and are used more as status indicators than for utility. More ‘regular’ purses that are primarily purchased for their utility/capacity have capacity far beyond what any pair of regular-sized (equivalent to men’s) pockets could hold, and could never be completely obsoleted by pockets. If anything, the prevalence of pockets might over time reduce those purses’ size to compensate.
I don’t think this argument really holds water.