Although this is not a scientific study of this issue, it is a topic worth thinking about.
This piece is to vent my frustration.
Everyone is focused on the big issues facing women, like the wage gap and reproductive rights. Rightly so! Those issues need all the attention they can get, but sometimes the little things need it, too. Little things have a tendency to add up.
I bought a pair of men’s jeans, once, at a thrift store. They were cheap and comfortable, but best of all, they had the deepest pockets I had ever seen. I stuffed my hands into them and they went in past the wrist! None of the women’s jeans I owned had pockets that could accommodate me past my fingers. Some of them did not even have pockets at all.
But these jeans. These jeans could fit my phone, wallet, and keys and still have room to spare. And it’s not fair.
The only reason I can find for the fact that women’s clothing does not provide adequate pocket space while men’s clothing is basically bursting at the seams with it is that it "ruins the 'silhouette,' and besides, women have purses." Bullshit. The only reason women have purses is BECAUSE we do not have pockets that can actually fit anything in them, and the reason we do not have good pockets is the patriarchy.
I know. It sounds silly, but it is true. Men have always had pockets, because they have traditionally been in charge of business and money. But women, especially starting in the 19th century, were considered unfashionable if they had pockets, or even a reticule that was too big, because it showed that they were too low class to have to -- god forbid -- carry anything with them that could possibly indicate that they performed labor of any sort.
Despite the fact that women are more independent now than they were in the 1800s and have (gasp!) their own careers and handle their own money, pockets have not appeared for us like they have for men. It would ruin our goddamn silhouettes, and everyone knows that it is more important for a woman to look good than to have functional clothing.
As for the argument that purses make up for the lack of pockets, I could argue back that purses can be heavy, inconvenient, and easy to misplace. However, I have also come to realize that purses may have made us more complacent. Even if we do somehow manage to obtain actual functional pockets, the storage space provided is admittedly not as great as what a purse provides. You can fold an umbrella into a purse, your phone charger, a bottle of Advil, lots of makeup, packs of gum… the list goes on. We have too much stuff for pockets now. We have grown used to it. Men have encouraged it. How many times have you carried something in your purse because a man you know could not fit it in his pockets? What I am getting at here is that pocket equity would not eliminate the need for purses, but it would be nice to have the option. It would be nice to be able to go, say, to a concert and not have to worry about either paying the money to check your purse or holding it all night long and taking the risk that it will end up lost or broken. Honestly, I am not even asking that much: it would be nice if you could even just fit your phone in there.
This is not even to mention the fact that purses are a distinct marker of femininity. Men who want or need to carry a bag sometimes find that they are forced to justify it. There are bags that are specifically marketed as men’s bags or “murses” because if, horror of horrors, they were just carrying a purse, their man card could be taken away.
What I am saying here is that everyone, regardless of the gender you present as, should have pockets as awesome as the ones on the pair of men’s jeans I bought at a thrift store. In addendum: people should not be judged by the purse they carry, should they choose to carry one at all after the Pocket Revolution.
Let’s leave behind these archaic fashion ideals. Pockets for everyone.
