The discrepancy between the size of pockets in men’s and women’s pants is nuts. I can comfortably fit an entire iPad Mini in my pants pockets, while my gf is lucky to fit her phone in her’s.
There’s a great fashion history podcast called Articles of Interest that covered this early on. Explains why it happened and covers things like the commenter’s suggestion that women buy men’s pants.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/pockets-articles-of-interest-3/
Shh. Women’s pants pockets are the only hope those of us that want smaller phones still have.
You gotta go all the way back to a flip phone then. Even 10 years ago a lot of phones poked out of girl’s pockets
I’d be fine with that. I was pretty damn fast at T9 typing back in the day… I might’ve been even faster than touch keyboards. Only could go faster on the old physical keyboards. Harder to typo with real tactical feedback…
What if I told you that women’s clothing is form-fitting with small pockets because that’s what is popular among women?
Yeah, right? I thought this was settled at least five years ago. Preface: I get we’re not in a
frictionless vacuumfree market with perfectly rational agents acting on perfect information. Auto makers in the US, for example, induce demand for massive fuck-off pickup trucks – which exploit regulatory loopholes and are worse than standard cars for most people – by driving down the supply of alternatives and massively marketing trucks to people who categorically don’t need them.However, pants are an obvious case where you can’t have both: you can’t have normal-sized pockets (let alone the Felix the Cat-ass ones men can have with cargo pants) and elegant, form-fitting clothing. Demand always exists for big pockets because big pockets are objectively beneficial, but at a population level in a zero-sum game, women prefer form (fitting) over function (bigger pockets). This does leave a minority who actually would prefer and buy the larger pockets, but because this is a minority, it’s also the minority of supply, and these women are faced with fewer options. Because the supply of pants is highly elastic, the amount of pants with good pockets is probably close to its actual demand – even accounting for imperfect information where some women may truly want but just not know how to buy them. It’s also true that demand for bigger pants would go up if purses weren’t so normalized among women, but they are, and there’s not a strong force acting to reverse that.
On a personal note: I don’t get what the big deal is (I mean I do, but not from what I’d see myself wearing); the women I’ve known who wear looser pants with baggier pockets to me have usually looked better.
I’ll give you points for the elegant part because formal dresses are hard to add pockets to. But my bootie is currently sitting in a pair of form fitting flare jeans with functional sized pockets. There are pockets added to workout leggings to at least carry phone, ID, and keys in. I also have some cute skirts and dresses with functional sized pockets. I don’t want cargo pants size pockets, but at least enough to hold my ID and some cash without fear of losing them.
These things do exist, they are just hard to find because companies don’t manufacture them. Most women I know would buy pants with functional sized pockets even if they didn’t use them and pretty much every woman I know has complained about our barely able to hold a chapstick sized pockets.
I appreciate the insight; I don’t buy these products, so hearing from someone who does is helpful. I guess at the end of the day there still have to be forces pushing these companies not to add/enlarge pockets, because any economic model would say that corporations – who’d burn your house down if it saved them a nickel – know that this debate has been going on, have probably run countless trials, focus groups, etc., and would pounce on this the second they saw profit.
- Purses do alleviate this burden on corporations a lot. If purses disappeared overnight, the children working in Southeast Asian jean sweatshops would be in for a bad, bad morning. (I’d also say I don’t think this is a conspiracy to sell purses, as the market’s barrier for entry is low enough and purses already commonplace enough that they’d only be hurting themselves.)
- At minumum there’s always some tradeoff when you have pockets. I’d bet that, beyond the baseline material cost of making pockets, it costs more and more in labor to hide the pockets as the pants become more form-fitting and the pockets become larger.
- So even if you could make something that’s form-fitting with normal pockets (assuming no noticeable trade-off in form), it’d probably cost more at a price women aren’t willing to pay in an age of expansive wardrobes and fast fashion.
That’s just a guess going off what you’ve said, which I believe – mostly, anyway, since it feels like larger pockets would always diminish form-fitting in at least some small way.
So first off, I want to say I really appreciate how respectful your comment is. I’ve voiced my opinion on this topic before and oftentimes guys get pretty freaking rude. I’ve seen some guys get really nasty with women voicing an opinion specifically about women’s pockets before. So I truly do appreciate you.
IMO, it is likely that fashion companies make too much money off of purses to add pockets. Why add a small amount of fabric for pennies when you could sell an entire accessory for $15+, and that’s a cheap purse, many can go for a significant amount more.
I also believe there is also an element of sexism that is baked in from over a century ago. Many of the comments that are “if women wanted them, they would have them” echo the same comments on flyers against pockets from the 1910s. A great book about this topic is Pockets An Intimate History of How We Keep Things by Hannah Carlson. She pulls a lot of examples from history about why women don’t have pockets and how long we have been asking why we don’t, she incudes an article from the NYT from 1899 asking that question. Another example is when women were fighting for our right to vote, the antis thought we could hide things in pockets like flyers or it was assumed we would use them for scandalous things like tobacco and our own money. Women also used to have pockets in skirts for a long time, but as we gained rights, purses were pushed in and pockets were pushed out.
To your second point, I don’t think it would cost that much and definitely not so much that women wouldn’t purchase them. Below is a picture of two pair of jeans I own. Both are thin in the thighs with flares at the bottom and cost roughly the same amount. The one on the right, the pocket barely goes up to my second knuckle, these are jeans that I can maybe clip my knife and keep a lighter in one pocket, but it’s likely the lighter will fall out. The one on the left, while not as large as men’s pockets, fits my entire hand, I can keep my phone, cash, or ID in those pockets without having to worry about them falling out. The amount of fabric between the two is not that much and the cost would not be too crazy.
Again, I super appreciate your very respectful comment 💚
Yeah, the reality is, if women really wanted pockets in their clothes then any one of them could start making clothes with large pockets, sell them, capitalize on this market, and make oodles of money
They’re already widely available. Just google “women’s pants big pockets.” You can buy women’s pants that have a looser fit with big pockets almost anywhere, in many styles and materials, from any major retailer, at price points ranging from Walmart to designer.
I’m not sure that they’re necessarily “widely available” or available “from any major retailer” I searched what you suggested and found a bunch of drop shipped results on amazon, walmart, and random sketchy sites.
I guess to me “widely available, almost anywhere, from any major retailer” sounds like these pants have saturated the market enough that I should be able to find them at any department store but honestly I have never seen large pocket options for women in a physical store. If there are physical stores carrying this option that you know of please let me know because I would love to be able to go try them out!
Yeah, I agree with this. I’ve shopped looking specifically for pants with appropriate sized pockets and they are hard to find. When the local Kohls was closing, I bought 8 pair of pants at about a dollar a piece. Only 1 had real pockets, the others weren’t even big enough to keep a lighter or chapstick in place, they always fell out.
Now, I only buy pants with appropriate sized pockets. And if I find a pair that I really like the fit, I will rip out those shitty little things and put adult size pockets into it.
My favorites are the very few super cute dresses that actually have real pockets. My friends and I always get very excited!
Hey, thank you for listing them. I’m still looking through them and a lot just say “with pockets” not necessarily with “large pockets” which is fine but I’m willing to bet they’re like every other womens pant in a large store that “has” pockets which is barely enough to fit chapstick in.
Some of these pants are locally available to me so I can go and physically check but just pointing out that off the bat containing pockets doesn’t mean they contain sufficient pockets.
You can see quite clearly in many of the pictures that the models have their whole hands in them. And I’m not just talking about the ones where they hook the thumb and stop there.
Idk what people want, I’m a male and I have never in my life had a regular pair of jeans that “fit an iPad in them” except for when I had JNCOs as a kid. My Levi’s pockets are not much bigger than my smartphone. And I can personally tell you that there are women’s pants with pockets as big as men’s as that’s all that my wife wears.
Ah I see. Unfortunately this happens a lot. The photo may show they can fit their hands inside but there are a lot of times the pockets in person are still just so so small. Its quite disheartening.
I’m not saying these pants don’t exist, I was just pointing out that I’ve never seen them exist at both the size and level of availability you described originally.
I’ll still check out the ones available locally to me that seemed hopefully sufficient and get back to you if they work out!
Yea but you see, people like being victims not responsible for their own problems. Otherwise they might have to do the work of looking for solutions, or feel embarassed when they learn of an easy fix for a long standing problem!
What are you on about?
I’ll drop this link to a video that goes over pocket fashion history but from what I know of it the option of large pockets largely never existed for women in a meaningful way. By the time we as a society moved away from men using under garment bags we never gave women the same option.
But yes, currently it’s popular. There is pressure to wear form fitting clothing. There is pressure to have a bag to accomodate the lack of pockets. This will continue a perpetual demand for small/false pockets.
Yup. If you made men’s clothing with no pockets, you’d have a bunch of unsold inventory.
People are buying these clothes.
I think the original post shows it’s not that uniform across all of womanhood.
Told this story a few times before, but:
Was watching this reality contest show when I was a teenager, back when reality contest shows were incredibly popular. Can’t remember the exact year, but it must’ve been before 2008.
Anyway, in this case it was some fashion show thing. Young aspiring designers making their own clothes, and every episode someone gets eliminated by the judges. You get the formula.
The judge for this show was this old, wrinkly, French lady who was apparently considered a major authority on Women’s fashion. The topic of the day was making pants for women. The process of the show was that the designers would go out, buy materials, make the clothes, present the clothes, then have a model wear the clothes to present further, then try get the clothes sold somewhere.
This one young woman came with pocketed pants, and the judge immediately disqualified her. She didn’t even look at the pants, or let the model wear it. Just straight up dismissed. Why? Her excuse was something along the lines of; “Because the feminine form is the most powerful thing we have and pockets diminish that. If a woman wants to carry things she can buy a handbag”.
I, too, eliminate every woman from dating consideration the moment I see pockets. That extra 1/8th inch of feminine form is everything.
/s
Wanna bet that the old hag has some stakes in handbags?
Actually, peer pressure from the fashion elite might be enough. They all wanna sell as much bullshit as possible, so of course they’d want you to have clothes in a dozen different color shades with fitting large handbags, small handbags, clutches, shoes, shades…
Yeah, I can see why she’d be allergic to unprofitable convenience.
This reads exactly like The Devil wears Prada which was very on the nose. Great film about terrible culture.
It takes guts and perseverance to beat that, but even with lots of it there’s still no guarantee.
I live with a couple of trans men that occasionally wear women’s jeans, and they got so fed up with the pocket size that they just went and bought some cheap fabric and sewed their own massive pocket extensions.
That’s what I’ve started to do! One of my pants didn’t not have pocket, it had FAKE pockets, with zippers but not fabric, just… zippers for decoration? I started with those and after seeing that it was not that difficult, I started adding/widening all pockets everywhere made out of old clothes. POCKETS yeey!!!
Step 1: Sell shirt that requires new bras
Step 2: Sell new bras
Step 3: Profit?
That’s called vertical integration.
They start lacing their bras with a powder that makes breasts grow so you have to keep buying new bras
Sign me up!
I work in a place that requires everyone entering to pull out their pockets for a few years.
Still amazed at the tiny front pockets most women have. Recently I’ve been seeing pants where the front pocket is completely fake.
As an aside, some garments (especially fancy ones) have pockets that are sewn shut so that they stay flat in transport and lay perfectly on a mannequin, but with thin thread and loose stitches so that it’s easy to pull them out with just a few quick snips. Same with the back vent on long coats. It would be difficult to pack and transport them neatly and non destructively (with flappy bits all over the pace and pockets that could get stuck on machinery) but the stitches are weak and meant to be removed by the end consumer just the same as the tags are meant to be removed. Although I did have a coworker who wore fancy sneakers with the tag still on which was an absolutely mystifying thing to see on multiple levels at a healthcare job, but apparently that’s some kind of sneaker culture thing (and while they were a lovely person they did eventually decide that healthcare was not their jam).
And yet, someone bought those pants and is wearing them.
I know a few women who would rather have Pokémon. Amirite, chat? /s
The person who manages to design discreet detachable pockets will be a millionaire.
What about a detachable pocket that’s a fashion accessory, and you hang it from a strap over your shoulder?
It used to be this way. When women were only “allowed” to wear dresses, often they carried a pocket pouch on the inside of the skirt. It went on like a belt under the skirt.
I wear a phone holder on my belt. There are arm bands, fanny packs, flat stretchy belt-adjacent things. Products exist. We just haven’t achieved critical mass of women not interested in carrying purses who are interested in spending the extra shopping effort to find pants or cardigans or button up shirts with near-waist-level pockets (I am discounting boob pockets here).
I never see anyone mention this but, from my experience at least, pockets in women’s clothing tends to be uncomfortable for laying on one’s side.
I like to have the option of having or not having pockets, like with most legging brands.
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