I just want a pair of pants with real pockets. And by real, I mean the ones that aren’t fake sewn on designs or so small they’re useless.
I haven’t had as much of a problem finding this in jeans, but when it comes to shorts and any other kind of pants, the pockets are either too small, fake or completely nonexistent. I have to buy men’s shorts, and I spend way longer than I should have to searching for dress pants.
This poses a real problem since I’ve started getting invited to semi-professional conferences and conventions that require business casual clothes; wearing dresses is both unnecessary and pointless since business casual dress codes don’t require them and most dresses don’t have pockets either.
I’m not the only woman who struggles with this. According to a BBC News article, #WeWantPockets is a popular hashtag on Twitter and some women, such as Aimee Harrison of Line Cut Supply, have even started their own fashion lines just to cater to women’s need for pockets.
“I looked at the way women wear clothing and what they do in that clothing, and it wasn’t being catered to in the fast fashion world,” Harrison said. “My clothing is more durable, more functional.”
You might think, “well, why don’t you just put everything in your purse?” Because not everyone wants to carry a purse; purses are inconvenient unless you have a lot of things to carry around. In fact, if my pants had functional pockets, I wouldn’t need to carry a purse at all because all I carry is my phone, my wallet, lip balm, a pack of gum and a pen.
By the same logic that dictates all women should carry purses, why don’t men just put everything in satchels and briefcases? Because unless they have a lot of things to carry around, they can usually fit everything in their pockets.
Case in point, when I brought up the topic of pockets to a group of my friends, every woman in the group went on a tangent about fake pockets and how they wouldn’t even need purses if they had pockets. The men in the group didn’t even know pockets were an issue because almost every pair of pants they own comes with decent pockets.
When looking at the ways men and women are treated differently, the average person doesn’t even think about something as small as pockets. Maybe if we put as much focus into small but important things like this as we do the bigger issues, we could make more progress faster.
So the next time you march for equality, add pockets to your list of demands. Or if you’re an aspiring fashion designer, give women some pockets so they can do business without being forced to carry a purse.
