Except that women face dramatic negative effects in their personal and professional lives if they are not “attractive” in style and dress. but for the sake of the argument, lets examine three alternatives.
Women could buy ill-fitting men’s clothes. This has the upside of pockets and reasonable sizing, but hte downside of being “mannish”, only acceptable for casual wear and the possibility of being targeted for hate crimes due to a perception of being LGBT+.
Womer could make their own clothes with pockets. These would be as stylish as she could afford and have as many pockets as she likes. It could also solve the weight/layering problem in current womens fashion. It would also be prohibitively expensive in time, materials cost and require the woman to be a pretty good sewer to start with.
Women could start their own clothing company with designers, and a professional crew and sell clothes to all the other women. While competing with Target, Walmart and every other established brand trying to kill them as new competition.
The prescription of “Heal thyself” is dismissive of the problem and inherently silencing. it’s is perfectly possible to be trying all three of the simplest solutions and calling out the problem so that men will know about it and help them. If someone is saying “Hey, there’s a big problem here,” saying “Fix it yourself” is not going to help anybody, especially when the problem is rooted in the system we are all a part of.
Go see my link upthread. It’s an online clothing store which has pockets in all their skirts, dresses, and pants, and is customizable to the n-th degree.
That’s a good idea but my wife and most female relatives are in on the fashion conspiracy and so they probably wouldn’t go for it. Besides, being women (girls? Children?)of color they have butts and men’s shorts don’t work unless really baggy.
I have some cargo shorts that go so far the other direction on the pockets as to make them non-functional - they’re baggy so as to visually signal “functionality”, so much so that if you actually put anything in them, it will fall out as soon as you sit down or run anywhere.
I reject any characterization of my purse as a “man-purse”. There’s nothing inherently mannish about it, it’s just a purse; my being a man doesn’t change the object.
I don’t generally need more pockets, I just don’t like having to search through the last several pairs of pants I wore before I have my wallet, keys, phone, lighter, and pocket knife.
Of course, not being attractive in style, dress and appearance has absolutely no effect on men’s professional lives.
You could decide that your principles count for more than income and maybe, just maybe, help to change the world, eh. Some of us have done that, even if it’s just baby steps. For example, I refuse to wear a tie for my job. Yes, even for job applications.
Not only do I wear cargo shorts, I’m thinking of starting to wear socks with sandals. It’s the stereotypical fashion faux pas, but I see that as a plus. I’m in Germany in any case, so I wouldn’t stand out. I mean, I saw this guy in IKEA a while ago, and I’m not even in southern Germany:
Every suit I’ve ever bought either had its pockets sewn shut or, if I had the suit tailored, the tailor asked me if I wanted them open or not.
Worsted, in particular, will deform with wear, and pockets are absolute murder for that. Even if you opened them, using them to store anything bigger than a slip of paper will absolutely wreck the line of your suit.
I love a certain style of fanny pack for exactly that reason. I generally don’t wear them when I’m with the family, but it amuses the hell out of me the way people will just assume I’m carrying.
I’ve been wearing a single earring at work for more than 30 years. I don’t wear it to the initial job application, where I’m typically only meeting HR drones who are incapable of judging my competence, but I carry it in my pocket. I slip it in before meeting any non-HR people. Oh, and 20 years ago I cut all the lapels off my work shirts and re-sewed the seams so they have band collars, because the dress code got revised and I found a loophole in the tie requirement. My boss was pretty upset about that one, but she backed me up anyway, and when the dust cleared the CEO abolished the tie requirement for internal staff! Hooray!
The link pointed out the difference between pockets that were loosely stitched for transportation, and those that are just designed to look like real pockets. On the other hand, with some sewing experience you could make real pockets from the skeuomorphed ones – you wouldn’t even have to be particularly neat, since they wouldn’t be visible.
In my own native language, incidentally, and based on my limited knowledge, in German and Russian, too, the word for ‘purse’ is not gender specific. It does not imply the gender of the wearer in any way. This appears to be a feature of modern American English. No idea why.
When I actually take the time to get measured and buy a nice tailored suit, you can be sure the pockets and the jacket lining will heed that advice. Gonna have functional pockets, too.
There might be a strong element of “but can he pull it off?” embedded into menswear (excepting sweatshirts t shirts and baseball caps). You might get a novelty tie, or novelty socks, but beyond that…
I thought the Sporrans were just exquisite enough to overcome their essential silliness.
Didn’t say it didn’t. But men’s professional clothes inherently have pockets for the things that a person will need in a day. Wallet, keys, smartphone etc. Women, even if they only carry the exact same things (I’ll skip the problems with society and makeup) generally have to carry a seperate, easily lost or stolen bag in order to wear professional looking clothes and carry the same items.
That’s great for people who can afford to not get the job based on principles. This is a problem for almost all women, but it’s usually less of a problem then earning money to live. thus they grin and bear it because fighting it is too costly. And those that do stand on the principles still have the right to stand on them some more and bring up in a public forum that this is a problem.
I would have thought it would be bloody easy to insert a pocket into the side seam of any fullish skirt and no one would be any the wiser whether they were empty or full. The trick is that it’s not always au courant.
I dimly remember seeing some dresses from centuries ago that had pockets that were essentially narrow sleeves with a sort of bag attached at the end. Might have been as early as the renaissance, though.
