I’m still not sure who got the shorter end of the deal, women who don’t get pockets, or men who don’t get purses. I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets, but if I had a purse, I would carry a lot more.
The misogynist anti-pocket conspiracy is real. Both jeans are approximately the same size, and both made by Wrangler.
Womens pants are usually worn tight. Mens pants are worn loose. If you put something in the front pocket and sit, you’re introducing a crease right in the middle of a man’s pocket and any solid objects (wallet, phone etc.) needs to have enough looseness in the outside fabric to move out of the crease and stay flat. There is that amount of freedom, in mens clothing, and so the pockets take advantage of it.
If you were to wear tight pants, put a phone in the front pocket, and try to sit then you wouldn’t be able to comfortably sit. The only solution would be to make a shorter pocket that ends before the crease where the hip meets the thigh. Anything small, like some chapstick, will lie above and parallel to the crease and not cause an issue.
If a pair of baggy womens cargo pants have small pockets, then that would be questionable.
When women find clothing with pockets, one of the very first items to shoved inside is a kleenex.
Since we are not used to having pockets, we may forget to empty them on washday.
Voila! Ratty bits of kleenex “snow” in the dryer!
One of the major drawbacks of carrying a purse is lugging around crap for the man in your life. “Here, Sweetheart, put my wallet/sunglasses/travelers checks/bowling ball in your purse for me.”
~VOW
Is the man in your life somehow devoid of pockets in his clothes?
Nah, he’s got pockets. But he’s got so much sh–, er, stuff crammed in his billfold, sitting on it during long trips in the car make his butt and back hurt.
~VOW
Not long ago, I could see the picture in post 21 proving the big small pocket hypothesis. Now it’s just a blank space and I have to click on the space to see the picture. Coincidence? Let’s ask Smiegel. 
Ok, so what’s up with the tiny pocket inside my front pocket. Guy, Dockers shorts, so not the tiny pocket on Levis. All it seems to do is not let my phone all the way into the pocket. Also, there seems to be an extra pocket, completely closed off to every thing attached to the back pocket.
Now I’ve typed pocket so many times that it no longer looks like a real word.
I have a pair of shorts made by Columbia with a similar setup. At the bottom of the right front pocket is a smaller pocket. I don’t know what it is for, but it is the perfect size to hold my ear buds case. I’m pretty sure the shorts predate ear buds, so I’m not sure what it was for originally.
My ski jacket has a forearm pocket which is perfect for holding NFC/RFID ski passes. The jacket predates the first NFC ski pass by about 20 years. I have no idea what it was for originally, because it doesn’t have a clear panel for an ID, is inconvenient to hold a paper map, and due to the location on the forearm is annoying for anything as bulky as a granola bar.
That’s why, when i have my pockets expanded to a useful size, i have them made deep enough that the phone fits below the fold.
I sometimes pay as much for the pockets as for the pants. But my pants have pockets.
My pants have pockets, and some of my pockets have pockets too. I dropper a pen into the wrong pocket the other day and took me 10 minutes to figure out where it was an how to get it out because one of the pockets inside another pocket was zippered shut but not tight enough that a pen wouldn’t slip in but it still feels like it’s an different pocket altogether. And that’s nothing like some of the vests you can buy now. The Bat Utility Belt was nothing compared to those wearable versions of a roll top desk.
That’s what I think. If there really is this great, seething desire for clothes with pockets, someone should take advantage of it. Don’t complain about it; start a company that makes women’s clothes with big pockets. Fortunes have started from less.
This is why my corollary to Parkinson’s Law is that the amount of stuff a woman carries with her expands to fill the size of the purse she carries.
I try to buy less than luggage-sized purses, so I don’t end up carrying my entire life around with me.
Most of the issue is that pockets ruin the “line” of the clothing, unless the clothing is so baggy as to make you look a bit heavier.
I’ve heard that, too. That’s kind of my point. The lack of pockets in women’s clothing gets discussed as some sort of unfair plot to deprive you of what you want. Do they, though; would women really buy clothes with large pockets, if the tradeoff was to look baggier and heavier?
If there really is a demand for larger pockets, why aren’t more companies exploiting it?
And happy doperversary, by the way.
The mystery of the little pocket inside the front pocket in men’s pants is now solved!
It’s a watch pocket.
When I was a kid, my mom explained it to me. Out of curiosity, we went to my parents’ closet and checked the pockets on Daddy’s trousers. (He didn’t wear blue jeans…)
Every single pair of trousers had a watch pocket. Some were very hard to find, but the pockets were there. Momma said since very few men used a pocket watch any more, the watch pocket would probably be phased out.
Fifty-some years after that conversation, those little pockets are still there!
~VOW
I would. In fact, i pay a lot to have a tailor add useful pockets.
Most women’s pants nowadays are stretchy. I have no problem with wearing my phone in my front pocket in the pants whose pockets are large enough to accommodate it.
You may just be unique. If there’s one thing about Capitalism, the chance to get rich means no pent-up demand goes unfulfilled for very long.
So much this. My mother lugged a big purse precisely because of this habit of my Dad’s. Little did she know she had scoliosis and this gradually began to affect her walk and sciatica, too. I showed her my tiny purse and got her one so she could turn Dad’s request down. “John, my purse is too small.” While he swore about women’s fashions, he did learn to quit using her as his pack mule, and her gait improved.