As a 32 year old cis woman, this is a question I’ve not only wondered, but have been frustrated by often. I know I’m not the only victim of a phone falling out of your back pocket, either to end up with a cracked screen or worse, losing it to a watery toilet grave.
As smartphones get bigger, handbags get smaller and pockets on women’s clothing continue to be non-existent or just useless, where are people who wear women’s clothes supposed to put all their stuff? On the surface this seems like a pretty trivial question, but the answer is a bit wild and much more nefarious than you’d think.
The history of pockets
Medieval pockets
Back in medieval times, pockets were much more egalitarian. Both men and women wore their “pockets” as bags attached by a string around their waist or to a belt to carry their things. In the 14th century, Paris was well known for producing the finest pockets.
These pockets were ok for carrying your things but they weren’t particularly safe (much like handbags of today). Thieves, or “pickpockets”, could easily cut the strings and take your whole damn pocket! So pockets had to move inside and under clothing to be kept safe and discreet.
17th and 18th century pockets
By the late 17th century pockets were sewn into men’s clothing, but not women’s. Women continued to wear their dangling pockets under their petticoats. (Apparently Irish women were known for their red petticoats, but no shoes). Pockets were actually kept between the petticoat and the under petticoat, meaning they were completely inaccessible in public unless you wanted to take all your clothes off. As you can imagine most didn’t and so, as a woman, you might as well of had nothing when in public.
fashion of the time, including shifts, stays, pockets, and underpetticoat. (Library of Congress)
By the end of the 18th century, huge skirts were out and figure hugging silhouettes were in. Completely useless for hiding your hanging pockets. Pockets could have been sewn into women’s clothing at this point, but they “had four external bulges already — two breasts and two hips — and a money pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth.” So pockets moved outside again, were now highly decorated, smaller in size and called a “reticule”.
“[women] had four external bulges already — two breasts and two hips — and a money pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth”
The Spectator, “the power of a pocket”
This apparently boded well for the men at the time who had growing concern over the fact that women were more independent and private with these concealed pockets and therefore, more suspicious. After all, with all those bellowing skirts, a women could be concealing all sorts of things.
One of the reasons women’s “pockets” became smaller and stayed as something that either hung or needed to be carried, was to keep women nice and powerless. The less a woman could move freely, carry and even worse, conceal, the less independent she could be and naturally, less of a threat she would be to society.
19th century pockets
Women were carrying reticules for a while and could keep small items, but not things like money. That would be ridiculous, that was for their husband to deal with. Their husband and his 17 pockets could keep the money.
In 1899, the New York Times ran a piece discussing pockets and commented “As we become more civilised, we need more pockets…no pocketless people has ever been great since pockets were invented, and the female sex cannot rival us while it is pocketless.” That quote really got me, I’m sure it’s probably tongue-in-cheek but much truth is said in jest and it’s pretty unnerving knowing how far, even now in 2021, we haven’t come with women’s pockets.
The use of pockets in literature is interesting at this time since art often mirrors reality. Burman notes in “Pocketing the Difference: Gender and Pockets in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” that “the generous allowance of pockets in suits underscores the association of masculine authority with ownership of property”. Apparently many expressions show the link between pockets, property and money. Those who are “in pocket” have money, while those who are “out of pocket”, don’t.
“As we become more civilised, we need more pockets…no pocketless people has ever been great since pockets were invented, and the female sex cannot rival us while it is pocketless.”
In the late 19th century, the Rational Dress Society was founded in London and called for women to ditch the bloomers for loose trousers instead, clothing that you could move in and had pockets. The Rational Dress Society existed alongside the New Woman, the first feminist wave.
This addition of functional pockets caused a whole new posture for women to adopt – “the-hands-in-pockets” pose. This new stance didn’t sit well with men of the time as women weren’t looking as shy as before, when their hands were either tied up in a muff or holding a small bag. Now they could stand there and put their hands in their pockets and look almost rebellious. The cheek a them and their pockets.
As a Vox article notes, The Graphic in 1894 ran a piece commenting: “The pockets of the ‘New Woman,’ admirably useful as they are, seem likely to prove her new fetish, to stand her instead of blushes and shyness and embarrassment, for who can be any of these things while she stands with her hands in her pockets?”
By the turn of the century women in the U.S. were going all in and adding pistol pockets to their clothing. And why shouldn’t they? Where else were they to keep their pistols?
20th century pockets
By the 20th century, pockets were growing in popularity, as were men’s frustrations. Chelsea Summers mentions in a piece for the Guardian, a 1913 newspaper cartoon titled “When Wifie Dons Suffragette Pockets”, that shows a man pulling out the pockets in his wife’s skirt as he looks nervously over his shoulder as she sleeps. Eh, threatened by pockets much?
During the world wars, when the men were off at war and women took up more traditionally masculine roles – trousers and utilitarian pockets were plenty.
Unfortunately this short run on women’s pockets didn’t last long and pockets along with trousers for women went out of fashion post war in an attempt to make “women’s silhouettes more thinner and feminine”. I guess these manly war men needed their womanly women back. It was during this time that handbags really took off and made it even more difficult for pockets to return.
In 1954, Christian Dior allegedly commented “ “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration.” perfectly encapsulating the perception towards not just pockets, but women at the time.
It wasn’t until the seventies during the second wave of (white) feminism and the popularity of denim jeans, that pockets came back. Even then though women were refused (what?) from restaurants if they were wearing trousers.
Things were kind of looking up for women’s pockets until the nineties and its luxury handbag took off and we were back to carrying a thing to carry our things.
21st century pockets
The noughties brought the low-rise jean with essentially no pockets. And then there was the resurgence of the skinny jean and sneaky fake pockets were dashing women’s hopes and dreams everywhere. It wasn’t a good time for our pocket struggle.
A Pudding report in 2018 found that pockets on women’s jeans are 48% shorter and 6.5% narrower than men’s pockets. In 2018 we were still living half a pocket life. And in 2021, nothing’s really changed.
The fashion industry is still predominantly male, designing for the ideal feminine silhouette, with no bumps, or pockets. Meanwhile, the handbag industry has grown to an eight billion dollar industry with no signs of slowing down.
In conclusion…
I didn’t expect to find a centuries long struggle linking pockets to gender equality but here we are, why am I surprised? What does surprise me though is that we’re still here, we’re still pretty much pocketless. I don’t know a single woman who isn’t beyond delighted when they discover their dress, skirt or trousers has pockets. Hold them down if they actually have decent-sized pockets, the excitement can be unbearable.
So why isn’t this just normal? Having no pockets literally restricts our ability to move freely by having to either juggle seven things in our hands or wear a stealable bag. Men have ample space in their pockets for their things, would the world really fall apart if women were also given this space? It’s adding an extra piece of material or a few extra inches guys. We see it, we like it, we want it, we need to get it.
The Bailey Rating
Disclaimer: While I refer to women’s clothing throughout this post, references made are not meant to be exclusionary or suggest you need be a cis gendered women to wear these items. This post covers the history of pockets for primarily wealthy, white women in the U.K and U.S. Additionally it should be noted that references throughout in relation to feminist movements primarily refer to white women as racial equality was not a priority for these earlier waves. This post is intended to serve as a log of my rambling opinions and tracker of information gathered on a topic. I aim to present accurate, well researched information, citing facts presented to the best of my ability. However, some information may prove to be inaccurate and I encourage you to do your own research on the topic. I’m always open to hearing new information or perspectives on topics posted and aim to keep this post accurate with updated information once discovered or presented to me. Feel free to comment below if you have anything to add 🙂
Header image Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels
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