One supremacy there is in men’s clothing… its adaptation to pockets,” New York Times reporter Charlotte P. Gilman wrote in 1905.
Women’s pockets are almost half the size of men’s ones. On average, men’s pockets are 3” deeper than women’s pockets. The average women’s jeans pocket measures 5.6 inches down and 6 inches across, while the average men’s pocket measures 9.1 inches down and 6.4 inches across.
In Medieval times, both men and women both wore bags that tied around their waists and filled them with whatever bits and bobs they needed. In the late 1800s, when the Victorian era saw trends shift toward slim skirts and tiny waists, pockets became smaller and more ornate — and basically useless.
Pockets had multiple meanings and sent a variety of messages. What you had in your pockets indicated how ready you are to be in the world (who wants empty pockets?). It was considered scandalous, vulgar, bad manners, and rude to have your hands in your pockets. The Suffragettes made a political statement with ensuring there were “plenty of pockets” in their suits.
A study from The Pudding has confirmed that women’s pockets are much smaller than men’s.
Across 80 different pairs of blue jeans, women’s front pockets were found to be an average of 48% smaller and 6.5% narrower than those in equivalent trousers for men.
Anyone thinking ‘but men are generally bigger than women so of course their pockets are bigger’, please note that all the jeans tested had a 32 inch waistband, so would fit roughly the same size of person.
Most of the jeans studied, from major brands including Calvin Klein, Guess, H&M, J. Crew, Lee, Levi’s, Wrangler, Uniqlo and Ralph Lauren, had insufficiently small pockets for women, preventing even small items from fitting inside.
Only 40% of the women’s brands surveyed could fit an iPhoneX in the front pocket, 20% a Samsung Galaxy, and 5% a Google Pixel.
For men, every single pair of jeans could hold an iPhoneX, 95% could fit a Samsung Galaxy, and 85% a Google Pixel.
For Google phone users, there was a massive 80% discrepancy between male and female pocket sizes.
Other than phones, pens, cosmetics, wallets, spare change, cardholders, bunched up earbuds, crumbs and crumpled bus tickets, pockets are most useful for holding your hands when you’re cold, don’t know what to do with them or simply want to slouch at a louche angle with your hands pocketed.
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https://www.proquest.com/docview/1950503366?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses
The inquisitive reader would ask at this point why were women protesting about the inadequacy of their pockets, and how was this indicative of sexism and inequality? The reaction to the iPhone among women signified just how much the modern pocket is a gendered object, but it is also one with a history of oppression. An examination of the sexist history of pockets truly explains the reaction to the iPhone, a history that is rooted in the Victorian era. The primary focus of this research is then on the Victorian pocket. Using thing theory, I examine the pocket as it relates to men and women consumers as portrayed in the Victorian novel, arguing that although the pocket is an overlooked object, it is an essential object in shaping and signaling the social and cultural disturbances of the Victorian era. Drawing on feminist theory, I argue that the pocket is a gendered object that is heavily symbolic of patriarchy and sexism and, ironically, of women’s emancipation.
My research is also unique in its attention to the pocket in the Victorian novels of female authors, specifically George Eliot, although I also draw on works by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Rhoda Broughton, Ellen Wood, Charlotte Brontë, and male authors like Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins. In examining these works, I focus on how the pocket can reveal new insights into the shopping woman and Victorian attitudes on gender and economics. I work within these novels because they illustrate details about cultural life that can go over and above the work of historical, anthropological or cultural studies.
A HISTORY OF VICTORIAN FASHION AND THE SEXIST POCKET
Whether revealed through muslin or disciplined by the crinoline, the female form was in continual danger, it would seem, from the ‘bulges’ and ‘hard aggregations’ caused by pockets and their contents.
The ‘female pocket,’ an impossible receptacle, seems to have required nearly constant ‘abjuration’ throughout the century” (568-9). The waist diminished and the pocket was problematic. Significantly, most women’s dress had no secure but accessible place to keep their spending money, such as men did.
n this way, gender, fashion and economics are interconnected. As the century wore on and women gained more economic importance, the sartorial restrictions became greater. In the following image from 1860, one can see how encumbering these dresses were, and how they weakened the physical abilities of a woman. First of all, the women in the image would most likely be confined in corsets (seen in the pinched and thin waistline). Secondly, the hoops below their skirts were unwieldy, not to mention that the skirts themselves were so large as to make any
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dexterous movements impossible, as illustrated below. Note also that the women must stand far apart from one another due to the size of their skirts, thereby inhibiting a sense of female community. Fashion plates such as this one are a realization of Walsh’s analysis of the ideology of fashion trends.
This sentiment from Lady Greville is significant in that it illustrates that fashion is the key to women’s economic success or failure, and it also highlights a point to be discussed later; that is, that female consumers were in turn objectified and regarded as property, and could then be consumed by men. This was one way to negate the consuming and economic power of women. “ Changes in men’s fashion “
Fashion became utilitarian for men, especially as middle class ideals took hold and the old money ideals of the aristocracy fell out of favor. Lace, perfumes, silks, and other such displays were now relegated to women’s fashion. Davidoff & Hall note that “the most contentious change was from breeches and stockings to trousers” which had convenient pockets; they also claim that this change was complete by mid-century. Furthermore, the move from the revealing pantaloons to the more functional trousers resulted in a more private and hidden sexuality; men no longer had to be conscious of how they stood or what was revealed, whereas women’s fashion moved in the opposite direction: less functionality, more frivolity and discomfort.
In conclusion, the pocket is an object that can add to the existing body of research concerning the Victorian era. Traditional literary theory has allowed scholars to analyze much about the Victorians. Marxist feminist theory has been widely used in literary analysis to effectively show how women were and are oppressed through economic systems. I combine thing theory with these more traditional approaches to augment what we already know and speculate about the period. Utilizing thing theory to examine a small but important object as it is situated in Victorian novels allows us to see the exact ways in which the pocket became a gendered object, and how it contributed to sexism that thrived in the Victorian era and exists even today. While the Victorian separation of gender spheres has been well-researched, looking at the pocket in novels has revealed unique and noteworthy details concerning alterations in gender identity that occurred through fashion and alongside Victorian economic changes. Literature is key to this approach, for a description of pockets in their natural environment and cultural context do not generally exist elsewhere.
Firstly, while women were consistently inhibited by their pockets, men were bolstered by them. Several instances in Victorian novels prove just how vulnerable women’s pockets were to loss or theft or ransacking. There are no equivalent occurrences for male characters. In fact, the second telling detail is that men rely on the safety and security and access of their pockets not only as a place to store their valuables or as a means to mobility, but as a way of masculine expression. It was a distinctly male privilege to be able to put one’s hands in one’s pockets. In fact, that gesture of “thrusting” a hand in a pocket is a wholly masculine one in these novels. Furthermore, in a society that attempted strict separation of gender spheres, men who felt forced to deny any feminine instinct or emotion could safely express or repress themselves through the use of their pocket. Thus the ability to put one’s hands in one’s pocket suddenly becomes very important upon closer inspection, and this is evident in the works of both male and female novelists. Female characters are left fumbling with their hands, which often betrayed their emotional state, adding another layer of oppression experienced by women. Although these findings show how women’s pockets were undoubtedly a hindrance, the sartorial evidence correlates with the literary evidence to demonstrate how pockets were telling sings of women’s gains in freedom and independence. The watch pocket, for example, combined with the solitary city strolling of characters like Lucy Snow or Kate Chester are evidence of women breaking the destructive molds of suppression. Finally, this analysis reveals how Victorian novelists used pockets as agents for character development; they were also tools in driving the storyline and aiding in the progress of the plot.
These findings are not only noteworthy, but they add to our modern understanding of gender inequality. Women today still suffer from suppression, and their pockets are still unequal to men’s pockets. In general, and much like the Victorians, many modern women find that their outfits don’t have pockets; the outline of the body is still important enough that bulges are unwanted. And just like Victorian women, modern women find themselves stymied when they want or need to do something with their hands.
The reason for the modern lack of pockets, and the existence of fake pockets, is certainly tied to the Victorian era. At that time, of course the silhouette—the lines and shapes of the female form—became incredibly important, with fashion emphasizing and deemphasizing certain features. Bulky pockets would not do. Yet in our modern culture, women dress in many different styles, some of them very unstreamlined and loose-fitting. The modern fashion industry could also create sleeker pockets, if the absence of pockets was only about shape and form. Why, then, do women still find themselves without pockets? Scott offers this explanation: the industry is “trying to trap us into a life of needing bags to carry our things. They’re trying to make us spend inordinate amounts of money on handbags of every colour and type.” And here we find ourselves back at the issue of shopping and the importance of women as consumers. Advertisers, designers, and companies are still relying on women to consume their goods; shopping is largely still a feminine pastime; women still have to carry bags, and awkwardly look for something to do with their hands, and perilously carry their phones and papers and wallets and pencils, and misplace their things for lack of a consistent place to put them.
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Please refer to the paper in the link below.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1950503366?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses