“Is there some commonality among ‘women’ that preexists their oppression?"
I found our discussion on men and women’s fashion today very interesting. I would like to use this blog post to elaborate more on my example of pockets. When we examine women’s pockets today, they are either too small to hold anything of significance or fake, simply existing for style. The podcast that brought this idea into my head was “Articles of Interest,” created and hosted by Avery Trufelman. Trufelman examined the phenomenon of pockets by first traveling to a police supply store. She found that women have to wear men’s uniforms because the pockets on the women’s uniforms are too small!! That is something we as a society would never think out. However, that police supply store hardly has any women uniforms because they are inefficient and rarely bought by women. Pockets give us a sense of security, they allow us to move comfortably in public. They are secretive and internal, as opposed to bags that are exposed and able to be stolen. When something is in your pocket, you forget about it and your belongings become a part of you. Having pockets is an incredible advantage. One woman noted in the podcast that her son is better equipped than her daughter when they go out in public simply because of the security of his pockets. Women are exposed in several ways in our society and not having pockets furthers their exposure. The podcast noted that pockets are a metaphor for privilege “not only because they are so easily taken for granted by the people who have them, but also because, like the categories of race and gender themselves, pocket disparity is construct” (Trufelman, 2018). I found this metaphor to be fascinating, there is no real reason women should not have sufficient pockets.
Here is a link to the podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/aoi/
I highly recommend checking it out, it is very relevant to our class!
Evie, I thought that your contribution to the class discussion about pockets was very relevant and helpful in understanding the difference between men and women’s fashion. I had honestly never thought about the fact that women’s pockets are smaller or less functional than men’s. I liked the metaphor you mentioned about women being more exposed in public due to the fact that they do not have pockets. I believe this is accurate because women’s clothing is already overall more exposing and when they do not have pockets and carry their belongings in a bag or in their hands, their belongings are more vulnerable. The fact that the pockets are more for decoration and not for using further supports gender norms. It has become normalized for only women to carry handbags. We don’t see many men carrying the latest handbag because it is not accepted in society. So, when clothing designers only make men’s clothing have usable pockets and women’s to not, it further encourages men to carry their belongings in their pockets and women to carry a handbag. Small details like this are what continuously set gender barriers and create gender norms. As Evie said, there is no reason women should not be able to have sufficient pockets. They should be allowed to carry their items in their pockets in the same way that men do. This is similar to the historical argument whether women could wear pants or not. Pants were considered masculine and therefore women were not allowed to wear them. We have come a long way since then and women do wear pants now, but again with the pockets we see minor details of women being limited on what they can wear that is considered masculine. As society accepted women wearing pants, they should accept women having functional pockets that are not just for decoration. I can’t wait to check out the podcast!
ReplyDeleteWhen I’m at work, one of the things female customers are the most surprised about is that the pants we sell have pockets. I often witness the scenario of women sticking their hands in the pants pockets, their eyes widening when their entire hand goes in, and happily proclaiming “It has pockets!” It seems like such a trivial manner, but having this kind of security is important for a lot of women. Even if it’s not entirely foolproof (there are always going to be pickpockets and the like who can steal things) it is much more reassuring to have it closer to your person. The ownership over important items like your phone, keys, and wallet is much more tangible if it is practically attached to you. The gendered differences between clothing is baffling when you think about it. I have had male customers horrified to learn they bought the women’s version of a products unknowingly, because they look exactly the same. The sizing is different, and women’s medium is smaller than men’s medium, but there really doesn’t need to be a distinction between that either. If sizing is based on, well, size, then shouldn’t it be based on something more empirical? Like all mediums being based on a certain height. Instead, these sizes are based on the average woman and the average man, even for products that aren’t particularly gendered. There are many items in the store that look almost exactly the same, with the only difference being whether they are labeled with men’s or women’s item codes. This is especially apparent with our jackets, where there is almost nothing that indicates the jackets as being “masculine” or “feminine” besides the prefix attached to the product title. There should be no gender for clothing, but it would be hard to sell more clothes if they weren’t meaninglessly separated by gender.
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