Men are used to carrying stuff in their pockets, you put money there, you put car keys there. With money and car keys come power and independence. You can buy stuff, you can leave. The idea of some women’s clothes not having pockets is baffling, but it’s worse than that — it’s patriarchal because it makes the assumption that women will either carry a handbag, or they’ll rely on men around them for money and keys and such things.
This is part of the background noise of my life: most women’s clothes (business and dresswear, especially) don’t have pockets. I didn’t realize, until this post started making the rounds among my Twitter friends, that most men didn’t know this.
Also? It’s easier to separate a woman from her handbag than a man from his pockets. Once you’ve lifted her handbag, the woman is bereft of transportation, ID, money, and phone — that is to say, vulnerable.
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