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Yes, women’s pockets really are useless, data reveals

Will designers and retailers ever listen to our pleas? [Photo: Pexels]
Will designers and retailers ever listen to our pleas? [Photo: Pexels]

Optimism in women’s pockets always has consequences.

Stick a phone in your jeans, and it’ll fall out the moment you sit down.

Want to casually stick your hands in your pockets? Good luck trying to get past the knuckle point.

And no, it obviously isn’t just our imaginations, according to new data.

The Pudding recently collated the pocket sizes of women and men’s jeans from 20 different US retailers.

It found that on average, pockets in women’s jeans are just half the depth (48%) of those in men’s. They were also 6.5% narrower.

It also looked at the issue in practical terms; what everyday items could fit in such pockets?

Men don’t know how easy they have it [Photo: Pexels]
Men don’t know how easy they have it [Photo: Pexels]

women’s front pockets could completely fit in one of the three leading smartphone brands, and that under half could fit a wallet specifically designed to fit in such a pocket.

Importantly, only 10% of women’s pockets could even fit a woman’s hand.

You might be thinking that, well, men are bigger than women – but The Pudding ensured this wasn’t a factor by ensuring each of the 80 pairs of jeans it measured had a 32-inch waistband. So, more or less, they were designed to fit similarly-sized people.

Neither was this a battle between women’s tight-fitting skinny jeans and baggy men’s straight-leg pairs; both styles designed for each gender were measured, and women’s skinny jeans were still found to have smaller pockets than men’s skinny jeans.

Imagine how many phones you could fit in those pockets [Photo: Pexels]
Imagine how many phones you could fit in those pockets [Photo: Pexels]

Women’s skinny jean pockets were 48% shorter and 6% narrower than men’s skinny jeans, while women’s straight jean pockets were 46% shorter and 10% narrower.

The disparity between back pockets was smaller; women’s were 6% shorter and 2% narrower on average.

But who carries a phone in their back pocket unless they’re hoping it’ll get nicked so they can claim insurance?

Lucky for us, the one item that almost always fitted (in 98% of pockets) was a pen.

So looks like we’ll have to ditch our smartphones and go backwards an era.


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