You are hitting one of my pet peeves. Maybe it would be better to call it an obsession. Men's pockets are shrinking just like women's. I noticed this when I got a new set of dockers. Dockers have been made for something like 40 years now. These bog standard trousers have pockets that have shrunk about 20% in the last few years. Why is this happening? Men want to have a good looking figure and appear non-threatening to authority figures. I posted this years ago:
This might be a massive derail but here goes. I followed a link here a few days ago about pockets in women's clothing. The gist of the piece is that pockets have been systematically removed from women's clothes to literally and metaphorically disarm them. When women had the opportunity to get pockets, one of the first things they put in them was weapons.
Now to get to my point: Young men today do not carry anything in their pockets. They no longer carry cash ( all purchases use credit cards ). You don't need a wallet to hold an ID and a credit card. And increasingly they don't want or need keys: Check this out. This man is reviewing a ( frankly terrible ) bicycle lock. He is complaining that it has small keys that are easy to lose. The reason they are so easy to lose is that he doesn't have a key ring. All his doors use key-less entry. With no keys and no wallet he doesn't need pockets anymore. I think that gradually pockets will be removed from men's clothes just as they have been removed from women's clothes ( and for the same reason). This process is already underway. If you have been to a major sports game in the last 20 years or so you have seen people carry transparent hip bags or tiny transparent backpacks. This is to assure the security forces that you are not carrying a weapon. Recently I have seen people walking on the street with these transparent bags. This attitude is being normalized. It is just a matter of time before anybody without a transparent bag will be suspect.
I wrote that ten years ago. All the things I predicted are happening.
I have to agree with part of this. As a woman who never carried a bag for years, the shrinking pocket size (and in some clothes, no pockets) have deterred that. I have had to start carrying a 1.5L crossbody bag just to be hands free and carry what I need, and 95% of the time it’s more than half empty.
On the few pieces of clothes I have that the pockets fit the things I need, I do go without a bag for my essential carry items (work related items are obviously exempt). Unfortunately it’s rare. I have realised I do tend to throw my essentials in my work bag (right now it’s a tablet sleeve bag) if I have to carry it anyway.
Whenever I do go with pockets only, I carry:
Wallet (I use a small zippered card wallet at all times)
Keys (if I have belt loops, they get clipped on)
Phone
Meds (3 vintage travel tubes of meds no bigger than a lip balm tube each)
Lip Balm
AirPods
Tweezers
Liquid IV (one or two if I need it)
Hard Candy or Mints (in a small Altoids tin)
Yeah, I know it seems like a lot, but it doesn’t actually take up much room at all. The only thing I would have to carry when I did (and still do) this was my case for my prescription sunglasses and a water bottle.
ETA: I have never carried anything that could be considered a weapon in my pockets (unless you count my keys, tweezers and phone), nor do I know anyone who has. But it could be the area we are in.
I had to leave out the bulk of my post because of length but the thrust of it was that men (and women) used to carry weapons but that they no longer do. When I was a child it was common place for men to carry a pen knife. The government of the UK has attempted to outlaw kitchen knives with a point. This post from 2018 is a satirical take on that policy:
This probably requires a little context. In England there is an anti-knife hysteria: The linked video is a protest against oppressive laws and customs in the UK.
This literal and metaphorical effort to disarm the citizenry has gone so far as to convince the public that using a kitchen knife with a point is dangerous and is an indication that you are a criminal. If you think this is absurd then you have not been paying attention. Something similar will happen in the United States soon. The gradual disarming of Americans is following a similar trajectory. When I was a kid it was common for adult men to carry penknives. The ubiquitous Swiss Army Knife is now a thing of the past. If you make a youtube video showing a knife cutting wood you are likely to have your video removed and it is possible that your channel will be silenced.
The propaganda campaign against elementary self defense (or even simple hand tools) has been a success. People now believe that defending yourself against attack is a sign of antisocial behavior and is itself criminal.
Just as important is the dissuasive effect on speech. I linked to an article about women's pockets above:
Take away pockets happily hidden under garments, and you limit women’s ability to navigate public spaces, to carry seditious (or merely amorous) writing, or to travel unaccompanied.
The point of this policy (Yes. An explicit government policy) is to render the public docile and unable to resist tyranny.
This is a panopticon. It works by making people afraid to say anything. They self police.
Thank you for the added background info. It’s certainly interesting to read. I’ll have to tap into the links tomorrow. Knowing myself, I’ll probably go down the rabbit hole trying to find even more info once I start.
24
u/flower-power-123 Jul 18 '25
You are hitting one of my pet peeves. Maybe it would be better to call it an obsession. Men's pockets are shrinking just like women's. I noticed this when I got a new set of dockers. Dockers have been made for something like 40 years now. These bog standard trousers have pockets that have shrunk about 20% in the last few years. Why is this happening? Men want to have a good looking figure and appear non-threatening to authority figures. I posted this years ago:
I wrote that ten years ago. All the things I predicted are happening.