Vote with your wallet is a terrible system - Rant

[Shamash]

Seeing 2D8HP being wholesome warms the heart.

Anyway, how can I vote for something that is nto a thing? Like a video game about jousting or a movie about aliens x knigths.

Do I have to make these by myself?

[Fiery Diamond]

I don't believe you.
Are they ever!

I took an "Orbital Welding" for stainless steel tube class, and when I realized that unlike my previous welding classes I could pretty much dress for comfort, I kept the work boots, but ditched the denim for slacks and a button shirt.

The disapproving sneers and "You look like a banker" comments (this was in 2009) from my classmates (all guys in my local union, or close by ones) told me that office attire was not acceptable.

Though I notice that most male office workers don't wear good shirts instead they wear "Polo" shirts, which are flimsy, uncomfortable, and usually ugly (when not dark), why does this abomination exist?

With that in mind, it sure seems to me that "sport", "leisure", "casual", and often even "outdoor" clothing are synonym's for "uncomfortable flimsy plastic crap"!

I've noticed that different people have wildly different ideas of what kind of clothing is comfortable. If I'm not wearing shorts, I prefer loose slacks. I find jeans horrendously uncomfortable. I have an extreme dislike of denim in general, actually. Also,most polos are much more comfortable than full button-up shirts (AKA dress shirts), which are in most cases rather uncomfortable.

On the pockets and industry discussion: I'm on the women's side, here. The big players just don't think it will be enough of a profit-booster to justify the expense of making all the necessary new lines of clothing. It's not that the demand isn't there; it's that the big players aren't going to be threatened by any small players providing pocketed clothes. "If it ain't broke, don't bother to try to improve it," seems to be the way most big players work.

[Liquor Box]

@Liquor Box Well, they didn't had many famale models when I was a kid, I had tons of legos and out of all my 50+ figures I only had 3 girls, one witch, one cook and one waitress.

One witch hat, one red ponytail and one brown ponytail for "hat piece".

Two "famale faces" with red lipstick and makeup heavy eyes that looked almost asian.

One witch face that was ugly and toothless.

One cook outfit, one waitresss outfit and one black dress.

That really limited my options since I had to use male parts to create my character and I didn't use a ponytail as a kid so it wasn't the best represenation and I didn't like the default famale face.

While my cousins could do hundreds of combinations mine were very limited.

I only got a girl face and a girl hair when Lego harry potter came out and by that time I was starting to grow too old for lego so I wasn't able to enjoy it as much.

Yeah, it may have been that there were fewer female figures in the olden days. I happen to have instructions for a pirate set from the nineties, and on that one of the six pirates is female. Nowadays I think female figures are more prevalent, in the main set (Lego Cities). Which may be a demonstration of the market functioning as one would hope - if they found that sets with more women sold, they would have increased female representation.

[Liquor Box]

Straight cut doesn't work for a lot of women. There's two separate issues that get conflated in clothing cuts:

(1) how the garment is meant to hang on a person of the size and shape it's designed for

(2) the size and shape of the person it's designed for

So im my case, I like the look of straight cut pants, but they don't make them in my shape. They're made for women with fairly slim hips; curvier gals only get form fitted stuff. So I end up with a lot of stuff that's more form fitting than I want, because my other option is a big bunch of excess fabric at my waist. I'm not buying the style I like because it's not made for my body.

It sounds like the issue you are having is not that you want pants with pockets, but you want pants with a particular style, at a particular cost, made for a particular (and perhaps slightly unusual) body shape, made out of certain materials as well as having pockets.

I think it hard for all people (regardless of gender) to find clothes that they like and fit them right, and fit all their other criteria. It may be harder for women because they tend to have more options available in terms of choices, possibly more diverse body shapes, and also want options with and without pockets. Having more choices does suggest that you will have to shop longer to find the one you want.

It is not a failure of the market if there are no clothes available that fit your particular needs (including size and fit). The market is not a tool for giving every person exactly what they want (unless they are prepared to pay more for it). If there are not enough people demanding pants of the cut and style and materials you like, made of the materials you like, with pockets, at the price you want to pay, then of course the market wont provide it. That is not a failure of the market.

For the third time, these things exist, they're just irritatingly rare. You cannot make the argument that it's not possible to make nice looking women's clothes with pockets, because I have items in my wardrobe right now that provide a counter example.

They are not that hard to find. I simply went to the Walmart website, went to the list for jeans, and there they were, several women's (and men's) jeans with pockets.

I wonder if what you are getting at is the same thing as Warkitty, that it is hard to find pants of a particular, style, cut, size etc etc, as well as with pockets. If so my answer to her applies.

Yes it may be harder for women to find the exact pair of pants she wants than it is for men, but that is because women have more variety available than men - including demand for pants with pockets, and pants without pockets. That means women have more choice, but it is harder to find the particular thing she wants. That is not a failure of the marker, but instead it is the market delivering women exactly what they demand - more choice.

[Liquor Box]

When talking about the issue facing a group you do not belong to, it is best to assume the people in that group have a better experience and understanding of those issues than you do since, you know, the live them.There is a difference between "mansplaining" and "femsplaining", however:
Men are privileged compared to women, a man explaining to a woman why her concerns of sexism are unfounded, comes across an [ethnic majority] person telling an [ethnic minority] person why there is no xenophobia in [country they both live in] despite the other's claims to the contrary.

If we take your above point, it does indeed suggest that women may be better placed to speak about the feelings, preferences, motivations and experience of women, but do you think the reverse is true, that women should defer to men on the feelings, preferences, motivations and experience of men? And given sexism is very often about motivation, should women defer to men on the question of whether decisions made by men and effecting women are motivated by sexism or other factors. For example if a man were to say "in my experience where women accuse me and other men of mansplaining it is not actually because I am making a sexist assumption that a woman will need something explained by a men, but men explaining matters that come within my particular area of interest/expetise" would it be wrong of a woman to argue against that?

I don't think so myself. I think we put too much emphasis on a person's demographic when determining how valuable their comment is, and not enough emphasis on the content of that comment.

Experience trumps second-hand account.
"No M.Rambo, PTSD is absolutely not like that. Let me explain why you are wrong."

This is a great example of the above. A soldier's self diagnosis of PTSD is not authoratative. The opinion of a psychiatrist (who may have had no first hand experience with either combat or having PTSD) is.

Applying that to the present conversation, a woman's comment that women prefer pants with pockets is not persuasive as to the preference of women generally, but the comment of an expert would be. In this case, the expert would be someone who carries out market research in the pants preferences of women - likely engaged by a supplier of women's pants to determine what pants it will supply.

[An Enemy Spy]

I'm just curious, has this pocket argument gone on so long because everyone on both sides is this passionate on the availability of pockets in women's clothing or is it just because you just have to be the winner of this pointless discussion? Which will result in... absolutely nothing happening. I'm asking because I've gotten to the point where I can't argue with people on line without getting burnt out after two or three posts and I'm wondering what it is that makes people so passionate about continuing these things for days and weeks. Is it just spite?

[2D8HP]

Seeing 2D8HP being wholesome warms the heart.

????

I have no such recollections.

Anyway, how can I vote for something that is nto a thing? Like a video game about jousting or a movie about aliens x knigths.

Do I have to make these by myself?

Please do!

I'm just curious, has this pocket argument gone on so long because...

It's gone on so long because there's different points of view, unlike my contention that the presence of Ewoks (freakin' teddy bears!) in Return of the Jedi and the absence of extended 36 hour versions of Conan the Destroyer, Excalibur, Hawk the Slayer, and Young Sherlock Holmes represent total abject market failure, which every one here readily agreed to without exception.

As was my pointing out that in a well functioning.marketplace there would be many more films featuring Helen Mirren and Patrick Stewart.

[AMFV]

I'm just curious, has this pocket argument gone on so long because everyone on both sides is this passionate on the availability of pockets in women's clothing or is it just because you just have to be the winner of this pointless discussion? Which will result in... absolutely nothing happening. I'm asking because I've gotten to the point where I can't argue with people on line without getting burnt out after two or three posts and I'm wondering what it is that makes people so passionate about continuing these things for days and weeks. Is it just spite?

Some people (myself included) like to engage in passionate discussion. The anonymous portion of the internet is a place where I can do that without offending or irritating my family members.

[Knaight]

Occam's Razor pretty clearly says you have weird fashion tastes, the alternative being that there's somehow a conspiracy among industry competitors to only sell in extremely limited quantities something people are clamoring for.

There are all sorts of things that influence production and distribution besides hostile conspiracies, which always seem to get overlooked in favor of claiming that people are pushing conspiracy theories. Notably, in the case of clothing (though this absolutely applies to other goods as well to varying degrees).

1) Clothing benefits from a brick and mortar store because you can physically check fit, in a way that you can't online. This same thing applies to pretty much anything with a significant tactile experience - furniture, non-standardized sporting equipment (e.g. bowling balls of varying weights), vehicles, so on and so forth.

2) The structure of how brick and mortar stores get stocked favors the establishment of a few major brands, with everything else relegated to the sidelines. Space for products on shelves is straight up sold to companies, which creates a high barrier of entry, allowing for the development of oligopolies. These are disguised to some extent by the number of seemingly distinct brands that all trace back to the same owners, but if you actually do that tracing you'll find a small handful of competitors in most cases.

3) Corporate cultures tend to be extremely short sighted. As has been pointed out above the nebulous market is made up of actual people making decisions, and these people have incentives. These incentives disproportionately work out such that the decision makers are laser focused on quarterly profits, where anything that takes more than three months to pay dividends is much harder to get done. Establishing, producing, and marketing a new type of clothing could easily take more than three months, particularly given that fashion is volatile and there's nothing to follow for clothing of that class.

4) Corporate cultures also tend to be very risk averse, for similar reasons - this comes down to actual people, and actual people generally favor avoiding losses over making gains, which then gets fed into a feedback loop. Again, a new type of product is inherently risky, and that makes it less likely to happen, particularly when the limited space of an oligopoly.

A lot of the assumptions of what should be going on with markets is basic microeconomics - and by basic I mean the first quarter of the first semester. Those models are based on the theoretical behavior under certain simplifying assumptions, starting with perfect information for buyers and sellers, perfectly competitive markets which neglect factors like regional variation (e.g. this store is on this block, this one is a few miles away), and other assumptions that work out to the economics equivalent of a frictionless plane in a vacuum or a mixture of uniform concentration and temperature (well-mixed, being the jargon phrase for that particular bit of hilarious simplification).

Reality then not fitting the simplified model is routinely taken as a sign that reality must have been interpreted, because the data make no sense, even when the issue is that the model doesn't work under these conditions.

[Fyraltari]

I have yet to see anyone argue for clothes that combine high fashion and cargo pants. My wife, for instance, just wants pants with two normal pockets. A place to put her phone and wallet, for instance. That doesn't need anywhere near as much of a tradeoff for nice-looking.

Spoiler: I wouldn't be surprised

Show

Hopefully the thread will "re-rail" itself.

Looks unlikely.

If women tell me that they have difficulty finding pants with pockets, okay, no problem, I can believe that.

But just because the problem is one that affects women, it doesn't mean women intrinsically know why it exists or if it can or ever will be remedied. Do you see the difference?

So if you say "they don't really make pants or dresses with pockets in them, when you do find a pair it's a real treat" I take you at your word. But if you go on to say "The reason is because of sexism, and the industry will never change their ways even if they know of the demand and the profit they can make", well then I'm going to ask for some explanation. Because that's not a claim about your experience. That's a much greater claim.

That makes sense, however if your conclusion is "women don't actually want pocketed pants depite what the women here say." then the accusation is warranted.

I just picture myself in a room full of white people, I'm the only person of color there, and we're talking about race relations in the United States. And the white guy with the mic says "Hold on, none of us here is qualified to truly understand these problems and properly fix them. Let's hand the mic to the only person here that can solve this problem." and they turn the mic over to me, and I'm just sitting there like... Oh, now I have to solve race relations because I'm a person of color so suddenly I'm an expert on complex social issues...

Yes that wouldn't make sense, however if the question was "We have someone here that can tell us if persons of color have it rough in this country" then the person's skin-color would be relevant and their input should be listened to.

People don't need to understand the underlying causes to know a problem when they see it.
If I start coughing blood that wouldn't make me a specialist on lung cancer (or whatever illness that makes you cough blood) or even meke me know what it is that is wrong, but that would make me know that there is, indeed, something that needs fixing yesterday.

It comes across that way if you take it that way. I have asked repeatedly why people think there aren't pockets now if the demand is there and the industry is aware of the profitability. The response has been crickets.
If you're making the claim that companies are refusing to make a profit because they would prefer to keep women without pockets due to sexism, and some people (yes, some men) are incredulous, that's to be expected. Accusations of mansplaining come across as cheap deflections from an incredible but unsubstantiated claim.

What is the alternative? "Well, some women said it so it must be true, because we're talking about women's pants."

You really don't see how silly that is??

Okay, so what is the decision based on? Please explain.

Historically, women were confined to housewives/eye candy roles and thus needed pockets much less than men. When capitalism rolled around they, logically, sold pockets to men and no-pockets to men for their women. Now that Womens's lib is happening, women want pockets and would buy them however the industry leaders, as is naturally the case in a liberal economy, are few, conservative and more interested in not losing their position than getting even more money and thus risk-averse. The entrepeneurs that are willing to take that risk are small-time and unable to truly compete with the established company (because a liberal economy is by nature pyramiudal and the higher you are the more unlikely it is that your spot will be free anytime soon) and thus are either bankrupted, bought by these industry leaders who then apply their policies to the store or doomed to stay a local shop.

As Women's lib progresses the industry will be forced to follow the path taken by society but these things take longer than they should. Basically the industry (as does every industry) lags behind social progress because of the way the market works. That's a failure of the market.

I know look forward to people more knwoledgeable than me on fashion/gender politics history to come and correct me on everything I inevitably got wrong.

As a man, you're not speaking to your own experience, so you really don't know what you're talking about, according to your own beliefs. So if you don't actually know, how can you deem to explain to us how it works? Did you hear this from a woman? Can you please prove that this information came from a woman so we know it's correct?

My own beliefs tell that I don't know better than women what women want. Simple as that. Please note the bolding.

If anyone here can demonstrate that the industry is sexist and keeping pockets off pants for sexist reasons despite their being profit to make, I think we would agree.

See above.

[QUOTE=Dr.Samurai;23120833]You don't get to make a claim like that and expect to be believed by virtue of being a woman. So I don't see any mansplaining here. In light of that, allow me to offer a counter-definition: Mansplaining is an attempt to add more weight than is appropriate to a woman's claim, while simultaneously dismissing a man's comments right out.
Looks like it's not.

Right. So if I agree with women, my sex is irrelevant. But if I disagree with women, then my sex is relevant. If I am a woman, then it's a legitimate point and a discussion is had. If I am a man however, then I am mansplaining and I should simply be silent and listen.

This is pure nonsense, Fyraltari.

If you tell a woman you know better than her how an issue affects women then yes your sex is relevant. You can replace woman by any group and sex by "belonging to that group or not" and it will stay true.
This isnot rocket science, Dr.Samurai.

Nevermind that GW was offended that their sex was assumed, and keeps their sex unknown, and then is dismissive of points and comments based on the sex of the person saying them.

Things GW cannot do without GW's comment being hypocritical:
Telling a woman, GW knows better than her what she wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's gender.
Telling a man, GW knows better than him what he wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's gender.
Telling an oyster, GW knows better than them what they wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's oysterness.

Things GW can do without Gw's comment being hypocritical:
Telling a man he doesn't know better than women what they want without disclosing GW's gender.

I'm just curious, has this pocket argument gone on so long because everyone on both sides is this passionate on the availability of pockets in women's clothing or is it just because you just have to be the winner of this pointless discussion? Which will result in... absolutely nothing happening. I'm asking because I've gotten to the point where I can't argue with people on line without getting burnt out after two or three posts and I'm wondering what it is that makes people so passionate about continuing these things for days and weeks. Is it just spite?

Some people feel strongly on sexism-related issues. Go figure.
Some, myself, anyway, like to debate and have their concepts and belief challenged. Good reminder that you will never be right about everything and keeps you mind exercised. And it's fun.

There are all sorts of things that influence production and distribution besides hostile conspiracies, which always seem to get overlooked in favor of claiming that people are pushing conspiracy theories. Notably, in the case of clothing (though this absolutely applies to other goods as well to varying degrees).

1) Clothing benefits from a brick and mortar store because you can physically check fit, in a way that you can't online. This same thing applies to pretty much anything with a significant tactile experience - furniture, non-standardized sporting equipment (e.g. bowling balls of varying weights), vehicles, so on and so forth.

2) The structure of how brick and mortar stores get stocked favors the establishment of a few major brands, with everything else relegated to the sidelines. Space for products on shelves is straight up sold to companies, which creates a high barrier of entry, allowing for the development of oligopolies. These are disguised to some extent by the number of seemingly distinct brands that all trace back to the same owners, but if you actually do that tracing you'll find a small handful of competitors in most cases.

3) Corporate cultures tend to be extremely short sighted. As has been pointed out above the nebulous market is made up of actual people making decisions, and these people have incentives. These incentives disproportionately work out such that the decision makers are laser focused on quarterly profits, where anything that takes more than three months to pay dividends is much harder to get done. Establishing, producing, and marketing a new type of clothing could easily take more than three months, particularly given that fashion is volatile and there's nothing to follow for clothing of that class.

4) Corporate cultures also tend to be very risk averse, for similar reasons - this comes down to actual people, and actual people generally favor avoiding losses over making gains, which then gets fed into a feedback loop. Again, a new type of product is inherently risky, and that makes it less likely to happen, particularly when the limited space of an oligopoly.

A lot of the assumptions of what should be going on with markets is basic microeconomics - and by basic I mean the first quarter of the first semester. Those models are based on the theoretical behavior under certain simplifying assumptions, starting with perfect information for buyers and sellers, perfectly competitive markets which neglect factors like regional variation (e.g. this store is on this block, this one is a few miles away), and other assumptions that work out to the economics equivalent of a frictionless plane in a vacuum or a mixture of uniform concentration and temperature (well-mixed, being the jargon phrase for that particular bit of hilarious simplification).

Reality then not fitting the simplified model is routinely taken as a sign that reality must have been interpreted, because the data make no sense, even when the issue is that the model doesn't work under these conditions.

Just a big yup.

[Dr.Samurai]

That makes sense, however if your conclusion is "women don't actually want pocketed pants depite what the women here say." then the accusation is warranted.

No it isn't. I can't speak on behalf of all men, or all latinos, or all heteros, or all people that wear shorts year round, etc just by virtue of being a member of those groups. And you shouldn't simply accept what I say as truth on behalf of those people just because I share a trait with them.

Notice the difference between the two exchanges below:

Woman: I have trouble finding women's pants with pockets.
Man: I don't have this problem, so you must be mistaken.
Simple-Minded Person: MANSPLAINING!!!

Woman: I have trouble finding women's pants with pockets and the reason is a sexist industry that cares more about sexism than profits. The demand is there, all women want pockets, but the industry simply doesn't care, and actively opposes us.
Man: What makes you say that? If the demand is there for profit to be made, why wouldn't companies add pockets?
Simple-Minded Person: MANSPLAINING!!!

Do you see how these exchanges aren't the same and don't warrant the same... "criticisms", let's say?

Yes that wouldn't make sense, however if the question was "We have someone here that can tell us if persons of color have it rough in this country" then the person's skin-color would be relevant and their input should be listened to.

Who is disagreeing with this though?

People don't need to understand the underlying causes to know a problem when they see it.
If I start coughing blood that wouldn't make me a specialist on lung cancer (or whatever illness that makes you cough blood) or even meke me know what it is that is wrong, but that would make me know that there is, indeed, something that needs fixing yesterday.

Correct. So we're in agreement. There is a difference between the experience of not being able to buy pants with pockets, and knowing the reasons why they aren't readily available. I'm glad we can see eye to eye here.

As Women's lib progresses the industry will be forced to follow the path taken by society...

We're in agreement, and yet you're so busy explaining how we're mansplaining to even see that...

My own beliefs tell that I don't know better than women what women want. Simple as that. Please note the bolding.

Don't conflate disagreeing with women, with the claim to know better than women. Point to me where someone made this claim about a woman's personal experience, maybe I missed it...

If you tell a woman you know better than her how an issue affects women then yes your sex is relevant.

Nevermind that this didn't happen when GW lobbed the accusation at Lemmy in the first place, but simply put, no, it's still not relevant.

This isnot rocket science, Dr.Samurai.

Lol, don't worry, I would never mistake this pseudo-intellectualism with rocket science .

Things GW cannot do without GW's comment being hypocritical:
Telling a woman, GW knows better than her what she wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's gender.
Telling a man, GW knows better than him what he wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's gender.
Telling an oyster, GW knows better than them what they wants, feels, etc without disclosing GW's oysterness.

Things GW can do without Gw's comment being hypocritical:
Telling a man he doesn't know better than women what they want without disclosing GW's gender.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and just say, without guessing as to why, that you have a very skewed perception of the conversation so far.

[AMFV]

That makes sense, however if your conclusion is "women don't actually want pocketed pants depite what the women here say." then the accusation is warranted.

I think what people are saying is that women aren't willing to pay as much as many men would to have good pockets and are prioritization other things over that.

As I said I could not buy pocketless pants, and even with pockets I need a toolbelt and extra pockets. It wouldn't matter if I had to spend 150 a pair, then I would just have fewer pairs. So that's market driving force if I and other guys in similar work would not buy pants from people sans pockets then manufacturers are likely to treat that more seriously than random people complaining.

[Fyraltari]

No it isn't. I can't speak on behalf of all men, or all latinos, or all heteros, or all people that wear shorts year round, etc just by virtue of being a member of those groups. And you shouldn't simply accept what I say as truth on behalf of those people just because I share a trait with them.

I don't but if all mebers of the group I know and all involved in the discussion are in agreement, I will

Notice the difference between the two exchanges below:

Woman: I have trouble finding women's pants with pockets.
Man: I don't have this problem, so you must be mistaken.
Simple-Minded Person: MANSPLAINING!!!

Woman: I have trouble finding women's pants with pockets and the reason is a sexist industry that cares more about sexism than profits. The demand is there, all women want pockets, but the industry simply doesn't care, and actively opposes us.
Man: What makes you say that? If the demand is there for profit to be made, why wouldn't companies add pockets?
Simple-Minded Person: MANSPLAINING!!!

Do you see how these exchanges aren't the same and don't warrant the same... "criticisms", let's say?

Who is disagreeing with this though?
Correct. So we're in agreement. There is a difference between the experience of not being able to buy pants with pockets, and knowing the reasons why they aren't readily available. I'm glad we can see eye to eye here.

We're in agreement, and yet you're so busy explaining how we're mansplaining to even see that...

Don't conflate disagreeing with women, with the claim to know better than women. Point to me where someone made this claim about a woman's personal experience, maybe I missed it...

Nevermind that this didn't happen when GW lobbed the accusation at Lemmy in the first place, but simply put, no, it's still not relevant.

Lol, don't worry, I would never mistake this pseudo-intellectualism with rocket science .
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and just say, without guessing as to why, that you have a very skewed perception of the conversation so far.

I am going to give you the same and post an excerpt of the conversation below:

The idea that the clothes manufacturing industry cares more about some sexist agenda than profits is laughable. Those companies don't care one way or another about sexism or equality. They'll produce the products that sell the most. Sure, there'll always be some products that break the mold, but the vast majority of what's produced will be whatever sells most. Most women's pants are "pocketless" simply because women have consistently bought "pocketless" pants waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than ones with sizable pockets. I'm sure many women complain about their lack of pockets, but clearly many more prefer to the ones that look better, but have no pockets.

I'm sure that having a man tell the thread how they are the ultimate experts on how the fashion industry operates and what women buy and don't buy for the third time, presenting no evidence other than their supposed expertise on women's actions, ignoring all arguments against it and indeed the actual business practices of the fashion industry will do the trick. Sure of it.

GW

You speak as if anyone on the other side offered any more evidence (other than the laughably hypocritical implication that some arguments should weigh less because of the gender of their speakers). I'm much more inclined to believe the industry doesn't see enough of a a market to exploit than to think that the fashion industry would opt out of making millions of dollars out of sexism. But to each their own, I guess.

Oh, and AFAICT, no one claimed expertise on anything.

You spoke as if you knew better than women what they want. I suggest you read into the realities of mansplaining, and why there is nothing hypocritical about calling such people out.

Grey Wolf

Hah! "Mansplaining" is literally a term created to devalue someone's opinion based on their gender. If you think I'm mistaken or being condescending, you could say something like "you're mistaken" or "you're being condescending" (happens both men and women), but instead you prefer to imply that a opinion is worth less because the speaker is male. It's extremely hypocritical. Or do you think that when a woman comments on the behavior of men and I disagree with what she says, it'd be perfectly reasonable and to accuse her of "femsplaining" or some other silly BS term made to silence dissent based on her gender?

(Also, here's a secret: You don't have to be affected by an issue to learn/understand/know about it. Nor does being affected by it necessarily make you better at understanding it or its causes).

Until you can provide actual evidence that the fashion industry is more interested in keeping women pocketless than in making a profit, I'll be far more inclined to believe that it has the same agenda as every other industry in a capitalist society: "Make more money".

But, hey! If you're so convinced that deep-pocketed pants for women has such a huge potential market, that's your chance to become a millionaire!

You spoke as if you knew better than women what they want. I suggest you read into the realities of mansplaining, and why there is nothing hypocritical about calling such people out.

Oh, really? Please refrain from explaining anything else to anyone or calling anyone else out until you have revealed your sex to the rest of us. I just want to make sure we're being consistent with your beliefs here. I wouldn't want you to overstep and speak to something that you have no business speaking about. Thanks for cooperating and sticking to your convictions...

While I admit that I may have confused Lemmy and AMFV a bit, it looks to me as if when told by women that the market didn't meet their demands Lemmy concluded that the women here were wrong about what women want rather than entertain the idea that there were anything wrong with the market as it is today.
GW then, perhaps too harshly, called out Lemmy on what they perceived to be "mansplaining".
Then Lemmy and you called GW out on that saying it was hypocritical to use that term both because GW has not disclosed GW's gender and because you believe the term to be inherently sexist (as in created to diminish one sex's input, in this case men). Since I disagree on both counts, I intervened.

Now I agree that this tangent has been going on long enough, and since we seem to be of one mind on when someone's appartenance to a group is a relevant factor in how relevant their input is and GW has apparently left the thread, I suggset we drop it.



There, now do you have anything to say about my amateur analysis on why the fashion industry could be motivated mostly by money and end up making sexist decisions?

[FinnLassie]

It sounds like the issue you are having is not that you want pants with pockets, but you want pants with a particular style, at a particular cost, made for a particular (and perhaps slightly unusual) body shape, made out of certain materials as well as having pockets.

Bolding by me.

Curves ARE NOT AN UNUSUAL TYPE IN WOMEN. Almost all women that I talk to just cannot find fitting jeans/trousers, as they're usually made for one specific body type. However, this is changing, as some stores are starting to offer different cuts, but they all share the same colours. This is still relatively rare though, and if you want pockets with these styles, it's 15-30 euros extra. I have not in my lifetime met a woman that likes not having front pockets. We moan and groan having to carry crap inconveniently in our bags. And I **** you not, often even the more expensive stuff is made of the same crappy materials as the cheap ones - they just charge extra witht he label.

I have no idea who you've met and talked to, if they prefer inconvenience over convenience.

Women live in a world where capitalism has noted that they shop more, and use it for their own greediness. They remove pockets because they want women to buy bags. They give us ****ty fabrics because they want us to buy more often. They charge extra for convenience because they're greedy, needy and blinded by money equalling power. Also, for some reason they think it's ok to amp up the prices when they transform a product to a pinkish/lavender hue.

It's not rocket science.

[WarKitty]

Bolding by me.

Curves ARE NOT AN UNUSUAL TYPE IN WOMEN. Almost all women that I talk to just cannot find fitting jeans/trousers, as they're usually made for one specific body type. However, this is changing, as some stores are starting to offer different cuts, but they all share the same colours. This is still relatively rare though, and if you want pockets with these styles, it's 15-30 euros extra. I have not in my lifetime met a woman that likes not having front pockets. We moan and groan having to carry crap inconveniently in our bags. And I **** you not, often even the more expensive stuff is made of the same crappy materials as the cheap ones - they just charge extra witht he label.

I have no idea who you've met and talked to, if they prefer inconvenience over convenience.

Women live in a world where capitalism has noted that they shop more, and use it for their own greediness. They remove pockets because they want women to buy bags. They give us ****ty fabrics because they want us to buy more often. They charge extra for convenience because they're greedy, needy and blinded by money equalling power. Also, for some reason they think it's ok to amp up the prices when they transform a product to a pinkish/lavender hue.

It's not rocket science.

I think the fabrics thing is really being overlooked here.

I mentioned upthread - women's clothing, dollar for dollar, is made from much cheaper fabric than men's clothing. Clothing made from sturdy fabrics that actually last is often considered a specialty item. The trouble is sometimes it's cheaper to make lousy clothing and put it out there anyway, than to make good clothing. Especially if the upcharge on higher quality clothing is such that people can't afford it. A lot of people I know work fairly low-end jobs. I know I don't have a lot of extra money to spend on high end clothes, because I'm busy paying rent and groceries and a bunch of money for crappy insurance.

The trouble is they can get enough people to buy clothes at inflated prices, so they will. And if that means a lot of women can't afford pants that they like or have the features they want, the market doesn't really care about that. They put out a product women will buy, not necessarily the one they want.

[AMFV]

I do agree that materials play a big part.

AND as far as the handbag conspiracy..
There's a lot of pants companies that don't make bags and therefore would have no incentive to encourage people to buy them. And even in the companies that make both they have no way to guarantee some people won't buy other brand handbags.

[FinnLassie]

I do agree that materials play a big part.

AND as far as the handbag conspiracy..
There's a lot of pants companies that don't make bags and therefore would have no incentive to encourage people to buy them. And even in the companies that make both they have no way to guarantee some people won't buy other brand handbags.

Those companies that still do offer bags of course try to aim that people will stay brand loyal and get the (crappy) quality bags from the same space.

Yes, it doesn't apply to all companies. But it just feeds to it.

Capitalism sucks.

[137beth]

There's a lot of pants companies that don't make bags and therefore would have no incentive to encourage people to buy them.

As pointed out upthread, clothing found in brick-and-mortar stores almost all comes from a very small number of large companies. Are there any big clothing companies in the "clothing oligarchy" that don't also sell bags?

[WarKitty]

As pointed out upthread, clothing found in brick-and-mortar stores almost all comes from a very small number of large companies. Are there any big clothing companies in the "clothing oligarchy" that don't also sell bags?

Yeah, it's actually pretty impressive how few mainstream brands there are out there, when you get to the top of it.

[Lemmy]

While I admit that I may have confused Lemmy and AMFV a bit, it looks to me as if when told by women that the market didn't meet their demands Lemmy concluded that the women here were wrong about what women want rather than entertain the idea that there were anything wrong with the market as it is today.
GW then, perhaps too harshly, called out Lemmy on what they perceived to be "mansplaining".
Then Lemmy and you called GW out on that saying it was hypocritical to use that term both because GW has not disclosed GW's gender and because you believe the term to be inherently sexist (as in created to diminish one sex's input, in this case men). Since I disagree on both counts, I intervened.

My conclusion there isn't that "I know what women want better than they do". My conclusion there is "This product (pocketless pants) is far more readily available in the market because it's consistently sells more than the alternative (pocketed pants). Presumably to women, because who else would buy/wear women's clothes in significant numbers?".

Then I was accused of "mansplaining" (which IS inherently sexist, as is any gender that implies a certain behavior applies to only one gender) because I dared to disagree with the idea that reason the issue exists is some evil conspiracy against women.

If you disagree, then next time a woman comments on men's behavior, actions or mindset, tell her she is "femsplaining" and see if it sounds sexist, biggoted and/or condescending.

[WarKitty]

What I want to know is why men's clothing is consistently thicker and better stitched than women's clothing for the same price.

[FinnLassie]

Pocketless pants sell more only due to the fact that they're affordable. It's always a huge dilemma when buying jeans. "Do I pay 25 euros for this, or pay double for the same quality stretch jeans with pockets?"

I used to be able to buy this Finnish brand of jeans a few years ago. They were full denim and only cost about 40 euros - a tad more than in the high street shops, but completely managable knowing that they last for closer to two years (probably would've last for longer, but my body type has never known the concept of thighs not chafing). Nowadays this same brand sells slightly stretch material jeans for 80 euros. I was absolutely livid when they literally broke after three uses. Their cheaper jeans now cost 50 euros, and they're even worse in quality. What the hell happened? Oh yeah. Greediness.

[tomandtish]

Seeing 2D8HP being wholesome warms the heart.

Anyway, how can I vote for something that is nto a thing? Like a video game about jousting or a movie about aliens x knights.

Do I have to make these by myself?

Fixed that for you. Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Amazon]

I don't think so myself. I think we put too much emphasis on a person's demographic when determining how valuable their comment is, and not enough emphasis on the content of that comment.

I believe the idea of mansplaining and why it can't be applied for guys is because women had their voices silenced by men for years throughout history, man spoke for us for generations, they made choices for us and decided what we could and could not do. And that's why it's a serious offense for some when they do it now because it has all that historical weight. Get it?

Also, executives trying to make nothing but money removes the soul of things and to me that's not a good thing. Money has to be a byproduct not an aim.

"I was told, 'No sacrilege because of the Spanish market, no nudes because of the Italian market, no blood because of the French market and no martyrized animals because of the English market.' And I was supposed to be making a horror film!"
— Georges Franju.

[Kyberwulf]

Because, women keep buying cheaper made products for the same prices?

I don't know, it seems to me that women want tailor made products from people that make cookie cutter garbage. If you want things that fit you criteria of shape, color, design, material, fit, and all the other stuff you expect. I think you might want to consider you will have to pay more for it.

Otherwise, welcome to a man's world. Were everything fits weird, looks boring, and is pretty cheap. I mean, I am in the same boat as you. I found clothes at Target, that I loved. T-shirts that were amazingly fitting. Looked nice, and had some good colors. Plain with no logos, and I loved the material. Guess what, they didn't sell well, and they changed the products. I WISH I bought way more of the shirts that they had at the time. I looked all over for the same style and material. Nope. Can't find them now. I am like the Goldie locks now. This shirt is to thick, gets me to hot. The colors aren't what I like. I am not into v necks.

Anyway, I just find it funny that we are being "femsplained" to, because we, as guys, don't have NEARLY the same amount of thought given to what we would wear. I mean, have you GONE through a mens section? Everything is so uniform there. About the ONLY thing that changes... Is the print on the material. Seriously, women are so privileged in fashion.. That you can sit there and complain about your whims not being catered to about the shape, color, design, material, fit, and all the other stuff you feel privileged. When we as guys.. get our choice from the same two style of t shirts. V necks or Crew cut. with different decals.

[lio45]

There are all sorts of things that influence production and distribution besides hostile conspiracies, which always seem to get overlooked in favor of claiming that people are pushing conspiracy theories. Notably, in the case of clothing (though this absolutely applies to other goods as well to varying degrees).

1) Clothing benefits from a brick and mortar store because you can physically check fit, in a way that you can't online. This same thing applies to pretty much anything with a significant tactile experience - furniture, non-standardized sporting equipment (e.g. bowling balls of varying weights), vehicles, so on and so forth.

2) The structure of how brick and mortar stores get stocked favors the establishment of a few major brands, with everything else relegated to the sidelines. Space for products on shelves is straight up sold to companies, which creates a high barrier of entry, allowing for the development of oligopolies. These are disguised to some extent by the number of seemingly distinct brands that all trace back to the same owners, but if you actually do that tracing you'll find a small handful of competitors in most cases.

There's still plenty of competition, though. Doubtless if the market really demanded something as simple as pockets, the industry would follow suit.

The auto industry is a sector where the barrier to entry is MUCH higher than clothing, and there's only a handful of competitors... yet no one makes a large luxurious 2-dr sedan with a manual transmission anymore. On an internet forum, you can EASILY find a few guys who swear they'd buy one if offered. Conspiracy?

3) Corporate cultures tend to be extremely short sighted. As has been pointed out above the nebulous market is made up of actual people making decisions, and these people have incentives. These incentives disproportionately work out such that the decision makers are laser focused on quarterly profits, where anything that takes more than three months to pay dividends is much harder to get done. Establishing, producing, and marketing a new type of clothing could easily take more than three months, particularly given that fashion is volatile and there's nothing to follow for clothing of that class.

Wanting pockets and preferring function (a.k.a. pockets) over form is not something that's subject to volatility over a few months... either most customers prefer pockets, or else they prefer the cleanliness and fashionableness and somewhat cheaper price of clothes that don't have pockets.

Again, if there was so much money to be made tapping into that pent-up demand, the industry would do it. It's not rocket science.

These clothes already exist (as per what Heliomance pointed out). If they sold that well, then they'd be easier to find.

[lio45]

That makes sense, however if your conclusion is "women don't actually want pocketed pants depite what the women here say." then the accusation is warranted.

Well, let's see what we have at the moment. We have:
1) a handful of women on this forum who say they want pocketed pants (3-4 women out of 3.5 billion);
2) the fact that the industry doesn't offer much in terms of pocketed pants, in spite of the fact they're not a technological challenge at all, being demonstrably feasible to produce;
3) the obvious assumption that the clothing industry is interested in making more money if possible.

His conclusion is sound; based on the above, I'm reaching the same one.

It's like finding a few people on an internet forum who all say they thought New Coke was delicious, and somehow choosing to assign more weight to that sample than to the clearly documented fact that New Coke was a resounding market failure. Makes no sense.

[Peelee]

It's like finding a few people on an internet forum who all say they thought New Coke was delicious, and somehow choosing to assign more weight to that sample than to the clearly documented fact that New Coke was a resounding market failure. Makes no sense.

This is more than a little amusing, since New Coke generally did fairly well outside the South and consistently tied or beat the old formula in blind taste tests, but ultimately failed due to incredibly vocal backlash rather than actual market failure. At worst, sales leveled off a bit, but Coke was already losing ground to Pepsi for some time. New Coke was a remarkable example of small but vocal backlash largely overpowering actual market performance.

[2D8HP]

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Show

Because, women keep buying cheaper made products for the same prices?

I don't know, it seems to me that women want tailor made products from people that make cookie cutter garbage. If you want things that fit you criteria of shape, color, design, material, fit, and all the other stuff you expect. I think you might want to consider you will have to pay more for it.

Otherwise, welcome to a man's world. Were everything fits weird, looks boring, and is pretty cheap. I mean, I am in the same boat as you. I found clothes at Target, that I loved. T-shirts that were amazingly fitting. Looked nice, and had some good colors. Plain with no logos, and I loved the material. Guess what, they didn't sell well, and they changed the products. I WISH I bought way more of the shirts that they had at the time. I looked all over for the same style and material. Nope. Can't find them now. I am like the Goldie locks now. This shirt is to thick, gets me to hot. The colors aren't what I like. I am not into v necks.

Anyway, I just find it funny that we are being "femsplained" to, because we, as guys, don't have NEARLY the same amount of thought given to what we would wear. I mean, have you GONE through a mens section? Everything is so uniform there. About the ONLY thing that changes... Is the print on the material. Seriously, women are so privileged in fashion.. That you can sit there and complain about your whims not being catered to about the shape, color, design, material, fit, and all the other stuff you feel privileged. When we as guys.. get our choice from the same two style of t shirts. V necks or Crew cut. with different decals.

"Can't find them now"

"Everything is so uniform there"

"get our choice from the same two style"



Um...

....so you "voted with your wallet" before, but now what you want isn't as easily (or maybe at all), and you feel ill served by the marketplace?

Yeah, I think that's the whole point of the thread.

That so many women feel ill-served by a difficulty in finding practical clothing (a difficulty that my wife reports has increased in the last ten years, which I can tell is true just from when I hang out laundry to dry), doesen't mean that your difficulty in finding a greater variety of styles in the men's section doesn't spiring from the same sources

IIRC, the OP's Kvetch was about a lame X-Men movie spin-off, and we're all whistling in the wind with our frustrations and a few "best of all possible worlds" market fundamentalists are chiming in with economic lessons.

Everyone has their own jam, but....

[Kyberwulf]

I honestly don't know what the point of this thread is anymore.

I am just saying that some people seem to think the fashion.. or clothes industry is set up to ... I don't know. Hold women back? I am merely saying... from their point of privilege, they don't seem to see how much more variety they have. So much so that they want a article of clothes in the exact style, cut, material, and design they want. All on a moment's notice, of the rack. Tailor made.