Men’s Pockets Really Are Deeper Than Women’s—And Here’s Why

Imagine a scenario, if you will: Your smartphone peeks halfway out of the pocket of your jeans. Your pocket-sized wallet is too large to fit, too. You go to tuck a dollar into the pocket of your new dress pants, only to find that the opening is sewn shut.

If these scenes sound familiar, you’re probably a woman. As Lifehacker reports, an investigation into 20 popular clothing brands revealed that the pockets on women’s pants really are shallower and narrower than men’s. About half as deep, in fact.

These findings come from The Pudding’s team of journalist-engineers, who produced a visual essay (with interactive infographics) on the sartorial subject. The announcement probably won’t surprise women, but for the sake of closing the pocket gap once and for all, the statistics are still worth noting: Women’s jeans pockets are 48 percent shorter and 6.5 percent narrower than men’s, according to the findings.

Furthermore, researchers for the 2018 analysis found that only 40 percent of front pockets can fit a smartphone—an iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel were all put to the test. The same statistic applies to wallets that were specifically designed to fit inside a front pocket. Additionally, 2 percent of women’s pockets couldn’t even hold a pen (compared to zero percent of men’s pockets).

Remember that time Alanis Morissette sang, “I’ve got one hand in my pocket?” As it turns out, only 10 percent of women can actually relate to this lyric—the same percentage of women who can actually fit their hand inside their front pocket.

As The Pudding points out, this isn’t just a matter of differences between men’s and women’s sizes, either. “We measured 80 pairs of jeans that all boasted a 32 inch waistband, meaning that these jeans were all made to fit the same size person,” researchers noted.

So, what’s going on? Some sources have suggested that the fashion industry is inherently sexist, favoring design over function. “I don’t feel like they’re taking women seriously as a market,” Julie Sygiel, founder of The Pockets Project, told The Week in 2018. Sygiel plans to create a line of dresses with pockets that are least 8.5 inches deep.

While this pocketless trend is rooted in history—women started wearing hip purses in the 18th century to compensate for the lack of internal pockets—many women are hoping that a new era for functional fashion is on the horizon.

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A version of this story was originally published in 2018 and has been updated for 2025.