So cargo shorts, a staple of casual menswear since the 1990s, are going out of style like, well, they’re going out of style.
The anti-cargo shorts backlash, many years in the making, kicked into high gear after the Wall Street Journal reported last month that increasing numbers of women have started resorting to drastic tactics to stop the dudes in their lives from wearing these new fashion no-nos. One man told the WSJ that his wife had secretly disposed of more than a dozen pairs of his over the years; another only wears them around the house when his wife is away, in what has become an act of “disobedien[ce] in my marriage.”
Within a few days the media was filled with denunciations of the (really quite comfortable) shorts. “Dear Men, Please Stop Wearing Cargo Shorts,” Buzzfeed urged, while Business Insider declared that cargo shorts are “the single worst item a man can wear in the summer.”
Really? Worse than these?
Now some Men Going Their Own Way have adopted the shorts as a way to stick it to women.
“I think of cargo shorts as a form of protest now,” a MGTOW called Tyler_Gatsby declared in a recent post on the MGTOW subreddit.
I wear them with pride. And with all that dick moving room, it almost feels like it’s flipping them off sometimes.
While it was news to many in Mr. Gatsby’s audience that a lot of people really hate cargo shorts, other Reddit MGTOWs reported that they too were wearing the shorts as an act of defiance against giant-pocket-hating feminazi gynocrats, or something.
“From now on, rebrand them as ‘Tactical Shorts,'” one commenter suggested. “It will piss off the Special Snoflakes to no end….”
Another reported that he’d been wearing the hell out of cargo shorts as soon as he discovered that a lot of women hate them.
I wore all mine until they fell apart, and wore them even more often once the fashion police took aim at them. Now I can’t buy any new ones these things were literally purged from existence by manginas and women.
Others went even further. Several confessed their love for “the ones with the zipped trousers – trousers and shorts in one!” And one bold fellow suggested escalating the protest:
Let’s take it a step further: denim cargo shorts.
The horror.
As for why women hate cargo shorts, most Reddit MGTOWs seem to agree it’s because women don’t like anything that is useful. And because the lustful ladies like staring at men’s butts.
“It does come down to something fundamental between men and women,” wrote someone calling themselves feedmecarrots.
Men love cargo shorts because they are functional. Women hate them because they do not enhance a man’s form.
Pfthewall lamented the evil hypocrisy of these butt-loving women:
You mean women get pissed when it is difficult for them to ogle men, all the while they complain about men ogling them?
Linux_Guy91, meanwhile, let loose with an angry rant centered abound his need to store phone chargers on his person.
Any chick who disses cargo shorts is ignorant as f*ck. I’ve had stares in the past from girls who would bug out when their phone was low on battery but didn’t have a charger on them because they couldn’t carry it in their tight pockets or wrist purse thing. My phone gets low, I pull out my charger and i’m good.
And these pocket-laden shorts come in especially handy when riding roller coasters.
Not to mention they’re awesome for when you don’t want to keep your wallet in your back pocket or if they have zipper pockets perfect for storing stuff if you like roller coasters. Functional > fashionable.
Duly noted.
In all my years of wearing cargo shorts, I think I’ve made use of the big pockets like once.
I still haven’t given my cargo shorts up, but I think I’ll have to now that they’ve gotten themselves drenched in the stench of MGTOW.
NOTE: Just FYI, the dudes in the top photo don’t have anything to do with the MGTOW subreddit post; the pic has been floating around the internet forever and seemed apropos
@joekster, @IP
Sheeple shamers, both of you.
I like cargo pants. And my husband just picked up cargo shorts over the summer, which he loves because he can carry stuff at work (bags on a factory floor are frowned upon, to put it mildly).
Phyllis whatserface, no love lost there.
Bags: I have a huge one and a backpack, but I’m thinking about using the smaller one soon (it lives in the huge one, actually).
I like pockets, and my external battery charger fits nicely in my cargo pocket. I should just get a sewing machine and make my own pants, but meh. That takes time and effort and money, none of which I have right now thanks to school.
@Joekster
I use my back pocket for transporting my wallet between the places where I’m sitting. I’ve stopped sitting on it due to the very obvious problems it caused my leg/back, but it’s still the most “natural” feeling place for me to carry it.
Screw you, menz! I’m claiming overalls and cargo shorts for me and my purse-hating ways!
Seriously, I need pockets and hate carrying a purse. Women’s shorts never have deep enough pockets for me.
@Joekster
So that you can conveniently access the contents whilst riding a horse and wearing chaps. If that’s not a part of your daily routine, then they really haven’t any.
@Kat & Joekster – Yep, gallbladders are pretty useful until they try to kill you. (I got liberated from mine earlier this year and am still a teensie bit bitter at its betrayal. I TRUSTED YOU, GALLBLADDER.)
http://theawkwardyeti.com/comic/gall-bladders-day/
I don’t get the problem with cargo shorts at all. Is it because they are too 90s or grunge, and now that the people who were in HS and college then are now in their 30s and 40s it’s like they have to graduate to…. I don’t even know. Golf shorts? Pants? Who cares?
I’m female and my all-time favorite skirt (that I will never be able to replace!) was a cargo skirt. And I did use the pockets because I never carried a purse back then. Bank card, ID, keys, smokes and a lighter. Maybe some lip gloss or gum. Fruit, periodically. I loved that skirt.
@kootie: that gallbladder looks so sad. WONT ANYONE THINK IF THE GALLBLADDERS?!
I’ll stop now ?
In all seriousness, I hope you’re doing okay. Gallbladder surgery is fairly routine, but even routine surgeries can go wrong.
@Phryne: I haven’t crossed threads with you for awhile. How’s it going, if I may ask?
Re: back pockets
I shift things from front to back to left to right. I don’t like the permanence of having things in the same pocket all the time. My jeans remain in a state of constant flux
@Fishy Goat and Scildfreja,
Thanks for the pronunciation and meaning.
In the spirit of an earlier discussion, a friend came over tonight and we transfered our beer from the primary to the secondary. Then we tried some of the salsa my room mate and i made yesterday, which turned out to be fantastic. The perfect amoubt of spice for our group!
So, in the coming apocalypse, i currently have 10 jars of salsa and four beers. (My friend gets the other four). Come at me, bro!
MGTOW spend really a lot of effort altering their behavior based on what they think women think about them.
That sounds so exhausting.
I actually have some personal real-life experience with this sort of mentality.
I spent a lot of time as a kid and a teen trying very hard to be what people wanted me to be. I obsessed over my weight, I tried to wear the “right” clothes, I tried to do all the things that I thought would make people like me, or at the very least tolerate my presence and not despise me.
Thanks to a shitty parental figure in my life that I’ve never forgiven, and a few shitty teens that I have, I never felt good enough for anyone, and that meant I wasn’t good enough for myself. That coupled with depression and constant verbal abuse led me to awful places.
Eventually, I realized that I don’t give a shit about those people, and they’ll never give a shit about me, so why bother?
“Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind”.
Which is why I kind of pity dudes like this. Not a lot, mind you, but a little. In a way, they’re setting themselves up for misery, because we feeeemales don’t care what they do.
Right? I thought they were supposed to be utterly unconcerned with us. And instead, here, they’re actively seeking to repulse us by whatever absurd means they can find. Which means they’re actually obsessing over us. And projecting like Bell & Howell.
I guess it’s a kind of going-their-own-way, in reverse: Instead of them doing the going-away, it’s supposed to be us? ManLogic™…
on back pockets: They used to be a lot more useful back in the ’20’s and ’30’s, when waistlines on both men’s and women’s pants were much higher. You can see this if you look at old fashion illustrations of the time (I recommend googling Leyendecker). The (relatively) recent trend of waistlines hugging the lower hips and sometimes even below the pubis bone puts traditional pocket real estate in a very odd place, whereas before they were above the folding parts of the leg.
To any dudely dudes who want a stylish alternative to cargo shorts, but with sensible pockets and whatnot, may I humbly suggest looking at utilikilts? (Yes, they cost the earth, but my ex-hubbo swears they are worth the expense).
@Axe:
I’m with Lea on this one. Wallet in right pocket, keys and work swipe card in left pocket. Phone in right inside jacket pocket, train ticket in left inside jacket pocket. Always. They do not twitch around.
I’ve found that no matter how scatterbrained I feel on a particular day, I can train my body memory to check that I have all these things and so not end up forgetting these things.
@Joekster: Pretty good! Been busy as all get out with school starting for both me and the little dude, so I haven’t been around as much. (Although last week was… not so great in the school department. I attended one full class, that was it. Monday I mixed up the time the class started, Wednesday I was all ready to go and waiting for the Significant Otter to get home but it turned out that the guy he was picking up was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere and hadn’t bothered to inform us about it, so I missed. Thursday Small Otter had an eye doctor appointment that we’d been waiting on for a month that was at the same time as my class, and Friday didn’t work out due to scheduling issues that we really have to figure out; the class is at the same time Small Otter gets out of school, and we have to pick him up because we’re not in bus range (he’s in the school he started at, not the one that’s technically local, but it’s in the same district so it’s not a huge deal, we just have to get him there and home every day), so I think I’m going to contact his teacher and just pick him up an hour early every Friday.)
tl;dr: Last week sucked school-wise. This week is already weird because of Labor Day but hopefully things will work out. Tomorrow’s also weird because Small Otter has a late start, while Significant Otter has an appointment that starts before he can drop off Small Otter, so… I should get to bed because I’ll be driving, then sitting on my butt at home until I have to leave for school, then pick up the little dude, then do homework and yell at him to do homework until one of us starts crying, most likely.
And I just tl;dr’ed again. All that without even going into the ridiculous drama that people tried to pull us into and which I successfully resisted. But thank you for asking! How are you?
ETA: re: body memory: I generally do something similar, I have a checklist before I head out the door (“keys, wallet, phone, water bottle, e-cig”), but the other day I replaced “phone” with “get gas” and… forgot my phone. Oops. I somehow managed to forget it again today, but that’s because I was rushing. At least I didn’t have to be out long today.
Back pockets are a handy place to put Kleenex in.
http://www.pointandclickbait.com/2016/04/finally-a-feminism-for-men/
Feminism Proving Popular With Men After Being Re-Released In Tactical Matte Black
Owners of the tactical matte black edition of feminism have been enjoying a new understanding of the ways in which rigid gender roles for men lock them into a system of unhealthy goals that result in stunted emotional growth, violent outbursts, poor relationships, and eventual suicide. They also receive a bunch of protein bars.
Not fair! “Functional > fashionable” is feminism’s thing! I’ve been saying that since childhood. And as a junior high girl I wore cargo shorts every single day. Every day. Nobody looked twice at the boys who did so, but I was seriously, freakishly uncool. The consequence for them is “fine, you could look sexier, but fine.” For us it’s “OH MY GOD EWWW WHERE IS HER BUTT CALL THE GENDER POLICE THIS IS A BUTT EMERGENCY ALSO, GAAAAAAAY.” This is “women never had to suffer for their love of video games!!” all over again.
I’m all for men showing off their butts, MGTOWs, but even postfeminists aren’t that obsessed with seeing yours.
@jamesworkshop Oh well done.
Oh yeah, me too.
Here’s to Amelia Bloomer, who suffered for her 1850s feminist fashion — loose trousers under a short skirt.
Women who wore “bloomers” were the objects of unrelenting ridicule. Small boys followed them around and mocked them.
Eventually, even Amelia Bloomer gave up on bloomers. But she led the way, thank Katie!
I don’t have one, so . . . nope.
Practical people carry purses. Everything you need is in one place. My purse is my goddamned survival kit. Sure, sometimes the thing you need is stuck on the bottom or in a crease, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to find it, and it’s momentarily frustrating — but it sure beats going through the various nooks and crannies of one’s clothing, looking for stuff, not to menton the limited capacity of pockets. In my work, I often go through security checkpoints, and there’s nothing more tedious than watching some dude excavate his 84000000 pockets and go through the detector half a dozen times before having an epiphany that it’s his obligatory belt that’s setting the thing off. Male clothing practical? Give me a break.
Guys: purses is where it’s at. They are awsome, trust me. By the way, speaking of the wildly varying cultural norms of masculinity, I’ve recently been to southern Italy — reportedly, one of the most macho cultures in existence — and there, the “murse” seems to be an essential part of a gentleman’s outfit. Somehow, murse-carrying Italian men (who, incidentally, wouldn’t be caught dead wearing cargo shorts) manage to get laid.
@EJ
I’d forget things even if they did have a designated place. I’m scatterbrained like that. Besides, 99.9% of my ventures ‘outside’ (hisss) are to some store or other. Don’t exactly need to be strapped to the gills with stuff. The most important thing I leave with is my bookbag. Put the things I buy in there for easier conveyance 🙂
I have worn cargo shorts(and trousers) stubbornly for years despite everyone telling me they are unfashionable. I do a lot of hiking/photography which necessitates many large pockets. Now that this has become a symbol of meninists I might just have to give them up.
Thanks jerks.