Viral plea for girls’ pockets reaches Reese Witherspoon

If you’ve ever done laundry for children, you know how much they love putting stuff in their pockets. Rocks, pennies, Cheerios—it all needs to be collected and carried around. Pockets hold all kinds of treasures: Unless you’re a girl with fake pockets, that is.

One mom is fed up with fashion manufacturers’ tendency to produce girls’ pants with the pockets either absent or sewn shut, and her pocket promoting tweets have now gone viral, reaching Reese Witherspoon herself.

“My 3[-year-old] is SO ANGRY when she doesn’t have pockets or the pockets are fake,” author Heather Kaczynski tweeted last month (Witherspoon recently reposted the tweet to her Instagram).

“She has THINGS TO HOLD, like rocks and Power Rangers,” Kaczynski wrote.

Kaczynski, who usually tweets about “books and libraries” received an avalanche of notifications when she tweeted about her kiddo’s need for pockets back in April—and now that Reese Witherspoon is amplifying the message her inbox is going crazy once again. It seems people are passionate about pockets on girls’ clothing, and eager to participate in the conversation about #PocketsForGirls.

“Pockets are a small symptom of a larger inequality,” Kaczynski told Motherly via DM after the original post went viral in April.

That larger inequality is demonstrated in some of the negative tweets and messages Kaczynski has received. Some people have criticized the way she is raising her daughter (as if girls shouldn’t pick up rocks or play with Power Rangers) and others suggested she’s making too big a deal about it.

Thankfully, there were also many more positive responses from like-minded moms (including Witherspoon) seeking clothing with pockets for their daughters, not to mention grown women who would like functional pockets on their own clothes.

When asked about the negative comments Kaczynski said: “the whole downplaying women’s complaints thing has a long history.”

And so does the problem with pockets for girls and women. Once upon a time women and girls made their external pockets and hid them beneath voluminous petticoats while men and boys had pockets sewn right into their clothing. When pants for women came into fashion so did internal pockets, but as silhouettes got tighter, practical pockets in pants got rarer and rarer. Today you’re likely to find a fake pocket or one that can hardly hold a chapstick when browsing for pants in the women’s or girls’ sections.

Although going viral isn’t something she would wish on anyone (the trolls make it stressful) Kaczynski is glad she opened up the conversation about what some Twitter users are calling “pocket equality,” and she’s grateful for all the recommendations people made for companies that produce girls clothes with pockets.

Brands like Girls Will Be, Princess Awesome and Primary were all mentioned in the original viral thread, and Kaczynski has been checking out the brands when shopping for her daughter. She told Motherly she hopes the conversation moves beyond social media and into the boardrooms of the companies producing kids clothes, “and quickly.”

With Reese Witherspoon amplifying this mom’s message, we’re sure some big brands are going to take note.

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