One of my athletes, who just so happens to be a junior on my team, came to Saturday lift last week wearing men’s cargo pants that were looser than any pair of joggers I own. I asked her where she found them.
“They’re from the men’s section,” she said, “because the women’s cargo pants at that store had like, a decorative drawstring? A fake back pocket that didn’t fit a phone? And capris length rise that would’ve given me blast phones if I tried to squat in them.”
I literally had a kettlebell in my hand and was contemplating how stupid that idea was. Not hers outfit. Clothing as a whole.
Here’s my hot take and I’m not even gonna soften it up for you: cargo pants don’t care what body they fit.
Sizes between mens and womens are literally just labels sewn onto clothing. The issue isn’t binary. What is an issue is that many “women’s” cargos are cut too small to actually be used as cargo pants. Smaller pockets. Tiny ankles that might look good on the model walking down a runway in a magazine, but provide no functionality when on an actual human leg kicking and moving around all day. Fabric that’s lighter because companies don’t think women need durable pants.
Companies don’t care about cargo pants for women. So you go into shopping, and men’s ends up being the better selection because it was designed to do what you actually want yours too; hold stuff and not fall apart when you workout.
Gendered fit is the argument everybody loves having incorrectly
Everybody wants to sit here and act like fit differs between genders. Men’s clothes are cut for one body type that doesn’t overlap whatsoever with anyone else. Please. Waist to hip ratio changes from guy to guy, girl to girl, and across all genders. Cargo pants are some of the most forgiving clothing items in existence. The entire point of the style is EXTRA room. They’re not tight jeans. No one’s cargo pants should be fitting anything closely. Remember that next time you try to pick this argument apart.
I wore a pair of straight fit men’s cargos through an entire workout to see if the fabric and cut could survive some actual stress; sled pushes, box jumps, even a mobility circuit that includes a deep lunge that most pants don’t make it through without tearing a seam. They survived all that movement without restriction. No bunching at the knees. No pants waistband riding down my stomach by set 3 like it sometimes does in clothes marketed towards movement athletes. If the men’s version can squat without losing dignity, it can accommodate any body type that doesn’t match the model on the website picture. That little sewn on card is just a guideline, not a legislation about who wears what.
Where I will give the argument some credit is on waist to length ratio. Male sizing does tend to assume a taller torso to leg ratio than some women actually have. And you run into issues there. It’s less forgiving than waist size. If your hips are too big for the pants, nothing’s gonna fix that. But if your pants are too long or too short in the waist you can have those altered. Hell I’ve told male athletes on my team this same thing about regular off the rack suits for as long as I’ve worked out. Get the length right, fix the waist with a tailor, call it a day. Don’t act like its some life or death struggle like you see online.
Cargo pants pockets are literally the reason we’re even having this discussion
Look, I don’t care about the fit aspect. As long as you can move comfortably in them I don’t care what section of the store you got your pants from. What I will take issue with is how most companies design women’s cargo pants in terms of pocket size and practicality. When I run practice I need cargo pants that can hold my phone, whistle, a whole roll of athletic tape, and gramps athletic sleeve on days I forget to collect it at the end of warmups; all without the pocket falling open when I squat down to chat with one of my athletes. But most womens cargos don’t have THAT kind of storage available. Their cargo pocket is treated as a cute flair. As if putting anything inside of would defeat the purpose.
The giant pockets on a men’s pair are built like they understand you’re going to fill them with tools and materials, then spend your day moving around while they’re inside. That’s the entire reason cargo pants were invented.
Combat. When a woman puts on “ mens cargo pants” she’s not trying to bypass societal standards, she’s simply putting on the version of the pants that were designed to actually do what it says on the label. If you ask me that’s not cheating the system, that’s the better choice for ANYONE who prioritizes practicality over cute.
An assistant coach actually asked me half way through a drill where I got my pants because they didn’t shift or bunch up when I ran from one end of the field to the other to demonstrate a squat. His wife was shopping for new cargos and nothing he said mattered to him more than that compliment. Hell, I don’t think she even cared what section they came from. She just wanted to know where to get pants that didn’t crap out when she wore them. That should be the standard any pair of cargo pants are held to no matter who’s wearing them, and once you start thinking like that this whole dudes vs women’s cargo pant debate isn’t as big of a deal as tumblr makes it seem.
Women can rock men’s cargos. hell everyone can. The pants don’t care who wears them, just buy a pair that fit how you want them too and stop worrying about some imaginary gatekeeping at the gender neutral rack.
Connor coaches rugby in Bristol and has never quite stopped training. He writes about kit that copes with a proper session and still looks fine on a Saturday, and he won’t recommend anything he hasn’t sweated in first.
