Someone searched “can women wear men’s socks” enough times for it to trend as its own tiny existential puff of search bar confetti and the first time I saw that,, sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee I’d neglected to drink before it got cold, my initial thought was “wear them where”. Wear them how? Wear them where? Is that even allowed? No. Just… why would you google that?
Wear them on your feet, dummy. Socks. They’re socks. We’re not talking ball gowns or double drivers. Socks.
I gave that more thought than the question probably merited, because if enough people care enough to search for that somebody’s mad at socks about something, and maybe the reason I landed hovered, startlingly, around my own wrists for half a second there: I spent a very long time of my life stocking socks side-by-side on a_gendered divide without ever once bothering to question why. Holiday displays where the “his” and “hers” were sorted by the color of the ribbon, not the sock itself, displays I’d help build without even thinking about it, twice a year at Christmastime. Laughing at the question and tossing it away would be kind of rich coming from the dude who helped construct that shelf.
The Only Real Difference Is the Box It Comes In
Here’s the thing. Thirty years of stocking shelves in the sock aisle will teach you one thing, whether you learn it early on or way-back-when User DOES NOT MEAN YOU annoys you into getting it years later: The only variable that actually matters is shoe size. Your foot length, guys. That’s it, everything else is marketing garbage.
The sizing guides separated by gender? Bullshit. Different racks? Bullshit. The idea that a size 9 women’s foot needs something different than a size 9 men’s foot just because we made up some fake divisions at one point and stuck with it? Snake oil. A crew sock designed to fit comfortably on a 10 inch foot keeps that foot just as warm and serves just as well wearing jeans or a dress, no matter what label’s above the rack it comes from or who’s wearing it.
The only place the two categories actually differ is in quality and it’s not for any reason beyond who they’re marketed to. Female targeted socks are thinner, usually more decorative, designed around a specific theme or picture to boast rather than a material mix that can handle months of actual wear. Male marketed socks, particularly once you dip into the mens’ multi-pack shelf that nobody Photographs For Instagram, get things like the reinforced heel, the tighter knit at the cuff to prevent sliding down ankles, the heavier yarn in high-wear areas because nobody’s asking those socks to be fashionable. They’re asked to fucking endure, and until fairly recently that’s been understood to mean socks in the men’s aisle endure better.
I used to think there was something instinctually different about who needed what and how to build it, but that’s a marketing decision made over fifty years ago dressed up as “common knowledge” and believe me, once you realize that? You never un-see it.
My brother was actually watching me think about this one for a minute. He picked up a gray boot sock of mine, one of the ones I get customized private-label to stock up on since they literally last forever, tossed it back on the couch beside me, looked at me and said “these are just socks, Reg.” Coming from him, that’s the highest compliment I get. He’s also never wrong.
Why I Made the Switch Myself
Making matter worse is that I didn’t come to this as some fly on the wall observing human behavior for a strange experiment. I didn’t realize all this until I grew tired of buying socks. Twice. I own a pair of wool hiking boots from two thousand and two right now that still rock hard wherever I slide them on come winter, blisters and all. They’ve survived two full seasons of break-even buying from actual stores despite salt, snow, snow+salt, and a decade’s worth of standing on them in warehouse aisles during ten hour shifts and the only real issue I have with them are holes starting to form near the toes I ought to darn but don’t.
Every other sock I own that wasn’t that tried and true weather warrior was some sort of boutique purchase; pastel solids in spring, overweight check in fall, holiday prints that only exist to scalp retail once every November, neon yellows and green that wore through to the toe in a single month because whoever decided cotton was a good idea for winter boots clearly hadn’t actually tried to walk in them all winter like I did.
Six years ago I just started buying the one thing I knew wouldn’t constantly need replacing and that one thing nowadays… happens to be shoved in the men’s section.
I have eleven pairs of the same exact gray sock as we speak in stages ranging from “just broke the other” to “damn near f-ing pantyhose” and I’m choosing to believe I have excellent taste instead of a problem that should require further inspection. Here’s what I will tell you: buying the same damn thing based on which socks lasted the longest instead of what color some elf decided was the ‘it’ shade that spring has meant I haven’t thought about buying socks once in the last six years and unless your socks are doing their job, you’re thinking about them too damn much.
Your socks should not be playing center of attention in your wardrobe. They’re socks. They’re meant to disappear.
So when I saw that search query all these paragraphs wore me down to, the conclusion I came to wasn’t really about gender. It’s about who decided socks needed gender divisons to begin with when the point of a sock is to be forgotten once it’s where it should be. If the men’s department is where the ones that actually don’t fall apart after three wears are? You don’t need me (or brandons!) permission to start shopping in a different section, you’re just shopping where the better made sock is.
I would’ve told the kid buying solid color socks because sexists told him that’s what he needed from 1994 to walk down one aisle and never spend another twenty years wondering where the good ones got away to, but he would’ve ignored me. Point proven.
Reg spent thirty years buying for a menswear shop floor in Sheffield before it closed. He writes about clothes built to last, compares every new buy with something he’s owned for twenty years, and has made most of the expensive mistakes already.
