I chose to listen to “99% Invisible: Pockets” by Avery Trufelman. This podcast really offered me a striking insight since I have never thought about pockets being a metaphor of “privilege”, more specifically, of men. As the title informs, it made a unique approach to the way of viewing daily products.
While listening to the audio, I could definitely empathize with a lot of points. For example, I get annoyed when the pockets are not big enough to carry my purse, phone, and etc. So most of the time I just bring a small bag with me. But since this has been a case that happens too often, I realized that now I do not even think deeply about it and take carrying my bag as granted. Also, pockets of some of the clothes that I bought were not even functioning as pockets, but rather as mere ornaments. The fact that the issue of gender discrimination is embedded in pockets is thus so striking since I was not able to realize it even though I was aware that they had a lot of problems.
Furthermore, the argument that pockets are internal while bags are external, was also interesting. Since pockets are usually attached to the clothes, the things inside are invisible and closer, or intimate, to our bodies than bags do. Therefore, I think that the ridiculously small size of the pockets and sometimes even removing them are one of disrespectful behaviors towards women.
Since our upcoming topic of the class is about audio, I tried to focus on the background music for the second time of listening. Then, I could realize that when talking about history, revealing that the pockets were actually separated from the clothes, the audio was full of tension that made me feel more mysterious and focused on to the story.
Overall, from this podcast, I could think deeply about whether “fashion always takes useful things and makes them ridiculous”. I am still not sure if I should consider pockets, high heels, and other fashion items as products of gender discrimination, but it definitely enlightens 99% of the people who would not notice the hidden meaning behind.