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It's time to end the war against men who wear cargo shorts

cargo shorts
cargo shorts

Shutterstock

LONDON — It has been (relatively) hot and sunny since April, so on the weekends I've been wearing my cargo shorts. My favourites are a pair in dark green denim faux military camouflage. I look awesome in them. I will wear them forever. 

They have a couple of rips, but that just gives them a genuine, worn-in look. My cargo shorts help me give you the impression that I was involved in some military activity recently. That's what my camo cargo shorts are saying to you, obviously.

Last weekend my girlfriend decided I needed some new shorts for the summer, so we went shorts-shopping on Oxford Street, which is a vile hellscape of tourists that true Londoners avoid at all costs — except that all the major clothing chains are there.

Weirdly, I couldn't find any cargo shorts. Apparently, cargo shorts, which include large side pockets, are out of fashion.

"That's the point," my girlfriend said. "Your old cargo shorts are awful. We are replacing them with ones that look cool." By "cool" she meant slim-fitting, hitting at, or above, the knee.

Men!

Gather round.

Let's talk.

This is getting out of hand.

Women are trying to take our cargo shorts away. We have to stop them. The fake veterans of wars in hot climates deserve more than this.

I say "women" only as a gross generalisation, of course, and because it's true. We all know who is responsible. Suddenly, it's a crime for a man to be comfortable on a hot day and not worry about where his wallet, keys, phone, loose change, sun tan lotion, adjustable wrench, and paperbacks are. 

The War Against Cargo Shorts began quietly, on October 8, 2015.

That was when Bloomberg published a hit-piece on Steve Bannon, the Trump Administration's chief strategist. The story called him "the most dangerous political operative in America" and suggested that he "runs the new vast right-wing conspiracy." To prove that Bannon's evil had plumbed new depths, they topped their editorial execution of him with this image of Bannon slouched like a slob on a sofa, in cargo shorts:

steve bannon
steve bannon

Bloomberg

We've all been there. One too many Coronas at the barbecue.

That's not the point.

There are lots of reasons to criticise Bannon. But the suggestion that he is somehow extra-awful because he wears cargo shorts?

Come on.

This is the mainstream media's bias against cargo shorts.

The war reached its peak in August 2016 when the Wall Street Journal published — on its front page! — a story titled "Nice Cargo Shorts! You’re Sleeping on the Sofa." It was about a guy who owned 15 pairs of cargo shorts, but his wife was surreptitiously throwing them away. He was down to one pair. The story was a massive viral hit, partly because it "proved" that cargo shorts were horrid.

The male employees of the Wall Street Journal staged a day of resistance shortly after, by wearing their cargos to work in protest.

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/761565458118152192
WSJ office today. Real talk. #CargoFriday pic.twitter.com/mxznn2l1Pv

It was an act of heroism. 

But it was ridiculed by the anti-shorts blog Jezebel. Writer Hillary Crosley Coker said that wearing cargo shorts is the same as masturbating: "Men are wearing them only when their wives and girlfriends are away, like watching porn."

shopping shorts
shopping shorts

SuperdryWhat. The. Hell.

First Bloomberg, then the Journal, then Jezebel, and now suddenly you can't find cargo shorts at H&M.

There's even an anti-cargo shorts Reddit thread, with more than 800 comments from self-hating men arguing about whether cargo shorts are terrible or just awful.

This is how the dominoes fall.

Men, are we going to stand for this? I for one will not be giving up my cargo shorts.

They are comfortable. They look good. (OK, so perhaps some of us need to think twice before pulling on the XXL size.)

But nothing beats the feeling of leaving the house on a sunny day knowing that a) you're not going to be too hot and b) you're totally hands-free.

Money, phone, keys AND NO BAG. All day and into the night.

There are hypocrites everywhere, of course. One moment my girlfriend is all like "you look like the 1990s" the next minute she's "can you put my sunglasses in your pocket they won't fit in my bag?"

Cargo shorts win, again.

I am not alone. At Business Insider, male readers have emailed us to complain about the number of anti-cargo stories we have published. (Fifteen, at the last count.) There has been a fierce reply-all email chain bouncing around the senior editorial staff about whether we're being "objective" by advising men to ditch cargos. One of my colleagues (I am not making this up) thinks there are "inherent technical qualities" that make cargos a bad thing. She has a whole ideology about it. The founder of the company had to remind us of our official policy, "BI does not have a position on Cargo Shorts." It's not clear whether he's being sarcastic.

A generation of men — boys, really — has grown up that has never known cargo shorts. They are walking around in super-tight short-shorts like idiots. They look like Dickensian schoolchildren or the guitarist from AC/DC. And because their shorts have so few, and such small, pockets they're forced to carry man-bags as well.

Why does everyone want men to be uncomfortable?

Bags are for work. Cargo shorts are for freedom.

I will be wearing cargos all summer, and I don't care what you think. Enjoy:

cargo shorts jim edwards
cargo shorts jim edwards

Jim Edwards

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