Writes Vanessa Friedman, in "The Most Impactful Political Handbag Since Mrs. Thatcher’s/Sanae Takaichi, the new prime minister of Japan, makes a statement about work — with style" (NYT).
I jump to the middle of articles when I skim, and when I got to "a stylist who worked with Ms. Harris," I thought Who is Harris?
I jump to the middle of articles when I skim, and when I got to "a stylist who worked with Ms. Harris," I thought Who is Harris?
Anyway, the new Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, a woman carries her own handbag, toting it at her side in the manner of Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher. We're told:
For Mrs. Thatcher, the handbag was a way of aligning herself with a respectable Everywoman accouterment.... Her bag was the kind of bag, British Vogue declared, carried by “a sensible, well-put-together person, reflective of an organized mind.”
I don't remember coming across the word "handbagging" before, but searching the NYT archive, I see:
1991: She gave strong but inaudible advice to another one of the guests, a Government minister involved in getting the poll tax's replacement through Parliament, and after a few minutes he came away wiping his brow. "I've just been handbagged by Mrs. Thatcher," he said....
2012: Almost a quarter century after she tearfully quit the prime minister’s office at 10 Downing Street — hounded out by grey Conservative Party rivals she had spent a decade “handbagging” — Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher remains the most contentious figure in modern British politics.
2013: There will have been many among the 2,300 invited guests at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral who were “handbagged” by the Iron Lady, and dined happily off the experience for years after she had left public life.
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72 comments:
Sounds like sandbagging.
Women need too much stuff to survive to fit in pockets.
Better than teabagging, one assumes.
The briefcase is not the equivalent to a handbag, the wallet and suit disperse the contents among various pockets. It strikes me funny that Harris and Hillary mimicked the classic men’s clothing but eschewed the concept of pockets. Why? To preserve the clean lines of their ugly boxy pantsuits?
I am surprised this was not a criticism of Mdme. Takaichi (because NYT). She is rather conservative, after all.
Well, if women's clothing had actual functioning pockets, it would help. Even my Lee jeans only have half-size front pockets. If something fits in the pocket, it still gets pushed out when sitting down. And don't forget the meme of a lady with a new dress, "It has pockets!"
What’s the best and most common reply when one woman complements another woman on her dress?
“And it has pockets!”
Mike Wolf, good point. I was similarly going to note that lots of men OUT of power don't carry briefcases either but most women seem to always have some kind of carryall.
Joe Bar, remember the Althouse observation - it is acceptable to report on differences between men and women so long as the difference can be spun as a net positive for women.
Margaret Thatcher is still admired by conservatives. Unlike Michelle Obama we recognize great women leaders and don’t confuse their gender for their qualifications. A good leader gets votes. Lame DEI hires like Kamala and Hillary had already revealed their Peter Principle disqualification by virtue of extremely poor performance in the highest office they achieved.
Thank you, Chris.
Phones require pockets.
Children require purses.
Hence the name “pocket book”. Over the years I’ve discarded all of my larger purses/bags and taken to a wallet sized purse on a strap about the size of a large pocket and even that is annoying.
This all started with Thatcher. Are there any instances before 1979?
“Who is Harris?”
Sic transit gloria mundi!
Although they should have given her her due, and used her title, Vice President Harris. She was the warm bucket of spit for the autopen, after all.
Purses are a symbol of motherhood. Minister Sanae Takaichi has no children of her own due to fertility issues. But she has adopted the 3 children from her husband’s previous marriage.
My bag story- pre-meeting in the conference room with a bunch of men and women all chatting about, client walks in and sets the birkin on the table. It’s no ordinary birkin. The women around the table all come to a screeching halt. Power move…
Selina Meyer had Gary Walsh and a magically comprehensive bag.
The birkin what begat all birkins. Behold!
…her charity auction bag is up for auction next month- a relative bargain…
Women need too much stuff to survive to fit in pockets
Most women's clothes don't even have pockets. Especially formal or dressy clothing that is worn for special or public events. Until jeans and cargo pants became acceptable for women there was nowhere to carry your wallet, ID etc.
A nice heavy handbag is also a good weapon. Take a 5 to 10 pound bag on the end of a strap and wack someone in the face. It works. (Trust me I've done it). They've just been handbagged!!! 😁
In 2016 I wrote about "My Wife's Pocketbook" for a client blog. I compared the collection of stuff that she routinely carries, or more often makes me carry, to a mechanic's toolbox.
It has scrolled off the client blog but lives on at LinkenIn
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-wifes-pocketbook-john-henry
I have found that her pocketbook and toolboxes follow a corollary to Parkinson's 1st Law. As work expands to fill the time available, so do her pocketbook contents expand to fill the space available. So every Christmas and birthday I get her a new one and I keep it small. It also solves the problem of what to get her.
John Henry
Queen Elizabeth, who appointed Margaret Thatcher as her PM, was also famous for carrying a handbag.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/AMsWEiaT5vafzH3jJns3E4-1600-80.jpg.webp
John Henry
Oscar Wilde gets the last word:
https://youtu.be/oVQIB-QuooU
Women want the smooth lines around the hips and across the breasts, where pockets go, so you can't put stuff in pockets, even if you didn't carry a hairbrush, emergency hygiene products, lipstick etc to survive the workday.
Thongs came in even to avoid visible panty lines, which became unacceptable features under tight pants.
Once upon a time, in the mid-90s I think, purses with hidden holsters became the rage. Men always scoffed at the idea--and there are drawbacks--but most women responded that they ALWAYS knew where their purse was. They are still around today. I think pocketbooking has a lovely sound to it and would likely make New Englanders happy, as that seems to be their preferred term.
When Hillary ran for office in NY, she was carpetbagging.
Cargo pants are acceptable for women, just not to women.
purses with hidden holsters became the rage. Men always scoffed at the idea
…one of my instructors, who was elite civilian law enforcement, swat, discussing his greatest discovery of concealment was his new baby- well, not the new baby but the diaper bag. Someone’s gonna be surprised….
…best Mad About You episode: Lisa and Jamie seem to swap identities when they accidentally switch purses, leaving Jamie disorganized, Lisa suddenly competent
rhhardin said...
Thongs came in even to avoid visible panty lines, which became unacceptable features under tight pants.
I remember an article about Janis Joplin a long time ago. It included a conversation she was having with her stylist about whether panty lines were sexy or not.
Upshot was, they both thought they were sexy but no panty lines were sexier.
So she went commando.
John Henry
Show us your Underalls!
John Henry
"Handbagging" has a slightly obscene sound to it. Like teabagging or cottaging.
Or maybe I just have a dirty mind. Finely honed over decades.
John Henry
Children require purses.
A friend of mine, the months ahead of me on the birth of our respective first children, abandoned the diaper bag within the first six months of motherhood, opting for cargo shorts. (Breastfeeding is a great boon to minimizing your baby-related accoutrements; I'll never understand why anyone would think it's inconvenient.) She was really thin, though. I, thankfully only with my first, had taken "eating for two" rather literally and, as others have observed up thread, didn't want to add even more bulk around the hips.
I remember being confused as a young child in the 1960s. I saw a promo for a TV show called “Man in a Suitcase.”
“Accused of treason, a former U.S. intelligence officer based in London tries to clear his name, taking on freelance jobs around Europe as he searches for answers.” (I wonder if he saw that video by the six congressional Democrats?)
Anyway, I got that confused with a show I watched where a guy was shrunken so small he could fit in a suitcase. The suitcase had a small screen window to give him light and air. So cool, I wanted one of those for myself. The major action sequence was where the suitcase somehow was lost in a cave and he was attacked by a “giant” squirrel.
Obvious inspiration for Steve Martin’s “Let’s get small” routine and Barron Trump’s “I like my suitcase” video.
Is no one here old enough to remember what a great man of the common people image it was for Jimmy Carter to carry his own suit bag? Made him look manly and heroic, till collapsing in a foot race and being attacked while in a canoe by a rabbit (was the death rabbit thing before or after Monty Python?)?
Vanessa is often clueless in these matters, film at eleven
Does teabaghag qualify as a bagger?
I'm a businessman who is now a senior executive in my roles. This is actually an area I'm exploring to find the right "fit" for me. I'm fairly fit and average height and I wear fairly tailored mens clothes.
When I travel for work and walk around event spaces or similar, I don't want pockets or jackets dragging from phone weight or bulging with stuff. It doesn't look right. I also tend to like to have my phone, wallet, some paper/pen to write physical notes (part of my memory-storage process, chapstick, and often my laptop/laptop charger with me. And I use an actual mid-size laptop, not a tablet.
I bought a used Tumi briefcase from a local marketplace. I like it, but I'll sometimes walk 2-3 miles a day at an event - don't love carrying that all day. I don't like to do that.
So I'm trying to find that right, sleek, lightweight item I can carry that holds my essentials but has the right look, feel, and function. And these things do make a difference to presence and impressions.
Let me know when we have some world leader who wears cargo pants and puts all their stuff in their pockets.
I think of my bag as part of my clothing, and so I change it up depending on my outfit for the day. To me, a woman looks more finished with a bag and almost under-dressed without one. So I wouldn’t have even noticed the Japanese PM’s bag without this post. And good on her for a beautifully made, label-free choice. I think if she changed hers up as often as I do it would be too much fodder for the press.
The sexual power symbol for a woman is her womb, not her boobs or vagina--although you could never prove it by me. These handbags are womb symbols, and they can apparently reach astronomical prices. These womb/handbags aren't filled. They're fulfilled........Men, of course, are into phallic symbols. They no longer carry walking sticks or batons with gold tips and cod pieces have been out of style for centuries. Well, you find something else. I prefer the sleek lines of a luxury yacht, but I suppose a private jet or, for the budget conscious, a Ferrari would make do.......Anyway, we're all primates and our superior intelligence just makes for more elaborate mating rituals.
When I was still going to the office, I wouldn't leave home without my "Shower in a Briefcase." A must-have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD5JklmRr3U
TreeJoe, ref how to carry a laptop etc: You know how they make these phone wallets now - relatively thin leather book-cover-like apparatus that holds the phone, plus slots for credit cards etc in the "cover?" And similar contraptions for tablets?
Why doesn't someone make a laptop wallet - not a laptop bag, but just a leather or plastic cover that attaches to the two halves, has some external pockets for the charger and your phone etc, and maybe some slots for a few sheets of paper? Like the phone and tablet wallets, it should let you open your laptop instantly, not drag it out of the bag.
Failing that, maybe modular pockets that can just be attached to the laptop cover with a strong adhesive. Scaled-up version of the small cardholders a lot of people put on the back of their phones.
I'm surprised Levenger doesn't make something like these, for instance. CC, JSM
And good on her for a beautifully made, label-free choice
oh no no no- you might not know it but Hamano is indeed a status bag...
I seem to remember reading, maybe it was here, that Queen Elizabeth used her handbag as a subtle code device. When people were in attendance, she manipulated it in certain ways, to send instructions to her aides. They would then move as directed without being told, changing the course of events. Ahh... palace intrigues and total control.
Margaret Thatcher didn't need a handbag to convince people that she knew what the hell she was doing.
Also, when I think of "handbagging," this comes to mind:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=laugh+in+old+man+on+bench&mid=A26D9880400E35A5FD55A26D9880400E35A5FD55
"Selina Meyer had Gary Walsh and a magically comprehensive bag."
That made me think of Felix the Cat: "Whenever he gets in a fix/He reaches into his bag of tricks."
Saddlebags were a complementary choice.
@TreeJoe, the answer might be a briefcase with a shoulder strap. I encountered a similar kind of issue, and this really helped take care of it - a nice wide leather strap that came with the briefcase, matched it, and was removable when I didn't need it.
Women do need to carry more stuff then men.
But many women carry stuff day to day like they are going on a Chilean mountain hiking adventure.
This post caused me to Google Ruth Buzzi. Sadly, she passed away this year in May.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2IF8HejE1w
I just searched the following: “1960 tv man so small carried in briefcase.”
The AI Overview response was either uncanny or listening in on my Althouse posts and ready to spit them back at me…
The TV show you are likely remembering is an unnamed short-lived series or segment from the early 1960s featuring a 6-inch tall secret agent who was carried in a briefcase.
In the show, the small agent's partner would carry him in a hard briefcase, which was equipped with a miniature chair, a seatbelt, and a trap door.
The little agent would emerge from the briefcase to perform covert tasks, such as cutting ropes to free his captured partner or taking pictures of secret documents, often without being noticed by the villains.
This description comes from people's anecdotal memories of a series from their childhood, and its exact name is often a mystery. It is distinct from the well-known British spy series Man in a Suitcase (1967-1968), which featured a normal-sized private investigator named McGill who simply carried all his belongings in a battered suitcase.
The most painful beating I ever got as a child was after I got caught rummaging through my mom's purse. I'm still afraid of women's purses, LOL
Helen Mirren won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007 for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film The Queen. When she went up to accept the award she had a handbag on her arm, which was interpreted as a tribute to Her Majesty.
I’ve got a gray crossbody bag just big enough to fit my iPhone, wallet, cash, and receipts. And a black Baggalini just big enough to fit my iPad and miscellaneous stuff.
My laptop bag was too hot to carry on my shoulder in the summertime, and carrying it was a drag, so I eventually learned to stay later and leave my work at the office.
Thanks to AI, after all these years, I finally found it!
World of Giants "WOG" (1959).
Video cued to the briefcase, but scroll the video back if you want to see the dramatic and silly into.
Treejoe, if carrying your wallet and phone make you look lumpy, your "fairly tailored men's clothes" are too tight. Go for the look of Cary Grant, not PeeWee Herman.
I heard Thatcher speak on world economics during a visit by her to the States. I have yet to hear another politician who can hold a candle to her on that topic. I do suspect Pierre Poilievre of Canada might.
Handbagging sounds like something 13 year olds are doing.
Men in power do not carry briefcases.
That's because porn is now available on their phone.
Alan Greenspan. Powerful man. Carried a briefcase.
Ah Maggie Thatcher and handbagging. She swung a mean purse. The fellow who wrote the original House of Cards series of novels about senior politicians in Britain was a speech writer for Mrs. Thatcher. Political staffs for all parties usually took a brief vacation after an election round. This fellow had seen some pretty hard handbagging by Mrs. Thatcher. He was relaxing with his girlfriend on a Greek vacation--when she suggested he write a novel about all of this. And so he did. A series of books--and a popular US TV show ensued.
In the Japanese business world, what we would call a lowly "gofer", they call a "kaban mochi", a briefcase carrier.
(As an aside, I once collided briefcases with Treasury Secretary George Schultz as he raced down the steps of the old Senate Office building. He carried his own.)
https://crossidiomas.com/handbags-at-dawn/
The Battle of Pearl Harbor with handbags
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQR5kZXbwhg
Another breathless mis-sight from the NYT.
Magilla Gorilla said, "Treejoe, if carrying your wallet and phone make you look lumpy, your "fairly tailored men's clothes" are too tight. Go for the look of Cary Grant, not PeeWee Herman."
My slacks, sport coats, and suits are tailored to a normal level of fit. I've got a bit broad shoulders, chest, and a ~33" waist. Sizable thighs.
A phone or large object in the pants pocket will create a meaningful lump. A phone in my suit jacket/sport coat pockets is normal, but does drag/distend the suit jacket over time and can be a bit lumpy.
This isn't abnormal unless you wear poorly fitted clothes. My phone is a 6" tall, 2.5" wide solid object. It's not going to NOT show unless your clothes are pretty losoe. And that's just a phone - not including other items.
Why not Sporran
Like true Scotsman
The best defense against "handbagging" -- sandbagging.
Someone mentioned a wallet for a laptop. Not quite what you are looking for perhaps but I have a sleeve for my laptop. It is a thin foam for protection. It zips closed on the long side and has an outside pocket that can carry 20-30 letter size sheets. Opposite the zipper it has a cloth carrying handle.
I've not seen anyone carrying a briefcase or hard attache case for a long time. I haven't for 25 years or more. For a long time I carried a cloth or leather computer bag with a shoulder strap.
I did not like the idea of carrying a backpack but I tried to compromise by designing a harness that would clip to the D reings of the shoulder strap. I figured use this for traveling then take it off before seeing the client. I could never quite get it to work where I could commercialize it.
Moot point, everyone carries a backpack now even at high corporate levels. 5-6 years ago my son got me one. I carried it for 3-4 years then found a backpack with detachable 4 wheel trolly on Amazon. Doesn't seem to be available any more.
I love it, roomy, easy to handle. When I go to trade shows I leave laptop and everything in hotel and it follows me around easily like a puppy.
3 snaps and it is a standard backpack.
It is getting a bit raggedy and I am thinking of buying another, if I can find it again.
John Henry
this on Amazon.
I never really understood the perversity of the no-pockets-on-women’s-clothes rule until a few years ago, when I bought a beautiful charcoal-gray camel’s hair jacket at a thrift shop for $4.50. The first time I wore it, I had a terrible time buttoning it, then found the pockets were fake. “Wait, is this a woman’s jacket?” Checked the label: “Elisabeth / by Liz Claiborne”. Not that I cared: it feels great, looks good, and doesn’t look at all feminine. Months later, I discovered that two tiny snips with scissors turned the fake pockets into perfectly functional and very useful real pockets. That seemed utterly ridiculous: why go to the trouble of making real pockets and then sew them shut?
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