Finding a pair of jeans that fit just right is like finding the Holy Grail for a girl. Once a girl finds the perfect pair, she has to be prepared to pay a hefty price for the denim that fits over her lower half. Jeans are an essential in any wardrobe, but the struggle is real.

The daily struggle that women have when buying clothing isn’t anything new, but it has recently been brought it to the forefront. Women’s pants sizes range from a 00 to a 24, but the catch is: they aren’t the same in every brand, and the price rises as opposed to the male equivalent.

The thing with women’s sizes is that they’re different from brand to brand. A size 10 could easily be a size 14 in a different brand, and the only real variety is that they come in tall, petite, and short. There is no real measurement, just a number that lies. Men’s jeans are measured by the waist and by the inseam, making it easier to for them to find pants. However, with women the vanity of our gender, it has become more difficult for us to find pants that fit our butts.

Not only is it difficult to find properly fitting pants, they can also cost a lot depending on where someone shops. Depending on what brand of pants you’re buying, the price range can be anywhere from $10-$100 per pair of jeans, and if you’re like me, you kind of want to own at least two pairs of pants if you’ve grown out of all of the others or worn down the fabric between the thighs, it makes shopping for jeans a little pricey.

Along with inconsistent sizes and causing bank accounts to deplete, shopping for jeans also lowers a girl’s self esteem as they try on at least five different pairs of jeans, none of which fit right. Buying pants from a department store is just buying pants from a generalized size and isn’t tailored to any particular person’s body type, which is why it’s so hard to find a pair of pants or a that fits well.

The arbitrary numbers found in pants sizes aren’t all that new, though. They were developed in the 1940’s when the manufacturing of clothing was becoming a bigger industry, and there was a belief that whatever age a girl was (or what her bust measurement was), that’s what size they were. They didn’t realize how much of a problem that was due to the fact that in that time period most women knew how to sew their own clothing and could make adjustments as needed. Now that the number of women who know how to actually sew are lower than they were in the 40’s, it doesn’t make sense to keep this archaic method in place.

Yes, there are people that can find pants with no problem and, I envy those people because I usually have to go to several different stores to find the kind of pants I want that properly fit me. And, not all people have problems finding the perfect pair of jeans that will last them years, the average woman does have problems with finding a pair of jeans that fit and and make a woman feel good about herself when she wears them.

It would be great for a brand of jeans to come out that actually had realistic sizes for everyday women who have a bit of a muffin top and not a flatter-than-a-surfboard abdomen. I don’t think it’d be too much to ask for to have jeans be measured by the waist and the inseam, or with functioning pockets, because I’m tired of searching for the Holy Grail