wear the pants

Players can wear the pants down or wear them high to show off the special socks.

He improvised a replacement line that Hughes used in the film: “When you meet your Mr. Right, make sure he knows you wear the pants in the family.”

I tried something different, and the one time I actually told someone that I prefer traditional male-female roles—that I don’t like to “wear the pants” in a relationship—he misconstrued that as I want to be controlled.

And there are ways of communicating your preference for traditional gender roles that might be more effective than “I don’t like to wear the pants.”

I feel at times that if we want equal rights, and we want to be heard and respected, we also have to wear the pants at the same time.