what is even wrong with clothing SIZING?!?

OK, so I haven't actually bought women's clothes in like 5 or 6 years so maybe I have just forgotten.

WTF is up with the irrational and inconsistent SIZE BANDS on women's clothing? What do these numbers even mean, and do they bear any relationship to anything in this world?!?!?

(Please no fat shaming, or comments on value judgements about the numbers, just discussion of how bizarre the numbers are.)

When you buy men's clothes, the size is pretty obvious. If you buy "32" trousers, that means the waist is 32 inches. If you buy shirts, it will tell you how big the chest is / how big the neck is, in inches or cm.

So I ordered these women's leather trousers (please don't judge!) because they were on super sale and looked K-Rowr. I seem to remember I wear a women's 20? (I checked out a couple of pairs of jeans I bought years and years ago, and that corresponds to like a 40" waist.) So I ordered that. What they sent me was labelled "22" on the tag hanging from the outside, which OK, maybe that's a mistake. I tried them on and could not get them over my hips. I took them off and looked at the inside - the tag on the inside said "18". I got my tape and measured them - they had a 36" waist, in what universe is that a size 20, let alone a size 22?

Are these bizarre size bands just *designed* to make you feel absolutely horrible about your body?

I just cannot believe this is something I got so used to in men's clothing, like how bizarre and irrational women's clothing is, in this sense.