Men and Women Shopping

I think one of the fundamental differences between men and women shopping might explain why you see Massengil commercials, and not jock itch ones. Take a man and woman clothes shopping, for example. If that 34/32 doesn't fit the guy, he'll walk out. End of discussion. He's got better things to do than try on 200 pairs of pants. (Unless we're behind him telling him he's not getting laid looking like a scrub. See, we're selling sex again!) Women? Most of us aren't happy till we've tried on 2/3 of the Junior's section, forget the fact that we're overweight and 30 and those pants went out of style 40 lbs ago. Dammit, we'll try on the whole damn rack until convinced it's not going to work.

It's a difference in philosophy when shopping, probably tied to hunter/gatherer instincts. That guy wants to go in, find his prey, kill it, and go home where we'd damn well better have dinner cooked. Women's gatherer instinct has us gathering anything that fits in a cart, and picking out the best we can find. (For that dinner we're gonna make him pay for. I didn't spend $80 on shoes to cook!)

However, this does not, to me, explain men's enthusiasm and entertainment in random gadgets. If you take a man and a woman shopping, and both of them are firmly convinced they need a new cordless phone for the house, the scenario will play out relatively similarly. The man will come home with a phone with 6000 buttons, a 5.5 mile range, 23 handsets, programmable for 7000 numbers (he only calls his mom and his buddy Jim, but dammit, it can hold 7000 numbers!) and operates off diesel fuel. God knows why he thinks he needs all this shit, but need it he does.

The woman? She comes home with what was “on sale for a really good price honey!” or the one that matches the living room. Or her favorite shade of lipstick. Or a fantastic shade of purple. It might not even be cordless when she's done, but damn it sure does look pretty. She takes one look at the phone her husband got, gasps, and declares she'll never know how to work the damn thing, and she's the only one that uses the phone anyways, and did you remember to call your mother for her birthday?

But as long as women maintain our gatherer status, and we allow advertising to make our decisions for us (or really pretty colors make our decisions for us), we're going to be patsys to whoever makes our favorite Tampax commercials.