WeMEN in Women's shoes | Feature

How well adjusted are men in a woman's world? We conducted an online poll through our website, www.wavemag.com.np., to find out. The online form was posted for a week and we received over a thousand responses. The majority of respondents was between 20 to 30 years (56%), 35% were less than 20, 6% between 30 and 40 and only 2% over 40.

Half of our respondents felt more comfortable shopping alone. The other half had no problems tagging along or having a woman with them while shopping. Those who preferred shopping alone said having a woman around drained their pockets and took too much time. A few found them too interfering and overbearing. The flipside thought women were more experienced shoppers, better at bargaining, had better choice and knew what was in. For some, shopping alone was too boring.

The next question listed a number of very personal female items and asked how comfortable the respondents would be to shop for them. Jewellery was the first on the list and 56% felt okay shopping for it. Thirty three percent had no problems buying cosmetics. Buying lingerie was not a problem for 27%. Twenty four percent would shop for female contraceptives but a mere 11% said they would purchase sanitary napkins and tampons for a women.

We received some very interesting, original and innovative responses to our final question for the gift of a lifetime for a mom, a sister and a girlfriend or wife. Some thought of gifting themselves, others picked shoes, diamonds and cars. Jewellery was the gift of choice for mothers. Other gift ideas were respect, a degree and a daughter-in-law. For sisters jewellery featured as the most popular choice, followed by cars, bikes, mobile phones and clothes. Diamonds beat other forms of jewellery when it came to choosing a gift for a wife or girlfriend. Quite a few chose love and perfumes but the most original was 'a throat silencer', whatever that may be!

Our sample data gave us a general idea about men and shopping, even though the poll represents a very narrow section of our readers. Women are accepted in their world, at least for the half of them. In a small measure we can see how our society is opening up. However, men are still not too comfortable stepping into women's shoes and shopping for them.