Why Women Carry Purses (And Men Don't)

Walking down the street in lower Manhattan one is often caught in a stream of pedestrians--a line of solitary figures in suits, their sex easily distinguishable by one detail: women carry purses, and men do not. It may seem obvious to some (if it does to you, please feel free to stop reading), but the question this brings to my mind is why don't men carry purses? How do they know they have everything they need when they leave the house? Do they often go through the day wishing they had carried something with them that they simply couldn't shove into their pockets or stand to carry? I cannot count the number of times male friends have asked me to carry things for them: cameras, phones, glasses, etc. etc., yet they never seem concerned with being able to carry these things themselves. Why not?
Most of us have seen the episode of friends where Joey, dressed and accessorized by Rachel, carries a "murse" to an audition and is berated incessantly for it by nearly everyone he meets. The bag was not frilly, but still the fact that he carried it supposedly feminized him. Here I will propose three possibly reasons why:

1. Men are simple whereas women are complicated and perhaps a bit high maintenance. All men really need to have with them is a wallet, keys, and a phone, and all of those things fit quite easily into pockets making any extra baggage unnecessary. A woman, on the other hand, must have a hair brush, lotion, blush, lipstick, gloss, a mirror, hand sanitizer, and a plethora of other items that a man would have no need for or would never think of carrying with him at all times in addition to the wallet, keys, and phone. And since women are forever image conscious, they must have a bag that not only fits all of those things they find it necessary to lug around, but it also must be fashionable (often meaning nothing more than that it must cost an arm and a leg).

2. Men's clothing is made to accommodate the necessities of life whereas women's clothing is not. Men's jeans and jackets have pockets designed specifically to hold wallets, etc. If you need to carry a pen and a checkbook, just put on a blazer, and you get an inside pocket to stow them conveniently on your person.
Women's clothing is not so practical. Very few clothing items worn by women have functional pockets. Women's jeans are made to fit close to the body, making it so that any item placed in the pockets protrudes and ruins the effect. In fact, many pockets on women's jackets and pants are there for purely aesthetic reasons, some not extending more than an inch so that it's nearly impossible to place in them anything larger than a single coin. A hat I own has a buttoned pocket on the side which I never paid any attention to until someone asked me what I kept in it. The question was obviously asked in jest, but it made me wonder nonetheless. All of these useless pockets make it necessary for women to find another way to carry their things, and the purse is the perfect solution.

3. Women are the designated caretakers of society, and men need taking care of. I once went out to eat with a guy who asked if I had hand sanitizer in my bag, and when I told him I didn't, he seemed utterly taken aback and put out that he would have to find a bathroom wherein he could wash his hands. As a matter of course, I made sure to put my Purell back in my bag as soon as I got home, feeling a bit embarrassed that I had been so ill-prepared. In addition to that, I am also called on regularly to provide gum, tissues, pens, lotion, chapstick, an umbrella, and even a mirror on occasion for others in my company. I have no idea how I would accomplish all of that without the use of a purse. In college I often teased a friend of mine who carried a "mother-bag" which contained everything one might need in any given situation, but now I find myself emulating her level of preparation, and I only find it strange that men who've grown up going through boy-scouts with the boy-scout motto, "Be Prepared," can go through life as adults looking for someone else to provide all of the things women routinely carry around.

That's all I've got for now, but I think there's room for discussion. Why do you carry a bag around? or Why don't you?

11-Year-Old Gives Birth on Her Wedding Day

While scanning through news stories this afternoon, I came across this story. An 11-year-old girl in Bulgaria gave birth to a baby girl over the weekend, in the middle of her three-day wedding ceremony.

The girl met her 19-year-old husband a few weeks before her 11th birthday, when she was being bullied by a group of kids on the playground. He intervened, rescued her from the bullies, and later, she asked him out on a date, and a week later she was pregnant.

Now the girl says she will "stop playing with toys--I have a new toy now," and "I have to grow up, she is the child now--I will not go back to school.

While the father, who is facing up to 6 years in prison for having sex with a minor, says, “We know that having a baby is a big responsibility. My wife is young but I will make sure that I look after both of them if the law allows me.”

There are so many issues wrapped up in this story--the fact that 11-year-olds should not be having sex is probably the biggest, but also 11-year-old girls should not be pursuing relationships with 19-year-olds, and parents should be responsible for teaching their children morality/responsibility and acceptable behavior. While the culture is definitely a factor in this story, it cannot be "blamed" for what's happened. The grandmother with whom the child is living (her parents are in Spain) says that it is tradition for their girls to have children and marry young, but admits that her granddaughter is too young. The average marriage age in their particular area is 14. One of the most horrifying thing in the story is that the girl claims that she did not even know how to become pregnant. I find this difficult to believe, but if it is true, then it most definitely should not be. If a girl is capable of getting pregnant, she should know how reproduction works.

As far as the father goes, while it seems to me that simply not having sex with people you meet on school playgrounds would be a safe and reasonable approach, barring that, 19-year-olds must be responsible for verifying the age of their partners. This girl does not look 11, she looks closer to 16, which is above the age of consent in that country, but the way she looks does not change her actual age. All of that being said, this whole situation would be avoided if people could control themselves enough to marry before having sex.

All of this being said, the reason I really felt like responding to this story was that the comments on some of the articles were as horrific as the articles themselves. One person marked the darkness of the child's skin, then went on to talk about more and less evolved races, comparing "less evolved races" to weeds which breed more quickly than cultivated, "more evolved plants." I felt like I was reading something out of Nazi Germany. Before today, I really was under the impression that fascism was a thing of the past, and yet there it was staring me in the face. This was not the only comment of its kind, but most of the others were less obvious about their racism. Most targeted gypsies and culture instead of skin color. Another commenter cried out against Americans who saw this as a case of statutory rape and a terrible tragedy when, as (s)he said that the same case happening in the US with a black girl would be seen as her trying to live off the government.

I don't believe any of those arguments have any grounds in this story. These commenters are coming to the story with preconceived notions about the world and the way it works and the injustices of it all and the things that people are doing wrong, and then they are using the story to voice their thoughts about completely different issues. Until people are able to come to a case without their own agendas, comment boards will be a place where extremists voice opinions that make Americans look like self-righteous fascists, and that horrifies me.

Last off, I would like to say that I don't believe the couple in this story is cursed or destined to have a miserable life. The father in question seems sincerely, if naively, determined to improve the condition of his very young family. Both parties are professedly in love. Both express love for their new child, and the father has high hopes for her future: “I want Violeta to be educated, to be able to read and write. She was born famous and maybe she will stay famous like becoming a doctor who invents brilliant medicine or saves lives." I sincerely hope that this family can retain that determination, that they will educate their daughter in ways that they should have been educated themselves, and that she does someday become a brilliant physician...or whatever else she may want to be.


Article from NY Daily News

Video and Wedding Pics on YouTube