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In China, alpha males carry designer purses

latimes.com

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Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#41

Post by angus77 »

Joakal wrote: post #34
georgieporgie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it really a purse, or more along the lines of a soft briefcase or messenger bag? I ask because the image in the article showed what looked to me like a soft briefcase with a long shoulder strap. Incidentally, here is a random link demonstrating that Indiana Jones carried a purse: http://thesatchelpages.com/keeping-up-with-the-jones-bags/

It's a satchel, not a purse. [0] [0] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Satchel_%28ba...

I'm so disappointed that nobody's added Ford Prefect's satchel to the Satchels in Literature or Satchels in Popular Culture sections of this article.

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#42

Post by widgetycrank »

spamizbad wrote: post #20
c2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true point, China has a good record of gender equality. Much better then it's neighbors and also the West.

I would dispute this - China did not permit women to own land until 1950. Furthermore, laws against domestic violence weren't enshrined until 2001. China certainly has been liberalizing its gender laws at a faster clip than the west, which took the Women's Suffrage Movement several centuries.... but it's never been ahead of the curve.

>China did not permit women to own land until 1950.

After 1950 men were not permitted to own land either. :P

edit: In some ways China should really be looked at as two distinct demographics, urban and rural. They have vast different values that makes the country completely bipolar. The gender attitude among the urbanites are much more progressive, in some ways even more so than the west, while in the countryside they still practice infanticide.

It may have to do with the fact that the communist ideology campaigns mostly targeted the cities, because Mao feared a bourgeoisie counter-revolution, while he already had grass root support from the countryside, so he took it for granted.

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#43

Post by jhamburger »

usaar333 wrote: post #37
jhamburger wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bottom line, it's still 30 million guys not getting laid (or married, at least). I think this is an instance where the raw number is important.

But given that it's only a 3% difference, can't another possible trend just be men waiting slightly later for marriage and marrying slightly younger women?

Theres still not enough women to go around. The ponzi scheme collapses sooner or later.

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#44

Post by jrockway »

atgm wrote: post #40
jrockway wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, everybody has those. Do you assume someone's rich because they are wearing nice headphones? I don't; I assume they are a college student who just got back to the city after Christmas break. Hence, not a status symbol.

I don't really assume that someone's rich because they have a nice watch, either... or that they're not rich because they're not wearing a watch.

Right, because in our generation, we don't really "get" watches. I mean, I know that there are $20,000 watches in the Universe, but I wouldn't know one if I saw one. So I don't consider it a status symbol and wouldn't pick it up if someone was using an expensive watch as a status symbol.

To that generation that "gets it", though, then perhaps watches are status symbols.

A status symbol that people have these days is their house. Most people pay way more than they can afford, mostly to make themselves feel like they "fit in" with a "more elite" crowd. (I noticed this because I rent what someone with my income can afford, but the people I live with make a lot less money than me. They are using their housing as a status symbol; I am using it as a place to sleep and shower.)

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#45

Post by brisance »

I've never been to China, so I was a little surprised to read that the largest bill denomination is equivalent to just US$15. I wonder why the payment card industry or contact-less payment systems like NFC have not taken off like they have been for decades in other Asian economies like Japan and Korea.

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#47

Post by pasbesoin »

atgm wrote: post #25
fanboy123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I would think the US version would be a nice watch. The article seems to stress that it is a status indicator for business purposes.

Except that watches are kind of going out of style, with all of the electronic devices people have. Perhaps the US version would be a nice smartphone, a nice MP3 player, and nice, non-Apple earbuds.

Gave mine up after the band broke (yet again) from constantly taking it off to type (wrist rest).

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#48

Post by pasbesoin »

russell wrote: post #12
misterbwong wrote: post #6

The USA variant of this is the briefcase or (more recently) the messenger/laptop bag. Not quite as expensive, but (arguably) still used as an indicator of social status.

I recently bought a messenger bag. Does that make me an alpha male or a sissy? But I have learned by personal experience how women accumulate all that crap ion their purses.

Put 40 pounds of mail [1] in one and hang it off your shoulder, and suddenly it isn't so effete. ;-)

[1] At one time, the maximum load permitted by USPS regs. And yes, they got that heavy. Especially when e.g. Time and Newsweek Tuesday (and a few other glossy rags) coincided with a Spiegel catalog (ugh).

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#49

Post by gbog »

widgetycrank wrote: post #42
spamizbad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would dispute this - China did not permit women to own land until 1950. Furthermore, laws against domestic violence weren't enshrined until 2001. China certainly has been liberalizing its gender laws at a faster clip than the west, which took the Women's Suffrage Movement several centuries.... but it's never been ahead of the curve.

>China did not permit women to own land until 1950. After 1950 men were not permitted to own land either. :P edit: In some ways China should really be looked at as two distinct demographics, urban and rural. They have vast different values that makes the country completely bipolar. The gender attitude among the urbanites are much more progressive, in some ways even more so than the west, while in the countryside they…

This view on maoism and the infanticide allegation seem ungrounded to me. I know some alpha-males in China and they don't buy bags, they climb montains or sing in a punk band, like their mates in the West

Re: In China, alpha males carry designer purses

#50

Post by brc »

Joakal wrote: post #15
c2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true point, China has a good record of gender equality. Much better then it's neighbors and also the West.

They have over 30 million more males than females. The Chinese may have equality, but that's a lot of sexually frustrated men that's going to contribute to unrest.

This demographic bomb is going to go off at some time in this century. The same problem faces countries where the sex ratio might be equal, but the actual marriage ratio is skewed because of poligamy.

The likelihood is that the men will be absorbed into some type of military action, whether state-sponsored (invasion) or non-state (terrorism).

Horny young men with no conceivable outlet tend to listen to anyone who tells them what they want to hear.

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