Absolutely the cost. Just buying deodorant shows the differences in cost. Smaller container, larger price. My favorite moisturizer was $40-50 at Ulta, but the same manufacturer made a version for men that cost $20. It’s insane.
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Curious: How did they choose which activities to compare? And is there a list?
Given the examples (waiting in line for the bathroom, hair washing, tooth brushing…) I guess they tried to choose activities most people consider “chores” or “maintenance”? But it seems to me most men and women spend far more than 24 days each year on such activities.
ETA: back-of-the-envelope for commuting time alone: avg 25 min each way ≈ 9 days/year
When we bought our new (well, still century-old at least but new to us) house in March, my wife and I discovered the limits of compatibility of our respective tastes in wall colors. This past year or two, I’ve surprised myself in how sensitive I am to variations in hue and such, and while I don’t assume my taste is good for anyone but me, I do know what I subjectively feel goes well together and what clashes. That said, I don’t particularly care all that much about living with one hue over another, as long as they’re not totally awful. And in fact, I kinda like bold, brash color choices, since after all: it’s only paint. This came up because the previous owners of our beautiful new home had perfectly hideous taste in interior decor, so we knew we’d have to paint all the bedrooms, plus the kitchen before we moved in. (The rest of the house was harmlessly neutral.) We decided to let the kids pick the colors for their rooms, and my kids (bless 'em) picked pretty bright, kidlike colors, which my wife felt compelled to veto. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let 'em live with whatever garish hues they asked for since again, it’s only paint, and can be fairly easily remedied when the time came, but my wife was adamant that they pick something within a fairly conservative set of parameters. At any rate, our daughter has a lovely shade of lavender and our son has a nice light blue. Perfectly inoffensive, and the kids like 'em well enough. And luckily, my wife and I agreed on a blue for our bedroom that we both love more or less equally. When we remodeled the bathrooms this month, she wanted a pale green for our master bath, which I agreed to as long as it wasn’t too “institutional.” She did great, selecting an off-white that’s just the slightest bit minty, and it looks lovely.
The only trouble, such as it is, is that she doesn’t always trust her tastes and instincts, and I find it much easier to pick something I will like (or at least can live with), and so she agonizes over color choices while I pick my choices fairly quickly, though not thoughtlessly. It helps immensely that I can live with a broad spectrum of colors and looks, but I’m quick to veto anything that I do think will look off, and she appreciates that about me. If she asks me how an outfit looks I generally say something supportive and at least mildly enthusiastic because she does generally pick flattering, tasteful things. And so she knows that if she picks something I don’t like for whatever reason, I’ll tell her so, and point out the flaw, and somehow she always agrees with my assessment. (I’ve had trouble getting used to this, since she generally second-guesses most of my opinions in other spheres, but not when it comes to color and–of all things–fashion. I guess it just illustrates how little she trusts her own judgment in such situations, not that I’m any threat to Tim Gunn’s career or anything.)
Here’s another place where I fall off the stereotype: my wife and I both use Secret, in the Va-Va-Vanilla flavor. I don’t need to smell particularly musky to feel masculine. I have no problem at all striding manfully through life while smelling like a vanilla cupcake.
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I defy that same stereotype in reverse; I use men’s Degree.
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Sniff by sniff, we topple the patriarchy!
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It just works better for me than any of the ones marketed at women.
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Yep, I hear ya. I used to use Speed Stick (♪*“Byyyyy Mennen!”*♫) in high school, usually going for a musk kind of vibe. And then I tried various versions of Old Spice. But in the end, I really found the best performance from Secret, and once I discovered I could pick a vanilla scent rather than a floral one, I never looked back. “Strong enough for a man,” was really all I needed to hear, since I get sweaty pits and really don’t wanna smell like sweaty pits. The “but made for a woman” half of the marketing campaign never carried much weight with me, since it’s just Canned Smell, not something that genuinely demands a specific sex characteristic.
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That needs to be a shirt.
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Hopefully one without antiperspirant stains in the pits! (Another way in which Secret is better than Speed Stick!)
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Which is funny to me, as the deodorant that I and the partner I live with both use is “unscented.” (Can’t remember brand … Speed Stick, maybe? Obviously that’s just not the part that makes a huge impression, but wanting to use unscented really reduces your options a lot!)
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Yeah I don’t like strong floral scents, or clashing smells. Since I can usually smell my hair product, that’s all I want to smell. Not my suddenly floral armpits.
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That line literally made me laugh aloud.
Also, given the erroneous assumption on the part of some regarding gay men and their “hatred” of women, here’s a link that is absolutely inspiring:
I wish I could post the vid directly.
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And that’s why (the dislike of floral smells) I use some male brand (to lazy to walk upstairs to check and probably f* if they change the appearance, because I’m a run in, take what I want, and pay, costumer type) witch smells very faintly sandalwood and orange peel.
So: ‘Sniff by sniff, we topple the patriarchy!’ I want that T-shirt.
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Ah yes… I should’ve called it “Stink-B-Gone” since the overall goal is to remove unwanted stench, not necessarily mask it with something arguably pleasant.
But man, I do love those cupcakes. And now my coworkers are probably wondering why I keep sniffing my pits today.
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Yeah I just hate turning my head and suddenly getting a whiff of an unexpected scent. Anything I can buy unscented I do. I can’t use those Garnier Fructis products because to my nose they smell like slightly rotting fruit and it drives me nuts trying to figure out where is that smell coming from? Oh, it’s my hair.
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I think that women have a lot of pressure to do these things. I can remember when I started wearing makeup (at age 13, because mom thought it was improper before then - because she was Southern that way) that my mom told me she, “Could not wait until I started wearing makeup [see previous information for irony] because I was so pale.”
And the leg shaver was a Christmas gift. Now I had the joy of shaving!
And on and on. It’s not like I was super vain. It was presented that all these things were a right of passage for me as a teenager.
Now as an older woman, I really question some of it, but I also love spending more time in the shower, more time pampering myself. I think men should get to indulge more.
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Not to mention they’re terrible for the environment.
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Hey, I’m not misanthropic! Well, not all the time.
Actually I just came in here to say some of you guys are really driving the average time way, way up, OK? You know who you are, you preeners.
Oh thank god I’m not the only one who smells that.
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Marcia, get over yourself for one single solitary minute; I wasn’t even talking about you!
*lolz
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Now I’m hoping you DO run upstairs to find out the brand name! 
I normally use unscented deo – when I’m not using just corn starch + baking soda – but sandalwood and orange peel sounds lovely.
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