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).
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.
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.
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.)
Sports cars are an interesting object lesson in signaling. Often their track performance is way out of line with their price and/or appearance.
For many, an old Mazda MX-5 is a superior track-day car to many newer vehicles costing several times as much.
The Ariel Atom is especially instructive, as it achieves higher performance by dispensing with the sheet metal -- which is the primary medium for an automobile's signaling.
Really expensive timepieces should have gone out with the quartz watches that came in during the 80s. They haven't because some of the rich and powerful use an inferior technology (from a timekeeping perspective) to show how successful they are.
While hackers may just use their phones it is unusual to see a wealthy banker, talent agent or lawyer without a nice watch. I would assume it is more prevalent in jobs that require a lot of signaling for negotiation.
Seems in the West men buy sports cars and women buy luxury handbags, and it's the reverse in the East.
It probably doesn't come down to any significant cultural differences either. Buying expensive things is a way for some people to feel more confident about themselves, or to spoil themselves, or some area in between. Basically, it's a curious statistic, but ultimately a non-story for actually doing business.
Not saying things might not be generally 'equal' for women in China now, but things are generally 'equal' for women in the West. For certain values of generally.
Seems to me societies have traditionally objectified/oppressed women world over.
One unequivocally positive outcome of the communists winning over the nationalists that even an ardent anti-communist like Jung Chang will attest to was their gender equality reforms. The first and most symbolic act was a serious crackdown on foot binding.
Yeah, and the first act of the Indian intelligentsia was against sati. It's easy to be against the most obviously wrong.
My point wasn't that reform hasn't happened, my point was objecting to the casual generalization of China as currently superior to the West in gender equality--by demonstrating the concrete sexism of the past.
Having ruled out the past since both West and China infringe gratuitously, what do we really _know_ about gender equality in China in the present day?
And I am the sort of person for whom a gender equality rating is strongly influenced by high ratings in tolerance for homosexuality and other non-gender-norm labels.
> Having ruled out the past since both West and China infringe gratuitously, what do we really _know_ about gender equality in China in the present day?
A third of China's millionaires are female. We know concrete facts like that. Guanxi rules business in China, so it would have been very easy to keep women entirely out of the higher echelons had the culture been predisposed to do so. That said, there is still, for example, plenty of low-level sexual harassment against women that wouldn't be tolerated in most of the West.
In other words, China has much the same problems as the West and much the same successes. I posted in response to the statement "Much better then it's neighbors and also the West."
My point about foot-binding might have been off-topic, actually; I was trying to demonstrate that both cultures have, err, regrets about gender inequality in the past.
> In other words, China has much the same problems as the West and much the same successes.
One has to be careful comparing these things on a linear scale. But yes, I agree. Beyond the context of our immediate discussion, the equality of men and women in China is noteworthy because it contradicts the still-commonplace orientalist conception that Asian women are submissive.
I wasn't using a linear scale; I was in fact rather pointing out that one shouldn't, and even if one did one could hardly conclude China was more advanced.
Now we're getting a bit off-topic, so I'm going to close with the idea that women in China could still be considered largely submissive if the ratio is a third instead of a half if one were to really press the viewpoint asking "In what ways could gender equality improve?" but that's a bit of devil's advocacy I'm ready to let fall silent. ;)
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.
Since that ratio is in part the consequence of a pretty strong parental preference for male heirs, it's also a pretty good indicator that traditional attitudes die hard.
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?
Downplaying it like a percent doesn't change the fact that there are 30 million men than women in a few generations. This was a result of (typically rural) parents determined to have males under the one-child policy. Why? Males are seen as better than females in returning honour, wealth and more to the families.
My original point was that equality should begin from start where infanticide shouldn't be allowed in this regard.
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.
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.
Interesting. Japan's never been a country that people would hold up as an example for gender equality, but women have always been "permitted" to own property---"permitted" as in: they never had that right taken away from them, and thus never had to fight to have it (in contrast to both China and the West).
>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.
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
I'm not sure which part about Maoism you are referring to.
No, the infanticide is not well-grounded, just reports.
I'm Chinese btw. I actually don't know anyone who buys these bags, I only see them on the streets occasionally. Giant wallets/strapless hand bags seem to be much more common among the middle-aged men. Most young people wear regular messenger bags.
The 20-year-old office clerk at a Beijing cosmetics manufacturer knows it could set him back more than $1,000. He'll have to save for months. But he said it would be money well spent. "As a man, you must have one of those bags," he said. "It will bring you status, dignity and boost your image."
Petrifying though that may be, that's only months. We saddle ourselves with six years of payments for the status symbols we can't afford.
This is one of the big rifts between foreign born immigrant Asians and their children. (I'm such a child.) A lot of children of immigrants are embarrassed by their parent's obsession with material things and signaling. In actuality, this behavior is quite similar to the signaling through conspicuous consumption of other North Americans. However, culturally different practices stand out, while the local ways of doing things blend into the background.
Spending months of your salary on a designer handbag, or whatever it is they think the culture values, is not a way to signal anything other than "I'm an idiot."
How about 3 months of your salary on a small stone of no special rarity or particular utility, just because an international cartel succeeded in telling people they should? The entire industrialized world engages in this foolery.
This roundly shows the hypocrisy of those from the west making snide comments about Chinese engaging in signaling. It's a part of North American culture to engage in such signaling as a matter of course. The majority of all retail establishments would lose a big chunk of their profits without such tendencies. It's the same sort of thing as people criticizing ghetto kids for buying Nike shoes. I wonder how many of those critics save enough for their own retirement?
What makes you think that the same Chinese who base their self-worth on Coach handbags don't also aspire to DeBeers diamonds? I stand by my comment, but doubly so because China is far from an industrialized nation. The people buying these things can't even drink their houses' tap water.
What decade do you think this is, the 1940's? Can't afford tap water? This is the kind of racism that people have to worry about, not stuff like censoring Mark Twain. Notions of the lower class of another nation does more damage than directly addressing issues ever will.
Much of the cities in china are just as industrialized, if not more so, than counterparts in the USA. The upper middle class is a growing section of the population that produces a demand for more flashy products such as diamond rings or handbags.
Doubly so as for the diamonds; the western nations is not above signaling with SUVs and other gimmicks (well gas guzzlers are less of a concern in europe, but not my point here). Pointing out that people not in a western country will save for a few months to buy an expensive item smacks of hypocrisy, especially when such people often demonstrates that they don't know the concept of saving in the first place. (Living within their means, anyone?)
Notions of the lower class of another nation does more damage than directly addressing issues ever will.
I think this is an important notion. The Chinese view themselves as the most sophisticated culture in the world. The Chinese view the currently dominant economic power of the West as having an unfortunate side effect. It hinders the rest of the world's understanding of the true value of Chinese culture.
How North Americans view the Chinese notion of cultural ascendancy is very instructive, because it's a mirrored by how the Chinese view a North American's notion of cultural ascendancy.
North Americans are well advised to consider this, as it's likely that China will soon have double the economic output of the US.
This is an article about men buying overpriced scraps of cloth in China. As I said in both of my comments, the people who do this kind of "signaling" in ANY culture are idiots.
Racism? I've traveled through China, alone, stayed in local hotels, bought my own train tickets, and eaten at the night markets. And, yes, I will criticize middle-class people who care more about having shiny rocks, or designer handbags, than demanding things like clean water, or unpolluted air, let alone a more equitable society.
This happens to be an article on China, but it could've been anywhere else in the world. The fact that you (and a lot of other people, judging by votes) seem to consider this racism says something about you.
Hey, I just realized that I didn't read your comment throughly, and maybe you can help me see what I'm missing. Why shouldn't people criticize ghetto kids for buying expensive shoes?
After all, that's exactly the criticism that I was making; I had no idea that spending money you don't have on luxury goods would be a popular idea on Hacker News.
For the record, since people seem to assume otherwise, the only debts I've ever had in my life were a small auto loan and my large student loans, both of which I sacrificed to pay off before I turned 24 while putting away 15% of my salary into a retirement account.
Wait, other countries and cultures don't adhere to the United States finely ingrained, unforgiving gender stereotypes? Let's have a laugh, they have girly-men. Sigh.
It's amazing how often we take for granted that many cultural habits are nothing more than exactly that. Instead there's this tendency to assume they result from some sort of greater underlying truth.
The reversal of colour gender association in the mid 20th century is a great example which is often very surprising to people.
It's not a purse! It's a European men's carry-all.
Regarding the "7% of men in the U.S.", I wonder how many of that sample bought them as gifts for women? I mean, I've stepped into Coach once to buy a wristlet, but it was because my sister had it on her wish list as a gift.
Then again, Coach does make men's accessories. I have a belt from coach, which my sister gave me as a gift. To be entirely honest, it's held up far better than any other belt I've ever owned.
Yeah, Coach makes some very solid men's stuff - a wallet I bought from them was a tank, and looked great to boot. Their stuff costs more than average, but I think it also lasts longer.
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.
I know many Filipinos both in the USA and in the Philippines - as soon as the husband makes enough $$$, the first conspicuous purchase is Louis Vuitton, or for the more wealthy, Chanel (whose bags are truly beautiful, and I say that as a dude.)
75 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 132 ms ] threadShould set off some bullshit flags on their methodology for classification.
I was expecting closer to 0, unless they include things like messenger and laptop bags.
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/
[0] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Satchel_%28ba...
Although I do consider it a minor victory when I can make it out with just iPhone, keys, and wallet in pockets.
[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).
Hence, not 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.)
You don't have to know the list price of a sports car to tell it is expensive. It's obvious just from looking at it.
They're pretty cheap.
For many, an old Mazda MX-5 is a superior track-day car to many newer vehicles costing several times as much.
The Ariel Atom is especially instructive, as it achieves higher performance by dispensing with the sheet metal -- which is the primary medium for an automobile's signaling.
While hackers may just use their phones it is unusual to see a wealthy banker, talent agent or lawyer without a nice watch. I would assume it is more prevalent in jobs that require a lot of signaling for negotiation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/chinese-women-milli...
Seems in the West men buy sports cars and women buy luxury handbags, and it's the reverse in the East.
It probably doesn't come down to any significant cultural differences either. Buying expensive things is a way for some people to feel more confident about themselves, or to spoil themselves, or some area in between. Basically, it's a curious statistic, but ultimately a non-story for actually doing business.
Not saying things might not be generally 'equal' for women in China now, but things are generally 'equal' for women in the West. For certain values of generally.
Seems to me societies have traditionally objectified/oppressed women world over.
One unequivocally positive outcome of the communists winning over the nationalists that even an ardent anti-communist like Jung Chang will attest to was their gender equality reforms. The first and most symbolic act was a serious crackdown on foot binding.
My point wasn't that reform hasn't happened, my point was objecting to the casual generalization of China as currently superior to the West in gender equality--by demonstrating the concrete sexism of the past.
Having ruled out the past since both West and China infringe gratuitously, what do we really _know_ about gender equality in China in the present day?
And I am the sort of person for whom a gender equality rating is strongly influenced by high ratings in tolerance for homosexuality and other non-gender-norm labels.
A third of China's millionaires are female. We know concrete facts like that. Guanxi rules business in China, so it would have been very easy to keep women entirely out of the higher echelons had the culture been predisposed to do so. That said, there is still, for example, plenty of low-level sexual harassment against women that wouldn't be tolerated in most of the West.
My point about foot-binding might have been off-topic, actually; I was trying to demonstrate that both cultures have, err, regrets about gender inequality in the past.
One has to be careful comparing these things on a linear scale. But yes, I agree. Beyond the context of our immediate discussion, the equality of men and women in China is noteworthy because it contradicts the still-commonplace orientalist conception that Asian women are submissive.
Now we're getting a bit off-topic, so I'm going to close with the idea that women in China could still be considered largely submissive if the ratio is a third instead of a half if one were to really press the viewpoint asking "In what ways could gender equality improve?" but that's a bit of devil's advocacy I'm ready to let fall silent. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_ratio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sex_ratio_total_population...
Edit: check out that big red country on this one...: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Sex_ratio...
My original point was that equality should begin from start where infanticide shouldn't be allowed in this regard.
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.
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.
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.
No, the infanticide is not well-grounded, just reports.
I'm Chinese btw. I actually don't know anyone who buys these bags, I only see them on the streets occasionally. Giant wallets/strapless hand bags seem to be much more common among the middle-aged men. Most young people wear regular messenger bags.
Petrifying though that may be, that's only months. We saddle ourselves with six years of payments for the status symbols we can't afford.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=8264&...
This roundly shows the hypocrisy of those from the west making snide comments about Chinese engaging in signaling. It's a part of North American culture to engage in such signaling as a matter of course. The majority of all retail establishments would lose a big chunk of their profits without such tendencies. It's the same sort of thing as people criticizing ghetto kids for buying Nike shoes. I wonder how many of those critics save enough for their own retirement?
What decade do you think this is, the 1940's? Can't afford tap water? This is the kind of racism that people have to worry about, not stuff like censoring Mark Twain. Notions of the lower class of another nation does more damage than directly addressing issues ever will. Much of the cities in china are just as industrialized, if not more so, than counterparts in the USA. The upper middle class is a growing section of the population that produces a demand for more flashy products such as diamond rings or handbags. Doubly so as for the diamonds; the western nations is not above signaling with SUVs and other gimmicks (well gas guzzlers are less of a concern in europe, but not my point here). Pointing out that people not in a western country will save for a few months to buy an expensive item smacks of hypocrisy, especially when such people often demonstrates that they don't know the concept of saving in the first place. (Living within their means, anyone?)
I think this is an important notion. The Chinese view themselves as the most sophisticated culture in the world. The Chinese view the currently dominant economic power of the West as having an unfortunate side effect. It hinders the rest of the world's understanding of the true value of Chinese culture.
How North Americans view the Chinese notion of cultural ascendancy is very instructive, because it's a mirrored by how the Chinese view a North American's notion of cultural ascendancy.
North Americans are well advised to consider this, as it's likely that China will soon have double the economic output of the US.
Racism? I've traveled through China, alone, stayed in local hotels, bought my own train tickets, and eaten at the night markets. And, yes, I will criticize middle-class people who care more about having shiny rocks, or designer handbags, than demanding things like clean water, or unpolluted air, let alone a more equitable society.
This happens to be an article on China, but it could've been anywhere else in the world. The fact that you (and a lot of other people, judging by votes) seem to consider this racism says something about you.
After all, that's exactly the criticism that I was making; I had no idea that spending money you don't have on luxury goods would be a popular idea on Hacker News.
For the record, since people seem to assume otherwise, the only debts I've ever had in my life were a small auto loan and my large student loans, both of which I sacrificed to pay off before I turned 24 while putting away 15% of my salary into a retirement account.
The reversal of colour gender association in the mid 20th century is a great example which is often very surprising to people.
Regarding the "7% of men in the U.S.", I wonder how many of that sample bought them as gifts for women? I mean, I've stepped into Coach once to buy a wristlet, but it was because my sister had it on her wish list as a gift.
Then again, Coach does make men's accessories. I have a belt from coach, which my sister gave me as a gift. To be entirely honest, it's held up far better than any other belt I've ever owned.
alternatively, you can also look up WHY the country is cash based. it's an interesting read.