Are working women more sought after as wives than those prospective full-time homemakers? Well, most men in the Indian metros seem to be in accordance with the former. Primarily because having a wife who works at an office like you do has a series of benefits.

Double income is a huge perk. The increasingly expensive lifestyle in a country like India makes it imperative for both partners to work. In fact, beyond a point it becomes difficult to survive on just one salary. Yep, the wish list is increasing and so should the monthly income too.

The feeling of empathy is on a completely different plane altogether from contributing financially, but again equally important. Working women understand their husbands better and the pressures of his job. Plus, a working wife gets a lot of exposure and meets different people on a regular basis; this increases her info bank and makes her rather more interesting than a wife who stays home 24X7, lacks company lest the saas bahu serials and fails to understand the demanding conditions of a job. C’mon, gone are the days when opinionated women were burnt on stakes. The Indian man prefers a financially independent life partner who has a mind of her own. And if she earns more than hubby dear, the deal couldn’t be better. The complete package is vavavoooom attractive!

Indeed a huge paradigm shift in a country that always looked at women as second class citizens, who were just meant to look after the house and bear children. Not anymore. Hmmm…at this extremely modern argument, can I share my apprehensions? Ok, here I go. Working women are a good, progressive sight and stand for women lib n all. But what about children? With more and more women preferring career over children, will India end up like a second Japan? Serious food for thought.
Via thetimesofindia

Like my many friends, I worry a lot about not having a bulky body and being thin. Most young men and adolescent boys strive to achieve the six-pack abs and bulging biceps and workout hard in gyms and fitness centers. I know people who have consumed so much of protein that their kidneys failed and even had to be hospitalized. What has been touted as a disorder found among only women, eating disorders are increasingly wreaking havoc on men and their physical and mental health.

The pressure to grow bigger and more muscular has made guys consume abnormally large quantities of protein, which causes in renal failure. However, the society still has not recognized this is a problem and has been dismissing it as a fad. In my opinion, media plays a major role in shaping our self-image and how we value our bodies, regardless of our age or gender. Eating disorders are prevalent among men and women of all ages equally. In fact, among men it is far more dangerous as the sufferers do not approach doctors nor do their family members realize it is a psychological disorder, which needs medical attention.

However, anorexia nervosa has fueled enough awareness campaigns and hence families do know if a girl has been starving herself. In a guy’s case, he would eat abnormally large quantities and still remain thin and in a quest to grow bigger, he would fall seriously sick. The media, the society and the peer groups in general have wreaked havoc on susceptible minds.

Image

Via: GordonMoyes

Finally, the sexual crime against men is being talked about in India. And who better than Bollywood to deal with the issue! Haven’t we heard of hundreds of ragging stories in college boy’s hostels where newcomers were asked to strip off completely, and some unfortunate ones even ending up getting raped? Well, no one’s really bothered to bring up issues like these before probably because we live in a male-dominated society. So quite obviously, the ‘superior male’ cannot be raped or abused; even the idea is completely unacceptable for the typical Indian mindset. But we all know how wrong they are. So you can see how the male domination goes against both women and men as well.
Scriptwriter Manish Gupta, a product of the RGV factory, is ready to don the director’s hat with his film ‘Hostel’. And nobody is going to witness a chocolaty college romance here but a grim tale of sexual abuse that male students are subjected to. Manish had been wanting to make a movie on this subject for a long time now. Apparently during his engineering college days, he once came across a male rape victim, who gave an expression as if he just died when asked if the rumours about his rape were true. As a positive step, the censors have cleared the film.
Quite a paradigm shift for India here, I must say. After all talking about a social evil is as good as preventing it.
Via delhitimes

The world of health is struck by news of anorexia hitting men. A medical condition usually associated with teenage girls has left experts dizzy as men have increasingly started to eat less to get the “ideal body.” Laying stress on the fact that most cases go unreported, Susan Ringwood, CEO of eating disorder charity beat, believes that rise in male anorexia is a much bigger problem because men traditionally are less likely to seek help. Psychiatrist Frances said that it was doubly humiliating for men to come forward because mental health and anorexia were seen as “girl problems”.
The rise in the focus in the body aesthetic has affected the masses deeply, men and girls in particular. Male magazines are also being blamed for this. Ringwood adds, “Clinics are seeing many more men, as well as children as young as eight. We know children are more likely to develop an eating disorder during puberty and puberty is starting on average five years earlier than it did 50 years ago.”
Via timesofindia

A new survey conducted by Durex Network, a social marketing arm of condom makers in the world shows that the age for “first sex” among Indians is 22.9 years. In China, the figure stands at 22.1, in Malaysia it is 23, in Singapore the average is 22.8 and in Thailand, it is 20.5.

In western countries such as Brazil and Germany, the mean age is below 18 years. The fact that Indians abstain from sex for nearly 23 years would leave most people happy because of obvious reasons: Indian culture is not going to the dogs( or west!!, if you like it)!!

I am happy for a different reason: the later the age for sex, the more is the emotional and psychological maturity to deal with a sexual relationship. I belong to the old school of thought that still believes that just because you are sexually mature does not mean you should go out to the nearest orgy.

I am also happy because it means comparatively less risk of spreading AIDS/STDs, less risk of unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions…

Like me, are you wondering too? Well, but this is a fact proved and confirmed by US researchers.

In 2002, 41% of men said they did some grocery shopping but by 2004, that figure had increased to 61%. By 2006, 71% of men in the US said they had shopped in a grocery store in the past three months, with 56% saying they had shopped in the past week.

But the question that pops into our minds is that can the men shop as efficiently as women? While women will keep wagging their tongues for a bit of bargaining, men will simply pay off the entire amount. While women will eagerly explore for some new products, men will pay heed only to specific items, perhaps sent along with them as a list! And shopping, which women counts as a minor job, becomes a big deal for men! Because they are reluctant to ask for help and so have troubles in finding the items.

And the general complaint is that the retailers are not making the shopping trip easier or more exciting for males. Male shoppers tend to focus on convenience rather than price and so retailers need to cater to that need. And as men also tend to purchase only specific items rather than checking out an entire aisle, so that can also be a problem for retailers trying to promote new products.

Food retailers in the US are now focusing more on segmentation and tailoring store offerings to such shoppers.
And there is a tool to assist shoppers looking for specific items, called Shopping Buddy. It’s a wireless computer attached to shopping carts at Ahold’s Stop and Shop stores that alerts shoppers to certain items they might want to buy among other features. The Shopping Buddy uses information gleaned from shopper loyalty cards.

So men can shop but need “Shopping Buddy” to assist them!

via foodweek

Women are non-stop chatterbox, while men are close-mouthed; women are garrulous, men are laconic; women talk non-sense, men make all the sense; women keep beating around the bush, men directly hit at the main point; women are voluble and verbose, men are reticent and reserved; words just won’t stop rolling out from women’s tongue, while men remain tight lipped… Please gimme a break! Time now to put up a big full stop on all these erroneous urban myths.

A study reveals that men and women are equal competitors in chatting. US researchers tracked the conversational habits of almost 400 US and Mexican students in real time, and discovered that both sexes run their mouths at a remarkably similar rate over the course of a day, even if they tend to talk about different subjects.

“The widespread and highly publicized stereotype about female talkativeness and male reticence is unfounded,” said Mathias Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and lead author of the paper.

Mehl and a group of psychologists from the University of Texas at Austin measured a sample of the daily chit-chat of six groups of students who recorded their every word for periods that ranged from two to 10 days. The team calculated how many words each participant spoke in total in a 17-hour period.

The results showed that while the women got through an average of 16,215 words, the men were no slouches, with a daily average of 15,669 – an amazing shift in the previously perceived statistical terms.

And why not! When it comes to blabbing no sex is less than the other. If women in a group gossip, then men gabble about gadgets. If women talk about facials and bleaching, men too crazily discuss about trendy bikes and latest cars. If women are busy criticizing each other’s looks, men too are equally engaged in examining and conversing about the beauty of women.

Another eye-opening evidence further cements this survey. Singer Toby Keith’s hit song “I wanna talk about me,” in which he pleads with his girlfriend to shut up for a minute so he can get a word in. “We talk about your skin and the dimples on your chin/The polish on your toes and the run in your hose/But every once in a while/I wanna talk about me,” he says plaintively.

Lets hope that this study will finally be able to wipe off this age-old stereotype of females’ excessive and incessant talkativeness.