Women's lust for shopping linked to periods Research by the University of Hertfordshire has suggested that women's desire to hit the shops may be linked to hormonal changes during their menstrual cycle. The most dangerous time to be wielding a credit card is, according to Professor Karen Pine, the ten days before a woman's period - the "luteal phase" - during which they …
A brain dead monkey could have told them that comfort shopping is one fairly common response to intense negative emotional states. True for men as well as women.
So for the U of H as some women suffer from intense emotional upheaval during their period
1) Emotions = shopping
2) Period = Emotions
3) Therefore period = shopping
4) Sell research to the Daily Fail
5) PROFIT!!!
Wankers - in fact probably emotionally stilted persistent wankers.
While this makes a lot of sense in linking my own anecdotal evidence, I'd have thought this would have been more indicative of the nesting insticnt which is suppressed due to the auto-satisfaction of physical ( food and shelter) needs.
Still, good to know for self preservation reasons.
... that prevents me saying, "No shit, Sherlock", is the sure and certain knowledge that decrying research into the bleeding obvious is the first step down the road that leads to joining the Daily Mail's readership. Very tempting though (she said, pausing only to pick up her credit card before heading for the shoe shop).
Now come up with something that I can use to explain to the wife the suspiciously large pile of boxes in the hall containing various bits of bleedin' edge techy stuff that came by courier the other day.
Getting a sex change so I can use this useful cop-out doesn't appeal somehow.
Why are women allowed to blame their hormones for bad behaviour?
Do blokes use "not enough testosterone, so I bought myself a nice shooter-upper for the console", or "too much testosterone, that's why I got violent?". Option B would end in a court apperance.
Sorry girls, learn to control yourself, the same way blokes have to...
Paris, because rumour has it she has control.
Well, maybe blokes should blame their hormones more often - they're a factor in their behaviour just as ours are. It's just that they're not as immediately (ostensibly) predictable and easily ridiculed as women's.
Both genders are subject to the shenanigans of all sorts of other hormones, too, we don't just have one each.
"Sorry girls, learn to control yourself, the same way blokes have to..."
Um, everyone controls themselves, otherwise society would collapse. Anyway, the results differ when we weaken. When women fail to control themselves, there is shopping and crying. When men fail to control themselves, there is drinking and WAR.
Meheh.
Ms. Bee,
No regular Reg reader ( or commentard) in their right mind would ridicule women or their cirumstances. We know all too well when we have overstepped the right proper bounds into the ridiculous from the sublime and are well aware that the Moderatrix will take us to task for said infraction. Some of our ill-thought attempts at humour do not come across with the proper sway and are promply swatted down with the cat-o-nine. The report is ridiculous in apparently stating the obvious, although, as you well point out, men and women have their foibles.
I think more research is needed. Anyway, if you saw the stuff I reject you'd realise that my tolerance is actually... what's a good tolerance simile? Fakir-like? Yeah, that'd do it. Only instead of nails it's like a bed of nasty internet twattiness.
Oh, and well said, AC - there is a fundamentally valid point to this kind of research regardless of the apparent redundancy/appalling waste of money that could er, build some much-needed cheap housing, etc.
All going well until the last bit:
"When women fail to control themselves, there is shopping and crying. When men fail to control themselves, there is drinking and WAR."
Just shopping and crying? Are you sure? In the spirit of topicaltiy, it would be interesting to find out if J.Smith's husband agrees.
I'll say it again: "Women can't live with'em, can't kill'em"
That is a joke, of course. Not sure where I heard it first
Generally I'd say that because the majority of world leaders is men, who knows what it would be like if they were women, but I'd guess at a similar scenario consisting of drinking and war, probably the only difference would be that the war would most likely be over something like shoes or bitchy comments about aforementioned shoes and a new war would be sparked every month.
@ Sarah Bee
"When men fail to control themselves, there is drinking and WAR."
Actually, there is always drinking. Failing to control oneself results in getting drunk and falling down. War is caused when politicians feel there is political and/or monetary gain.
On a related note, the last time I was on your side, £25 wasn't enough for a cheap lunch. How hard could it be to "overspend" by that? Really, so what, they picked up an extra lipstick and a hair clip or maybe a nice bottle of wine for a change. Who cares even if it's a monthly thing, if it becomes a daily thing be afraid, be very afraid.
"appalling waste of money that could er, build some much-needed cheap housing, etc."
But it wouldn't though, would it? So I think I'd rather it kept some students occupied (heaven knows what they'd get up to otherwise) and us amused!
WRT hormones, I think the dependence of females on theirs is as nothing to the blokes'. It's just that most doctors are men and on this subject they are in permanent denial. I mean, how many women use subscription TV for porn films? Put them on expenses, maybe... :-)
"Generally ... because the majority of world leaders is men, who knows what it would be like if they were women, but I'd guess at ... war ... over something like shoes or bitchy comments about aforementioned shoes and a new war would be sparked every month."
And then there was history: Margaret Thatcher + Argentina = war. Imelda Marcos = shoes + no war.
No real comment really, males have hormonal cycles too. it's just they're normally less talked about, or obvous. Some comparative research might be of interest. Most males are not aware of their owm cycles.
Regarding the 'Men like war' connection - there's always the add-on -
'Men like war because women like warriors' but 'll keep my head down on that one.
Uncontrolled men cause war. Agreed..
But uncontrolled women don't start wars? Helen of Troy? Boadicea? Golda Meir? Mrs Ghandi? And, of course, that filthy Thatcher creature. We await Merkel's invasion of Poland...
BTW, Sarah, we think you do a grand job moderating the comments. Don't we lads?
Strangely, the article makes no mention of how shopping habits compare with the follicular phase.
-Pine quizzed 443 women aged between 18 and 50 about their spending habits. Nearly two-thirds of the 153 participants who were in the luteal phase "admitted they had bought something on an impulse and more than half said they had overspent by more than £25".
As Neil said, a third of the month. We need a graph tracking discretionary expendatures and whether there is a hump (tee hee) around the time of ovulation.
Oh well, my work deals with cattle reproduction, so I can add nothing.
C'mon now people, this isn't just scientific research. It's scientific research from an academic with an important new book to flog (Sheconomics, from £2.90 used and new on amazon, since you ask). I'm sure the good Prof would appreciate a little less snark as a lot of hard work went into thinking up that book title.
@Niall Campbell
I think your other half may have PPPMS - pre-peri-post-menstrual syndrome. It's a well recognised condition that leads to moodiness and unpredictability and lasts the week before, the week of and the fortnight after menstruation and up to sixty years after the menopause.
... in the male hormonal cycle is there a fatal urge to go out and buy something that has at least two LEDs and/or goes 'meep' once an hour?
By extensive research among male geeks, I've managed to narrow the time frame to between age 8 and 75. Almost all Geeks admitted to several such purchases, many over £250, and particularly regretted those purchases that ran anything by Microsoft.
Those with particularly virulent versions of this syndrome have become leaders of government IT projects.
Asking questions only works reliably if the response is not skewed. Anyone with a fertile female in the house knows to choose words wisely at certain times which surely casts doubt on the validity of using questionnaires at different times of the cycle.
Maybe the women shopped hard right through the month but only admitted the expenditure in their post-ovulation phase. During the raggy bit they probably told the researcher to just fuck off resulting in that stat not being gathered.
Most men arnt aware of their own hormonal cycle?
Speaking for yourself mate?
Or are you on bromide in your tea? the standard joke for those doing national service, apart from the normal morning rise if you know what I mean,
An average male in his teens and 20's should be fully aware of his hormonal cycle,
it will makeitself obvious pretty much daily.
By the time hes 70 plus it will have dropped to a weekly event.
So i have found.
Not complaining tho,
.
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