As I was taking a stroll in Kigali’s Central Business District this week, something interesting caught my eye. There was not a single shop in an entire street that was selling men’s clothing. Almost all stores were stocked in women and children’s clothing.
As I was taking a stroll in Kigali’s Central Business District this week, something interesting caught my eye. There was not a single shop in an entire street that was selling men’s clothing. Almost all stores were stocked in women and children’s clothing.
Then someone pointed out that the shops that actually do exclusively sell men’s clothes have to put it up in their names, that they are a men’s wear shops.
I wondered what it was about Kigali, though I know this is a global phenomenon that makes women such an easy target when it came to the clothing industry. Is it that there are more women than men, or do women have more disposable income, are greater spendthrifts, or just need more clothing items than the average man?
Any shopping mall will always have a larger number of women shoppers. Just take a walk to Rubangura street side in the evenings, and you will wonder why there are so many women and girls on a single street, trying on tops and bargaining prices with hawkers on various clothing.
Part of the reason could actually be that women do need more clothes than men, even if just for emotional satisfaction. Then shopping for most women makes them feel good. I have often asked my female friends just how many pairs of shoes a woman needs. The simple answer to that is infinite.
And they do not have to wear them but keep them in their closets. One research has shown that the average woman has nineteen pairs of shoes, but wears only four on a regular basis. That too goes for clothes.
Evolution does however seem to play a role in women’s fascination for shops and bargains. In a story appearing on ABC news last December, while on a trip across Europe with his wife and friends Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan noticed that when they reached one tourist town, the men wanted to go and see all the historical sites and the girls wanted to go shopping.
The women, it seems, had gone gathering, and the men, of course, had gone hunting. In past hunter-gatherer cultures while gathering women navigated by knowing which berry patch was the most productive last season, and felt a need to check every berry on the bush to make sure they’re getting the best deal.
They probably gathered food alongside other female members of the tribe, so gathering, like today’s shopping, was a social event.