To men (I'm now leaving my friend and his opinions behind and moving to men in general) a women who loves designer shoes or purses or whatever is a high maintenance person and automatically loves shopping and can't follow a budget. However, I submit to you that it is exactly the opposite. Women who are single and have designer things have usually been working their tail off on their careers and had to save up for a while to reward themselves with something that expensive. They don't expect someone else to provide for them and to buy them clothes and purses, because very clearly they can do that themselves. A woman with expensive tastes should be a plus to a guy, because it means she knows how to work hard, push herself to the limits to get things accomplished, has a very functional budget in place, and places a high value on herself and will therefore place a high value on him and his needs. Women don't need a man to "take care of them" or to even "provide" for them (many women make more money than their husbands anyway), but they want one to love and to be their companion. That should be viewed as an honor, not an insult.
Self-care is all the rage right now, but somehow that only translates into women getting massages or taking long baths or getting mani-pedis or something. No one has thought about the fact that for some women, providing themselves with a special expensive accessory is more of a reward and more of a stress reliever than any of the other things associated with self-care. And yet it is looked down upon. It just feeds back into the patriarchal view that men are better with money (and pretty much everything else outside the house). Y'all, I'm here to tell you that for the most part, women are waaaaaaayyyy better with money and budgeting than men are. There are exceptions, but from what I've seen, men don't understand delayed gratification in purchasing the way women do. The joke that you have to hold your wife's hand at the mall just so she won't shop is frankly disgusting and not in the least bit funny. Yes, they don't do window shopping like we do, but when they buy something its huge; a boat, a car, a huge tv and sound system, etc. And they usually do it on a whim. When a woman makes a big purchase, she's probably been stewing over it and saving for it and listing all the pros and cons for several weeks, if not months. I think even tv has started to see this shift. You look at I Love Lucy: the men are always complaining that the women spend too much money. But they're given money in an allowance, as if they were children, and then left to their own devices and supposed to budget like an adult. But women were treated like children in general back then, so what did they expect? Then you look at The Cosby Show. Every time Clair know that Cliff is going to the hardware store, she has to call down there and tell them not to sell him anything. He's always buying stuff that he doesn't really need or will ever use. And yet Clair makes the biggest purchase of the family when she buys an $11,000 painting that she had spent months researching and tracking down.
So ladies, if you have your eye on that Gucci purse, or those Manolos, save up for them and wear them with pride! They are a testimony to how hard you work and how good you are at both your job and taking care of yourself. If that threatens a man, you don't need him anyway. So this is my bottom line: ladies, wear those labels as a badge of honor and achievement! And the rest of the world, especially men, need to stop judging women for how much money they've invested back into their own lives and well-being. We earned our first pair of Jimmy Choos fair and square and without male assistance, and that's how we plan on earning the next pair and the next. That bother you? Then move on; there's nothing for you to see here.
