Can men use women's products?

A renovated locker room for visiting football teams was unveiled at the University of Iowa recently. Everything in the room -- the walls, flooring, urinals -- was in a particularly effeminate shade of pink to intimidate, belittle and psych out the team's opponents.

Before feminists burn their bras in front of the university, this writing is not about how the university decorators were acting like sexist pigs, although they surely were. Read on.

Would women react similarly to a locker room decorated in so- called male colors? Equality may be the ideal for most people, but there's no denying that sometimes one sex comes out ahead of the other, and when it comes to product usage, women come out on top. While it continues to be perfectly acceptable for women to use products targeted at and packaged for men, there are social taboos against men using anything that's clearly intended for the fairer sex (or in some cases, anything remotely female). Somehow, using such products is seen as akin to giving up their Y chromosome.

Marlene Dietrich and Kate Heppburn wore trousers in public at a time when women only ever wore skirts, dresses and gowns. The fashion statement carries through modern times. But despite Jean Paul Gaultier and David Beckham's efforts, a male in a skirt is still a rarity and more often than not invites shock, jeers and gay rumors.

In a survey by SONAR in August 2005 (fielded online using its representative panels of respondents, covering four countries: the UK, Canada, U.S. and the Netherlands) from the new book The Future of Men, men were in solid agreement to the aforementioned statement that women can use men's products but not vice versa, while women were more neutral on the point.

"There are more new things for women to buy than for an average guy" - male, the Netherlands.

"Women seem to have more preferences available for lifestyle and jobs, and are locking in those they like." - male, Canada.

What about those metrosexual males we keep reading about in magazines? You cry. While it's true that more and more men are using products and services traditionally geared towards women (like moisturizers, hair spas and nail polish), these are still packaged in a masculine way. "Pour Homme"! "Candy Man"! the labels shout to avoid confusion, so the average Joe can still look and feel good without having to worry that the rest of the bigoted society thinks he's auditioning for a role in Queer As Folk.

In a world in which the media reflect and shape opinions more pervasively than ever before, the survey confirmed that most people in those four countries think the media's gender agenda is firmly in the hands of two segments of society: women and men with a pro-female perspectives. Responding to the statement "The media reflect the interests of women and metrosexual men more than the interests of average men", 57 percent of men agreed as did 45 percent women. Of course, this is a chicken and egg situation. Women buy more stuff, advertisers target them, media survives on advertising.

So how this will affect the regular Joe in the long run? Will they survive? Will they succumb to the pressures of a more feminized world? Stay tuned. Meanwhile, it would be really nice if all of you men cleaned your nails more often. You don't need to be a metrosexual to have clean nails, people.

Krabbe K. Piting