Shopping Habits: Women and Men

People’s taste varies from a person to another. It depends on what is your gender. Men usually do not care what to wear as along as it is emphasizing their muscles. On the hand, women likes to wear what can represent them as a sexy cute attractive female that men will keep an eye on. It is a fact that men care about how a woman look compared to her personality. In some books that I read, 80% of men’s attraction to women is based on their looks and 20% is based on their personalities. In contrast, women 80% care about the personality and 20% about the looks. In general, women like to go shopping to look good and keep on track on the fashion revolution that is occurring. Women are usually accompanied with their men or their girlfriends. In the Qatari Society, women here go to shop alone, leaving men at work or home.

I went to Villagio Mall yesterday to observe the sociological pattern of how people go shopping and with whom. I found a lot of interesting facts that I have not known before. Qatari women in Qatar go shopping alone, or with kids and girlfriends. Qatari men do not interact with the shopping process and buying clothes. It is the mother’s mission to buy clothes for herself or the kids. However, non-Qatari people from different nationalities go shopping with anyone they find available. Asians, other Arabs, White, Black and people from different ethnicities go with their wives. Social class has nothing to do with people who go shopping. It is all about the mentality. Qatari men buy their own clothes without the help of women. They have their own tailor.

In Sociology, this discrimination, if I may call it, varies from a society to another. I just wanted to experiment the concept of gender socialization. I found out the norms here. It is interesting that only non-Qatari men interact with women to buy clothes and different stuff for the house. What was not clear to me is that even it was a Friday night, not a lot of children were there. This is made it a bit harder for me to observe another pattern which is the shopping for kids. Who does it? And with who? Overall, I found what I want, and it was interesting to learn these things about the Qatari society.