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Hanna Rosin

The End of Men?

In her new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin says we are on the verge of matriarchy. Rosin doesn’t exactly celebrate the demise of men, but she is puzzled by men’s reluctance to let go of old gender roles: “The women take on new roles with gusto, while the men take them on [...]

Certain feminists, like children discovering that certain words shock their mommies, like to talk dirty. Or at least naughty. Naomi Wolf climbs on this bandwagon once more with her eighth book, “Vagina: A New Biography.” She joins aging shock jock (“jockette”?) Eve Ensler in shouting the word in a marketplace crowded with female monologues. Wolfe, [...]

If you haven't started your Christmas shopping and frantically end up in a supermarket on Christmas Eve, chances are you're male.

Men are three times as likely to shop on Christmas Eve and twice as likely to buy their loved ones a present from a supermarket compared with women, research from the National Retailers Association shows.

As the festive season approached, 9.7 per cent of men said they expected to finish their shopping on Christmas Eve, compared with 3.6 per cent of women.

The survey, which came out on Thursday, interviewed 506 women and 497 men.

“It does confirm what we already know, that men will leave it to the last minute,” said the chief executive of the association, Margy Osmond.

“Clearly there is a different structure of organization which reflects that mum usually runs the family."

And if you get chocolates for Christmas, it's likely this has been a last dash to the supermarket, with 4.8 per cent of men admitting that's where they will do most of their Christmas shopping, compared to 2.4 per cent of women."

The most popular shopping destinations for women were reduced department stores such as Target and Kmart while men opted for the main department stores.

But most of both sexes were behind on their shopping obligations, with 27.1 per cent of women and 24.3 per cent of men expecting to finish their shopping one to two weeks before Christmas.

A smaller percentage – 14 per cent of women and 12.7 per cent of men – had finished their Christmas lists.

Mrs Osmond said she was confident shoppers would be getting the “best value” in presents because retailers had had a rough year.

Myer and David Jones have predicted a “flat” Christmas after the Bureau of Statistics showed retail spending was stagnant in October.