Stalled in the Ladies Room Line
Did anyone else Woohoo! at the big news about the new women’s WCs in NYC? Grand Central Station just opened a new ladies room, twice the size of the men’s. There isn’t a woman alive who hasn’t moaned, at least a million times, “Why are there always long lines at every ladies room while men breeze in and out?” And yet, it took till 2008 for someone to FINALLY listen (even though the NY mayor and city council mandated a 2 to 1 ratio for certain public restrooms as early as 2005!).
According to The New York Times, the new digs aren’t just instant access, they’re gorgeous with “Botticino marble walls, seamless terrazzo flooring, Stony Creek granite partitions and mirrors with scalloped edges.” The article quotes commuter Lisa Kovitz, who vells, “It’s, like, amazing…You could hear angels singing, it was so nice.”
The restroom gender wars are no joke for the 14 million incontinent women who suffer (and wait) in silence. We’ve researched this for Ortho Pharmaceutical’s drug Ditropan, and when she’s in a hurry to go, she needs answers, not laughs. But the gags won’t quit.
Once during an onstage speech, a man asked me, “Why do women go together to the bathroom and then stay so long?” I answered, “Because they are complimenting each other!” What woman hasn’t picked up a quick beauty tip while sharing a mirror with a stranger: “Where do you get your hair cut?” “Oh, it’s a mess today, but if you live nearby, try Sharon at ‘Styles Are Us’”. In that safe, anonymous cave, we commiserate and suck up compliments that family and friends sometimes scrimp on. (I’ve heard that men aren’t nearly so chatty in their space.)
When I was a judge on ABC’s reality show “American Inventor,” contestant Sharon Clemens presented the Rest Room Door Clip, a simple way to compensate for the repeated nightmare of public stalls with broken locks. The other judges, all men, doubted that being surprised while toilet-bound was that big a deal.
Women have different needs than men in plenty of categories. Women say what they want. Why aren’t more people listening?
Just Ask a Woman
Categories: In the News, Shopping and Service | No Comments »
Wal-Mart is Crafty and it’s Paying Off
It comes as no surprise that Wal-Mart is faring well in this economic climate. Over the years we’ve heard women tell us that while they like Target for fashion, home, and personal items, because of price, Wal-Mart has their wallets more often.
But now it’s not just about the money. We’ve been watching as Wal-Mart works harder to offer today’s female consumers more than just low prices…and their work is paying off. In fact, during Lehman Brothers’ 11th annual retail and restaurant conference, CEO Eduardo Castro-Wright explained that “Wal-Mart is even better positioned to take advantage of growth when the economy turns around.” And these changes have gotten me excited about the brand.
First, there was the March launch of Canopy, their beautiful furniture and home furnishing’s line, which recently caught my eye in Home Magazine and made me do a double take when I realized it was from Wal-Mart.
This month they’ll launch two new assortments from Martha Stewart’s Craft line – Create and Celebrate. And as a bridesmaid once more, I can’t wait to get my hands on these products.
And finally just this week it was announced that Wal-Mart signed an advertising sales deal with Women@NBCU, the new unit of NBC Universal, to sponsor content aimed at reaching a mother and her “momtourage” . We’ve been talking about women’s board of directors for nearly 10 years now and it’s nice to see a company embed themselves into her network in a way that feels natural.
We’ll be keeping an eye on Wal-Mart as they continue to make strides at reaching their most powerful customer.
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Falling for Shoes
Just Ask a Woman is within walking distance of shoe heaven. We are wedged between well-heeled Soho and Union Square, the foot traffic mecca and home of DSW whose strategic platform conference I recently emceed. (Yes, you’ll be slogging through shoe puns this entire blog!)
We recently completed a project for Naturalizer, where three women divulged that they’d been victims of ‘fashion injuries’. “Ha Ha,” I laughed.
Till last Friday.
That’s when I slipped twice in the same shoes, cut my forehead, and earned myself an emergency dash to a beauty-centered derm, usually a cakewalk in Manhattan but no small feat on a weekend in July. Five stitches later, my accident became a Rohrschach referendum on me and my shoe IQ. Female friends taught me firsthand (feetfirst?) the marketing Half Truth (Women love to shop for shoes) and Whole Truth (Women secretly despise the shoes they wear most).
“Were you wearing super high heels?”(do they think I’m an impractical fashion victim?) “Get rid of those old flip-flops!” (am I pegged as a barefoot slob?) “Did you throw those shoes away!?” (and if I didn’t, I’m an idiot, right?)
Truth be told, the real me isn’t a fashionista or a slouch. The guilty pair were my favorite, super cute Beverly Feldman straw ballet flats with an iridescent green crumpable bow and a teeny leopard-like edging. How could I toss my babies for one small slip?
Instead I sneaked to the shoemaker (ironically named FIRM Shoe Repair), flashed my nasty stitches and sadly placed the weapons on the counter. Even he wanted to put them out of their misery. “Just one last chance,” I conspired. We say we want comfortable shoes. We do. But when they’re extra cute and loyal, we can’t send them six feet under before their time. (Anyway, if the new rubber soles won’t save them, my bonus DSW $10 certificate is burning a hole in my wallet.)
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A Reality Show with Some Reality
So The Baby Borrowers … I had heard about this show a year ago when there was some backlash against the premise of arming irresponsible teen couples with infants and thought the concept was foul. As a new mother there were certainly days when I would have handed my twins to the UPS man, but the thought of giving a baby to these bratty, immature high school couples seemed really out of line.
Here’s the deal. Teen couples want to be grown ups so they are given a house, a job and an infant (and then a toddler, an adolescent and a senior) so they can give real life a trial run. During the infant period the real parents sit in a house next door and can watch their baby and these kids playing house on camera during the entire experiment. If they are appalled by something they can go knock on the door and confront the teens. There is also a full time nanny with the babies who is allowed to intervene if the baby is in danger.
When I started to watch the show while I was on the road (my only excuse), I found myself watching the baby’s “real” parents versus their fake teen caregivers. I needed to understand why someone would volunteer for this show - there are no prizes, no rewards or free trips - and you are donating your flesh and blood for some reality show experiment. But here is the catch, I now look at these parents (particularly the moms) as real heroes for being involved. They were sacrificing time with their own babies to teach big lessons. Several of the moms were involved because they had been teen moms themselves and wanted to give these young girls a reality check before they got knocked up and found out that babies are a lifelong commitment. Bottom line, that says a lot about women and their empathy for other women.
This reality show isn’t worth watching to see if the teen couples make it (they shouldn’t), but if you watch in the background you can feel pretty proud of the moms who are involved.
Categories: In the News, Moms & Families | No Comments »
I can’t get enough of…racked.com emails
Although shopping is one of my favorite hobbies I’m beginning to have less time to do it, never mind look for the best deals or the coolest new store openings so when I found out about racked.com, an up to the minute blog about all the fashion happenings in NYC (and the brother/sister of eater.com and curbed.com), I named it my official one stop shop for all things fashion. But then I got busy one day and another day I was traveling and I forgot to check it and missed the Betsey Johnson sample sale! So I was beyond ecstatic when I was browsing the site and signed up for the e-mail list. Now I get an e-mail everyday right before lunch that I never miss checking (unlike fashionweekdaily’s email that comes around 5pm each night that I hardly glance at). It has the top stories, a “dealfeed” highlighting the best sample sale(s) and, my favorite, the e-mail scan.
The e-mail scan is ingenious, not only does it sum up the latest news with links to other websites, it tells you what sites have not been updated (so you don’t have to bother stopping by them) and highlights their favorite news.
If only all of my interests (finances, travel) arrived in my in-box researched and organized. The racked e-mail gives me the best of the best and takes no more than 5 minutes to read, guaranteeing I’ll always have time for fashion.
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Retail Therapy Comes Home
I don’t usually burst out laughing while reading The Wall St. Journal, but today’s “Excuse Me, Do you Work Here? No, I Just Need to Fold Clothes” gave me a well-needed belly laugh. Writer Jennifer Saranow reveals that an entire generation of Americans who worked stints at The Gap, now channel their obsessive folding skills to neaten up everyone else’s lives.
Saranow cites U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counting store clerks at clothing and accessory stores at an annual high of 1.3million. She writes, “The Gap Inc… has trained ‘hundreds of thousands’… in the art of folding since the late 1980s.”
These proudly obsessive neatniks can’t keep themselves from folding everybody else’s stuff, even ‘straining marriages…and straightening up sloppy displays while shopping.”
Are all the former Wal-Mart greeters welcoming people home on their front porches? At dinner, are the McDonald refugees asking the kids, “Fries with that?”
I started to consider my own leftover habits and asked my Just Ask a Woman colleagues to weigh in. Thanks to four years as a bank teller, I count bills like a card shark, ordering denominations big to small, all facing in the same direction. Jen’s haunted by an early pharmacy job to “turn the labels of all of my products in my medicine cabinet or fridge forward like they would be on a shelf.” She also confides that she knows how to jump a too-long prescription line. “It is probably illegal, but if you write Dr. in front of your name on the RX, they usually will fill you first.” (I guess I used to know how to rob a bank, but I’ve unfortunately forgotten.)
Lily is obsessive about the way she slices fruit and dries glasses from her bartending gigs, and Tracy can’t help straightening the Hallmark card displays. “It drives me crazy when they’re out of order,” she says. “I’ve even been asked for help because they think I work there.”
Perhaps there are millions of women who now bring their oddball service quirks to daily life. Maybe there’s something calming about taking control or we use the excuse of “the way it should be done” to neaten life’s sloppy edges. Or maybe, we are just creating a little fantasy corner of calm. Jean, who hopes to work in retail someday (not too soon, I hope) uses her closet as her make-believe store. “I hang all my clothes and fill my drawers by type then category, then color,” she says. “Same with shoes. If they’re not in order, I can’t go to sleep at night!”
Seems like retail therapy goes even farther than we think.
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It’s the Women, Stupid
With this election, I’ve morphed into a political news junkie. Instead of “Dancing with the Stars,” I’m all over The NEWSHOUR with Jim Lehrer. I savor John King’s magic maps on CNN with a chaser of Jon Stewart. Goodbye, celebrity gossip and hello, wonkette.com and XM radio’s 24/7 POTUS on the road. And women are a big reason why.
This presidential campaign seems fixated on how women are divided. Gen Y vs. Boomer feminists. Elitist vs. pink collar. After round one with Hillary, we’re on to the spouse smackdown. Bloggers compare Cindy and Michelle, from weddings to salaries and incite catfights, triggered by wealth or attitude. Yesterday, Michelle Obama appeared on ABC-TV’s ”The View“ and already the wags argue if she connected with women or acted superior towards them. Here’s my take: This smart, attractive lawyer/mom more than held her own with five fast-talking veteran co-hosts on national TV. (I’ve been on that View couch and believe me, getting a word in edgewise is a feat.)
Why this fixation on spousal images? According to today’s AOL poll, a vast majority of voters agree that spouses influence their choice for president. Ready or not, women are defining the candidates’ brands—both as mates and in the voting booth. Whether we’re analyzing the casting in ads or the drama on the campaign trail, women make judgments about other women. It might be uncomfortable or politically incorrect, but it’s true. Do I like her looks or empathize with her as a working mom? Is she like me or someone I might like? Yes, the big issues will drive the vote. But don’t overlook her personal litmus tests. The question isn’t, Whom are women against? It’s, Whom does she trust? Just ask.
Categories: In the News, Women & Work | No Comments »
When Less is More
Women have been telling us for some time now that they want to find ways to simplify their lives and choose products that make things easier. I know I want that, especially as I sit here trying to figure out how to make software work with my Vista operating system (talking nicely to it doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.)
We’ve been saying for awhile now that we wouldn’t be surprised if consumers started paying a premium for products that had less features. While they might not be willing to shell out extra bucks to get less yet, a new study from Jitterbug, the manufactures of the simple cell phone, shows that they definitely believe less is more.
In fact, 32% of cell phone users say their current cell phone service has more features than they know what to do with. And 73% of respondents prefer to pay only for what they believe they will actually use, compared to only 27% who want all the bells and whistles.( Jitterbug National Survey, May 2008)
My only question is why is this being sold as the “Senior cell phone”? I can tell you while I love my blackberry, there are days where I would be happy to go feature free.
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SMART SITE: Kaboodle.com
Why I’m loving Kaboodle… You know when someone asks you what you want for your birthday and you can’t think of anything (even though you usually have a million things you want)? Kaboodle.com to the rescue. This site lets you digitally bookmark all of the things on your wish list - it’s like having a registry. You can categorize your wish lists (my birthday, Christmas, for the kids) and send links to your family and friends so they don’t buy you yet another candle. There is also inspiration from other shoppers who share their wish lists publicly. Beware it is addictive. In the course of writing this entry I’ve added 15 things to my birthday list (hint: June 16)
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Pimp My Volvo
While riding on the Transbridge bus across Jersey to Pennsylvania for the Memorial Day weekend, I passed a bizarre sight. A woman was driving a fuchsia-colored Volvo (don’t think it comes standard) and every inch of the hood was encrusted with a fantasy in lavender. Barbies, ponies, stars, sparkles, magic wands…fender to fender fabulous. The seats were recovered in a black and white animal print fabric. And a woman with flaming red hair, the artist, drove it, pretty much at the speed limit. On my side of the bus, peering out of the window were just women, all varying ages. And we stared and smiled and wondered who she was and how she did it. But not why. We didn’t have to ask. We just smiled and nodded, falling back into our private memories, of our own pink Barbie convertibles or My Little Pony or just a Schwinn with streamers on the handles and playing cards on the spokes.
Later, the bus passed the fuchsia fantasy car in a different lane, I watched two men seated opposite us look out and register…absolutely nothing. Not a smile or even an eye roll. That moment reminded me of every reason we love to interview women. Their willingness to reveal personal truths and connect with powerful memories lies just below the surface. It doesn’t take a lot to get us to let the little girl out. And the dreams that are still part of her.
Reality TV shows lure guys into tricking out trucks and cars on Pimp My Ride and Monster Garage, as a way to be cool or just plain crazy. But my memory of the marvelous Volvo reminded me of what’s really under the hood. When it’s hers.
Categories: Generations, Shopping and Service | No Comments »