What's up with this new trend, the MURSE?

1. 61

   tobey100posted 12 years ago

   
   Granted, I'm from the deep South.  Granted, I might just be a redneck. (OK, I am a redneck if you live north of Kentucky).  I live in the COUNTRY.  Not the suburbs.  Not in a 'village'. Not in 'Windsor Country Estates'.  The for real country.
   
   I gotta tell ya, we can tell the men from the women here.  If you're a man and you carry anything more than a wallet, car keys and maybe, just maybe, a cell phone, you're a woman.  Women carry a purse.  Just because a man happens to be the one carrying it doesn't make it anything other than what it is.  A man carrying a shoulder bag is carrying a purse.  Call it a MURSE if you want.

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      OutWestposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Maybe they should try the European carry-all.

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      dingdong1709posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wearing makeup and carrying bags was done by Men before women did. In fact they took the idea from us. But all that aside the only men who have a problem with it are not very secure in there own man hood. Oh ya if your wallet has a zipper or a flap ..... it's a purse. So go ahead call me a sissy I'll hit you with my purse and lady's don't try to deny it, a purse is a lethal weapon.  P.S. Really now the truth is we're just a bunch of lazy Slob's who just want the lady's to carry all our shat.

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2. 76

   shoganposted 12 years ago

   Where is this a new trend, tobey?

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3. 59

   Evan G Rogersposted 12 years ago

   I'm all for doing whatever you want to do, but that "murse", as you call it, doesn't look very useful.

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4. 85

   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   It's a bag.  Some men carry documents, they need a bag.
   
   You would have to be pretty insecure to feel that carrying a bag undermined your masculinity.

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      SomewayOuttaHereposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      right on.....i don't know what the big deal is...looks better than those stupid knapsacks or belly bags....

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5. 61

   KK Trainorposted 12 years ago

   My husband has been making fun of murses for a few years now. He once teased a cop friend of his about his murse and they guy told him it was a "european shoulder bag" - whatever, it looks like a purse. What is happening to men? The only time my husband will carry anything like this is when we go to Disney World and I take sunblock, kleenex, camera, etc. He will carry the little bag some of the time, only because everyone there has a lot of stuff for their day. Otherwise I don't want to see that thing around his neck. He's a man! It's not about insecurity, it's about silliness. It's silly looking and makes men look feminine. Yuck.
   
   I guess I'm a 'redneck' too since I live in the south - that's what most yankees call us anyway. But at least southern men (rednecks?) don't want to look like women.

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6. 71

   R.S. Hutchinsonposted 12 years ago

   Now a days they are used to carry IPads.

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      EmpressFelicityposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, and even if a man doesn't have an iPad, chances are these days he's got to carry more around with him than a house key and a couple of rolled up ten pound notes.
      
      Come on, it's not as if the bag in the OP's pic even looks all that girly anyway.  I see loads of men around my way wearing messenger bags like the one in the picture and their masculinity doesn't seem in any way impaired.

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7. 61

   tobey100posted 12 years ago

   Every comment is valid.  My point.....no matter how useful, no matter the level of 'insecurity', it still looks looks like a purse and in todays society, looks are everything.  How else does Paris Hilton or Obama survive?

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8. 87

   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   this is  a veiled homophobe reaction to men that wear feminine apparel. men who have purses or shoulder bags are not considered to be "real men'.
   by many who are too "manly".
   the southern red neck is just as bad as the northern redneck(couldn't find n equivalent term)

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      KK Trainorposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Oh yes, metrosexuals are far superior to the redneck.
      
      Well I for one am thankful my husband looks and acts like a man. You can have those stringy haired, skinny men wearing pink shirts and murses.

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9. 60

   Disturbiaposted 12 years ago

   LOL, I find the redneck talk kind of funny since I have lived down South (both my daughters were born in Texas and my youngest is actually named Lone Star) and out  West, and up North.  If you think only the South has rednecks, you need to get out more. Thinking a "man bag" looks silly or not, really doesn't have anything to with being a "redneck" or gay, or anything else other than one's own personal taste.  Wasn't there once a time when it shocked the general public for a woman to go out wearing trousers?  If girls can wear pants, why can't guys carry bags?

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10. 85

    psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

    I guess we have turned the corner.  Gender used to mainly limit the options of women.  Now it seems that masculinity is a far more restrictive identity.

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       Disturbiaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's an excellent point.

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       Aficionadaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I think my age is showing, because I can remember several times in my life hearing the opposite - outside of what people are actually paid for their work, of course.
       
       I think that the (anecdotal) discussions I have heard about restrictions tended to focus on what people wear (skirts or pants for women; almost exclusively pants for men), personal names (women can usually go by a previously male-only name more easily than men can go by a previously female-only name), and the social acceptability of professions (think of what it was like when men started working as nurses and flight attendants).
       
       It wouldn't surprise me if actual research data showed that psycheskinner is correct.  I'm just saying that the reverse has been discussed vehemently at various times since the sixties.

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11. 79

    Uninvited Writerposted 12 years ago

    These days many men carry shoulder bags to hold their laptops in. Men's shoulder bags have been around for decades.

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