The Real Reason Guys Don’t Want to Carry Reusable Bags

If you take your own reusable bag to the store, most likely you're a woman.  Guys prefer the single-use plastic bags, apparently, for one strange reason.  

Guys think reusable bags make them look feminine.

Have you ever thought about that before?  Me neither!  Maybe it's because I'm a woman and reusable bags easily become one with my arm and don't feel weird at all.  To guys, they must feel kinda like a purse.

Penn State University researchers found that people tend to view the act of carrying groceries in a tote bag as un-manly, according to a study published in the journal Sex Roles.

Researchers asked 960 men and women to rank environmentally-friendly activities like line-drying clothes, recycling, and tote-bag-carrying as masculine or feminine and found people "generally rated earth-saving errands as feminine, and were more likely to question a guy’s sexual orientation when he performed such tasks."

Plastic bags get caught in tall grass and they end up in rivers, lakes, streams, and they're causing big issues for animals that encounter them.  If animals swallow plastic bags they can suffocate.  And issues have been raised about ways that plastic bags contribute to global warming, so the push to reduce the use continues.

Last year, the Texas Supreme Court struck down plastic bag bans at the city level, and places like Laredo and Austin had to drop the ones they already had in place.  Some Texas stores still encourage everyone to bring reusable bags, but they can't enforce using them.

What would work for ya, guys, maybe a reusable grocery bag that looks like a backpack or a tool belt?  That seems like a practical approach, not to mention it might be a conversation-starter at the store.  Some of my guy friends are comfortable carrying a man purse or "murse," but others aren't so much.  A tote with your favorite team's logo on it might be cool, or one with a flame design shooting up and down the sides.  Maybe it's just a matter of finding the right fit.

Feminine or not, we should all keep a stack of reusables in the car.  Besides, saving the environment is kinda sexy too.