The XX Factor: What women really think.

Are You Moving Because of the Recession?

If yes, I want to hear from you. Questions from the latest installment of my recession series:

Have you uprooted yourself or your family because of the recession—downsized to a smaller place, moved in with your folks, gone to a different city? I'm interested in stories about the recession and the American habit of picking up and going someplace new when the going gets tough. Send them to me at doublex.slate@gmail.com. E-mail may be quoted in Slate unless the writer stipulates otherwise. If you want to be quoted anonymously, please let me know.

Rx Retail Continued

Meghan, that British study doesn’t surprise me much, either. Any woman who’s ever purchased a Lancôme mascara knows that rationality has very little to do with the ways in which we consume. But I did just have my own strange shopping-based epiphany that I wanted to share: I’ve been home with two sick kids for more than a week now, and it was one of those whomping-awful, sleepless, beg-them-to-drink, feverish weeks in which time stretched out in crazy new ways, and I periodically fell asleep with kid-sick in my hair.

We visited the doctor three times. But we were at Target four times.

Target!! Who knew that when your kids get that sick, Target somehow becomes the only answer? Anybody’s guess why our near-daily treks to seek out better-flavored Tylenol, a more accurate thermometer, or more illuminating Clone Wars coloring books became so cathartic. Maybe it was a cozy place to kill an hour when you couldn’t be in the house for one more second? Or maybe there is something about the immaculate stacks of well-designed kitchen organizers that is soothing when your kitchen looks like you have been robbed? All I know was that every last aisle of the place seemed to feature a woman with mussed hair and gray circles under her eyes, pushing along a cart full of two wheezing toddlers and dozens of items that nobody needed in the first place.

Are Shopping Sprees Related to Hormones?

Markets Low, Sugar High?

Speaking of the silly, I think the fact that this story from today—about the popularity of candy shops during a recession—is the most e-mailed article at the New York Times Web site says more about public appetites for absurdist, sometimes funny, mostly groan-inducing trend stories during a recession than it does about candy’s allure in times of trouble. I, recessionista, myself bought some sweets recently—but not because pink Peeps make me remember the days when the Dow topped 11,000, but because it’s almost Easter, and man is that stuff on sale. (Also, just as a nod to an actual policy discussion: Corn syrup, subsidized, even/especially in a recession, is still cheap.) Back to the media criticism: Perhaps consumers are trying to escape by eating more junk food—but they're certainly reading more of the equivalent, too.

ABC Tries To Stay Recession Relevant

Emily, since I know you've been covering how marriages have been affected by the recession, I thought you would be interested in this little development: ABC has commissioned a sitcom about a Wall Street exec turned unwilling stay-at-home dad. According to Ad Age, the show stars Kelsey Grammer as a "Wall Street millionaire unhorsed by the collapsing economy and forced into a 'Mr. Mom'-like role at home with the family he hardly ever saw."

ABC is also developing a second show about beleaguered bankers, called Canned, which is about a group of twentysomething investment bank casualties. And Dana, you'll be glad to know that luxury coffee brands are already an object of loathing for the Canned kids. Says Ad Age:

Two brands singled out for particular scorn in the pilot episode are Starbucks and its Clover, the ultra-high-end stainless-steel coffee machine Seattle start-up Coffee Equipment Co. was selling for more than $8,000 per unit to well-heeled coffee aficionados before Starbucks acquired the brand for its stores last March.

If ABC thinks they're providing cutting-edge entertainment by lampooning Starbucks, they're probably facing a creative recession as well as a fiscal one.

Americans: Probably Still Fat

Businessweek's Michael Mandel has some interesting BEA numbers on how consumption patterns changed between January 2008 and January 2009. Spending on medical care, education, recreation, and housing are all up. Spending on "user-operated transportation," clothing, alcohol and tobacco are all down over last year.  Spending on food is down by 55.7 billion dollars, and Mandel wonders whether "the incessant public drumbeating about 'fat Americans' and obesity is helping propel the decline in food consumption."

It's hard to know how seriously to take a drop of that size in the absence of information about total food expenditure, but even if it's hugely significant I'm not ready to declare a win for the Meme Roth contingent. It's not as if the demographic that spends the highest dollar amount on food is also the demographic with the highest caloric intake or highest rate of obesity. Fritos are calorically dense but not particularly budget-busting; they are considerably more affordable than the organic grass-fed beef for sale at my local co-op. On the other hand, if people are eating at home rather than eating out, they might actually be trading bacon burgers for canned soup. But that seems recession-driven, not public-shaming-campaign driven.

There is ongoing debate about whether recessions might actually push people into more healthy habits (more time on the treadmill, less time sucking on pricey cigarettes). I tend to assume that these kinds of behavioral changes will be swamped by the health effects of financial stress, but smart people with actual data might disagree.

Bogus Recession Trend Watch: "Curvy" Is In!

There's a probably-BS trend story on the ABC News Web site about how Kate Moss' recent weight gain is potentially heralding a trend in the modeling industry of "healthier looking models." Though Moss is undeniably a trendsetter, I find it hard to believe that her newly higher BMI is going to affect the entire industry. Moss denied that she was pregnant in the recent spring fashion issue of New York Magazine, and yet tabloids are still insisting that Kate is up the stick, because these magazines still cling to the idea that a woman couldn't possibly gain a few pounds by choice unless she is incubating a human.

It reminds me of another dubious trend story that made the Internet rounds last fall. Econometricians went through the Playboy archives and claimed that during times of economic crisis, men like their women taller and heavier because of the Playmates chosen. At least every other month, women's magazines insist that the "super skinny" trend is out and that women with "curves" are back in, and yet models and actresses have shrunk considerably in the past 15 years and don't show any sign of thickening. (See the entire female cast of Friends, circa 1994 for solid evidence.) As Willa pointed out yesterday in her apt analysis of the enduring popularity of crap TV, trend writers will be trying to pin America's preferences in basically every area on the new recession. The rise of the "curvy" model is no exception. It's always been my hunch—and this is not an original thesis—that the very very skinny trend came in just as women were really making strides in the workplace, and the obsession with weight is just a way to continue to keep them down. Sure you can be a CEO, but can you do it on 1,200 calories a day?