Women more likely to conserve, survey says

The folks at Better Homes and Garden Real Estate say a survey of homeowners shows that women are more likely than men to cut household waste and consumption. Seventy-two percent of women said they changed their light bulbs to compact fluorescents, 59% cut water use and 75% recycled.

Among male respondents, 65% switched to energy-saving light bulbs, 53% cut water use and 70% recycled.

Go ahead and call me a sexist, but I wonder how much of the difference is due to male householders not doing their fair share of dishwashing, light bulb changing and taking out the trash. Just asking, fellas.

-- Peter Hong

   

Comments

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Fewer women than men work and so their share of GDP has always been under-counted.

The contention is that a housewife's work should be counted and rightly so.

Conversely, fewer men stay home and their contribution to household conservation is also under-counted to the extent that by working and making enough money, some men allow their wives to stay home.

[Larry Summers]

Women are better at conserving some things. Conserving money is not one of them.

[Nelcisco]

I'm the one at home constantly telling my wife & 7 yr old boy
"TURN OFF THE DAMN LIGHTS".Where was the survey Peter in Seattle were the men are feminized?

[Crash and Burn]

OK, at the risk of being called sexist, and I'm going to take that one to take it off the table, but buying new light bulbs is consuming, which some have claimed, the fairer sex dominates and the article certainly didn't say how much each sex "consumed" on a Target shopping spree. I demand a recount!

Full disclosure: I am male, personally changed all of the light bulbs in my apartment to CFLs, recycle (but am loath to take the recycling out and much prefer my wife to do it, and could care less about how much water I use since I pay the same price in rent regardless of how much I use (except hot water, that's like gold). Never understood the water thing. Out here in the West, less water available would mean we would finally have to cut population growth, which would be less consumption and water is a renewable resource (although the energy to purify, store, and pump it aren’t). Save water so me can build more subdivisions, hurrah! We need to modify are energy production, not our water usage.