The temperature was 40 degrees, cold enough for normal people to bundle up in a coat and a few sweaters. But on a recent Saturday night, as on most Saturday nights during the winter, throngs of women traipsed from Hoboken bar to Hoboken bar coatless, shivering and bent over, their arms crossed in front of them. Well, we did say normal people would wear a coat. What is the reason so many women wear flimsy clothes and no coats when bar-hopping in the winter? Are they afraid men won’t be as attracted to them if they’re wearing layers? There is, after all, a lot of competition in those bars. It’s hard to be sexy in a parka. Women interviewed that night emphatically denied their apparel was part of any sort of mating ritual. “We were just talking about that!” gushed a 22-year-old North Arlington resident who was sashaying down the avenue with two friends. “We don’t want to carry [coats]. There’s nowhere in a bar to put your coat. After you get to your first bar, you have a couple drinks, you go outside and you’re fine.” “We didn’t want to carry them,” agreed a 21-year-old who also was walking with two frozen friends. She would only say that they were from “North Jersey.” All of the women questioned denied the practice had anything to do with men. It is true that there were some men outside without coats, but in the hour we were out there, not one of them was spotted bent over with his arms crossed, shivering. Maybe because men’s bodies are more insulated. But that gives them license to wear less layers. Women don’t have an excuse – and their mothers would not appreciate their dressing lightly in such low temps. But it’s true that it is hard to bar-hop carrying a coat. So maybe the women do have practical reasons. But why were some wearing very short skirts in such weather? They gotta admit that that’s for men. A guy moseying down Washington Street with his friend was surprised, too. “There’s a girl over there in a skirt,” he said with some incredulity, when apprised of the topic of this article. But he and his friend said they did believe that women went coatless because it’s annoying to lug coats around. “It’s so that they don’t have to hold them,” said the friend. “I’m ready to put mine [away].” The first man had another idea. “It’s so that they can get in the door quicker,” he said. “The guy sees them freezing, so he lets them in.” What? Women using a sympathy ploy to get what they want? We don’t believe it.
Our Digital Archive from 2000 – 2016
