by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Why is Quebec so seductive, mysterious and fickle? It's because Quebec is a chick.

Proof: a Leger and Leger survey from a few years back had Quebecers choose their favourite words. The most popular words reflected feminine values: "harmony," "human relations," "tenderness," "culture" and "spirituality" were the overall winners. Men under 35 chose words that ranked low overall: "risk," "danger," "speed."

Plus there's the money factor. Women have it. The number that keeps getting repeated - a statistic apparently so authoritative that nobody even knows where it comes from - asserts that women in North America control 85 per cent of household spending. Mathematically, this means that a man with a job making $35 grand, after divvying up half to the taxman, then to his woman, is left with $2,600 a year - that's some 200 bucks a month to live on. Welfare recipients make more. Stores shouldn't even be letting us men in.

But back in Old Europe men were phenomenal shoppers. When their women sent them to fetch spices and beaver coats, men came here from across the world in leaky boats and killed Indians just to fill out the shopping list.

Nowadays women keep stores going, even electronics stores where they buy over half the junk. Yet a new study shows that women are routinely ignored by gizmo store clerks. I asked a clerk in Nerds'r'Us what he'd do if a woman wanted to buy, say, a remote control. He replied: "Men should really be shopping for that particular item."

He makes a good point. Women aren't great with remotes. They don't even change channels for commercials, maybe because they're studying products they might be buying with their 85 per cent. But I can assure you that TV commercials should not be watched except those featuring drunk housewives like the Devo-inspired "Swiff-It mop" and the hammered Aunt Lorelei dancing at Disneyland.

Retailers generally know that women have cash, which is why they charge them double for haircuts and shoes. This policy should also be extended to music stores because women need a disincentive to buying Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow and Bryan Adams CDs, which really stink up radio.

Women are also less likely than men to read this column because statistically they read for pleasure, whereas men read to acquire knowledge. Women rely on school for their education, something that men are increasingly giving up on. A cool trick: walk past the graduating class photos in the hallways at McGill law school - the grads slowly morph genders - all men 40 years ago to all women today.

Anyway, degrees are overrated. They lead to jobs, but newspapers are where you'll find a true education. Unfortunately you'll never get a job by writing "I read newspapers a lot" on the "Education" section of your résumé.

Another problem is that women professionals seek to marry male professionals. They do this - according to yet another study - because women consider men more attractive when told the man has a good job (men didn't care either way about the woman's job). But there won't be any rich hunks left. That's okay, because lawyers marrying lawyers is not only anti-wealth distribution - it's just icky. Professional class-incest should be taboo.

Women used to court powerful men to gain their status, but the new trend is to do this by spurning them. Famous guys might get groupies but they also get shot down famously.

For example, an Ottawatian I once met told me before our handshake was complete about how she had once turned down hockey legend Steve Yzerman's marriage proposal. A single Haitian mama I know casually bragged about how she refused Pedro Martinez's request for her phone number and I've heard chicks do oneupwomanship duels over their biggest celebrity slam - a game that involved such local notables as Brian Hayward, Brian Barnes, Roy Dupuis, Jean Leloup, as well as a particularly messy tale about Robbie Alomar in the room he lived in at SkyDome.

So anyway, Quebec is an alluring but hard-to-understand temptress, with a couple of flaws, but she nonetheless deserves a big Valentine's Day smooch.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca