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It has become clear that women do not particularly like to be told what we do or do not admire in their physical aspect. We have always understood this, and it is for this reason that we do not give instruction or even advice in this domain. We merely give personal opinion. Or rather, something even less rational than personal opinion: personal response, something emotional and sexual. Call it bodily opinion. Call it the fluctuations of desire. And desire is notoriously resistant to political will. We cannot give ourselves more "progressive" desires for all the reading and prayer and fasting in the world.

In other words, these reflections are not to serve as exhortations, but merely for your curiosity. We know that you do not dress for men anyway.

So it is with pleasure that we can inform you that there are several areas of feminine sartorial custom that men, on the whole, do not look at. We do not even notice several sorts of accoutrements that women adore and agonize over. We tell you this as a kind of antidote to the sense of constant judgment that we have no doubt created.

Let's begin with bags. Women love bags. They notice differences between them. They talk about trends in bags: There is a bag of the season, a must-have bag. We do not understand this attraction. We tend to like bags that are unobtrusive, not expressive.

Women, on the other hand, may put us to a difficult test. They may hold up two of these bags to an accompanying male: One may be, say, green leather with gold buckles, and the other may be black with silver buckles. They will ask, "Which one do you like?" This is a puzzling question. They are usually both fine. They are bags. We don't understand by what criteria one bag might be superior to another. And, more importantly, we don't judge you by your bags. Ditto, we are afraid, for earrings. We will always, when asked, say, "Very nice." But if you are not wearing any, we probably will not notice.

Jewellery on the whole, in fact, is something that tends to escape our radar. The only jewellery we reliably notice is that which hangs around the neck, because, of course, we are looking at your chest. Jewellery can actually have an obscuring rather than an enhancing effect, particularly if it is of the artsy variety. By artsy we mean anything heavy and clunky or made of clay or wood, anything that refers to the 1970s -- and, sadly, we understand that these retro styles are back in fashion this year. We will not notice these things, but then neither will we notice you, if you are wearing them.

But now we are being judgmental again, contrary to our intent. We are only trying to be helpful.