This thread is freaking hilarious.
Anyways, I think there are three different schools of thought here:
1) Who cares? I'm just holding something for her, helping her out, being a gentleman, while she quickly takes care of what she needs to do.
2) Fvck that noise, I'm not holding her purse, next thing you know she'll tell me that as long as I'm holding it, I might as well go ahead and stick my balls in there, right next to her tampons.
3) Yeah she's asking me to hold her purse, so now I have an opportunity to make a joke out of it, make her laugh, turn what could be a perceived emasculating moment into something funny, or even charming.
For you guys in the 1) category, you have to understand it's all situational, MEANING: It could be a spur of the moment thing, where she just really needs both her hands and arms free, the ground is nasty as $hit, and you're not in an area full of people as to where gawkers could point and laugh. However, this is a rare occasion. If a woman ever asks you to hold her purse in a public area, she his showing you disrespect. Either that or it is a test, and she may not even realize what she is doing. It is in her ingrained DNA to test you, this is true. Are you a MAN, or are you her b1tchBOY? This is not just something you are holding for her, for God's sake it's her purse, her tampon, makeup, and all things girly, carrier. The purse is a symbolic thing. Women know it, and guys should know it. If she respects you then she should put the purse down or find a table, or just do whatever the fvck she needs to do when her hands are free. She wants a MAN. There's a fine line between being a gentleMAN and being her b1tch BOY.
2) To each his own. That's not really me to OVERTLY say something like this. I would, if perhaps, she'd been annoying the $hit out of me all day and I just didn't have the mental energy at the time to deal with this as I normally would. Either that, or I'd just ignore her and pretend I didn't even hear her request, just turn my back and realize I was suddenly interested in what's behind that window in that store over there.
3) This is more me. The C&F responses in this thread were top notch. In a serious tone: "I can't hold your purse, it doesn't match my shoes." Either that or hold it but pretend like you're being forced to hold a dead skunk you found on the side of the road, or that you have some rare form of a purse phobia. Turn it into a little shtick: "Oh my God, I can't believe what I'm doing! Oh my God!" Then start moaning, all while you're hold the purse between two fingers, with your arm extended as far away from you as possible. Get her laughing, shaking her head, rolling her eyes. Then finally she'll just say "give me that!" and she'll stick it on the ground and finish her business. Lesson learned. The other ideas on this "method" were pretty good too. Just embarrass the $hit out of her: don't give it back, instead pretend that you like wearing her purse. Overdo it, run up to a mirror or a reflective window and start posing with it, checking how you look with it at different angles. Show her you really don't give a fvck.
I think the key here is to recognize the situation for what it is. It CAN be a no big deal thing, but those are rare occasions. And, like a few of you are saying, if this is a new girl, there is a very good chance that this would be a $hit test. More than likely she arranged an outcome where she would have an opportunity to ask you to hold her purse. She needs to figure out what kind of guy you are, what you'll put up with, what category she's going to put you in.
Act accordingly.