Are women shoppers unfairly stereotyped?
Posted
Sep 08 2008, 01:41 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Jason at Frugal Dad asks us to test our perceptions by closing our eyes and imagining this scene: "The shopper, loaded down with bags from a morning of scouting out sales, walked briskly toward the mall's exit."
In your mental image, was a woman holding those bags? You're busted.
"Right, it was a woman," Jason says. "That's because most stereotypical views of shoppers and shopaholics assume women are the major offenders." And that's flat-out wrong.
Jason used to criticize his wife for excessive spending on her scrapbooking hobby, until he mentally calculated what his new laptop, pager and truck had cost. Even though she spent more time going to stores, her total purchases -- compared with his -- were a pittance.
"The average man has many jokes in his arsenal about how much his wife likes to shop, but if they really stopped to analyze spending they would probably discover they spend just as much (and in most cases, much more) on big-ticket items," Jason writes in a post called "It's no secret -- women shoppers get a bad rap."
Not only is this unfair, but it may be a source of unnecessary frustration in your relationship. Try removing the stereotype and looking at it this way, Frugal Dad reader BTG suggests. Is one person in your home a "little purchases, big volume" spender and the other a "large purchases, low volume" shopper?
Another reader, Jeremy, proposes a three-step approach to discussing spending:
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Be brutally honest about your financial situation.
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Make full disclosure. Each person should itemize expenditures.
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Don't assign blame. "When we are short of money, it's because we both have pulled our wallets out when we should have reconsidered," Jeremy writes.
