On the other hand, shopping can be a pleasurable leisure activity, even for those who mainly experience it as a tedious chore. (In one recent survey, 72 percent of us said we had 'been shopping for pleasure' in the past month.) In my informal fieldwork interviews with shoppers, most of the people I spoke to made a distinction between 'routine' shopping and 'fun' shopping, provisioning and pleasure, work and play. In fact, if I introduced the topic without qualification, I would often be asked to specify which type of shopping I meant (one woman asked 'Do you mean the baked-beans-and-nappies sort of shopping or the girly-day-out sort?'). On other occasions, it would be clear from people's answers that they assumed I was talking specifically about either one type or the other. This often depended on the location in which the interview took place: people in supermarkets were more likely to assume that I was talking about 'routine' shopping, while the same sort of people interviewed in clothes shops, antiques shops and garden centres tended to think I meant 'fun' shopping. Age was also a factor: teenagers, students and some twenty-somethings mainly tended to assume that 'shopping' referred to the play/leisure/fun variety, while older people were much more likely to focus on the chore/provisioning/routine aspects.
Sex and Shopping Rules
There were also significant sex differences: men were less likely than women to distinguish between different types of shopping, and much less inclined to admit to enjoying any sort of shopping, even the 'fun' type. Among older English males, in particular, there seems to be an unwritten rule prohibiting any enjoyment of shopping, or at least prohibiting the disclosure or acknowledgement of such enjoyment. Taking pleasure in shopping is regarded as effeminate. The correct masculine line is to define any shopping one does, including the purchase of luxuries and inessentials, as something that has to be done, a means to an end, never a pleasure in itself. The majority of women, by contrast, will readily admit to enjoying 'fun' shopping, and some even say that they quite like the 'provisioning' sort of shopping, or at least take some pride and pleasure in doing it well. There are males and females who do not conform to these rules, but they are seen as deviating from the norm, and they recognize that they are unusual.
The rules regarding attitudes towards shopping are also reflected in the manner in which males and females are expected to shop. I call them the 'hunter/gatherer rules': men, if they can be persuaded to shop at all, are supposed to shop like hunters; women are supposed to shop like gatherers. Male shopping (or more accurately, masculine shopping) is teleologicaclass="underline" you select your prey, and then single-mindedly and purposefully hunt it down. Female (feminine) shopping is more flexible, more opportunistic: you browse, you see what's available; you know roughly what you're looking for, but you might spot something better, or a bargain, and change your mind.
A significant number of English males, however, choose to prove their masculinity by emphasizing how hopelessly bad they are at shopping. Shopping is seen as a female skill; being too good at it, even in the approved hunter-like manner, might cast doubt upon your macho credentials, or even raise questions about your sexual orientation. Among anxious heterosexuals, it is tacitly understood that only gay men - and a few ultra-politically-correct, New Man, feminist types - take pride in their shopping skills. The done thing for 'real men' is to avoid shopping, to profess to hate shopping, and to be completely useless at it.
This can be partly just a matter of laziness, the employment of a practice the Americans call 'klutzing out' - deliberately making such a poor job of a domestic chore that one is unlikely to be asked to do it again. But among English men, uselessness at shopping is also a significant source of pride. Their female partners often play along with this, helping them to display their manliness by performing elaborate pantomimes of mock-exasperation at their inability to find their way around the supermarket, teasing them constantly and telling stories about their latest doofus mistakes. 'Oh he's hopeless, hasn't got a clue, have you, love?' said a woman I interviewed in a supermarket coffee shop, smiling fondly at her husband, who pulled a mock-sheepish face. 'I sent him out to get tomatoes and he comes back with a bottle of ketchup and he says "well it's made of tomatoes isn't it?" So I go "yes, but it's not much bloody use in a salad!" Men! Typical!' The man positively glowed with pride, laughing delightedly at this confirmation of his virility.
The 'Shopping as Saving' Rule
For many English females, who still do most of the 'routine', 'provisioning' type of shopping, shopping is a skill, and it is customary, even among the relatively well-off, to take some pride in doing it well, which is understood to mean with a concern for thrift. Not necessarily getting everything as cheaply as possible, but getting value for money, not being extravagant or wasteful. There is a tacit understanding among English shoppers to the effect that shopping is not an act of spending, but an act of saving54. You do not speak of having 'spent' x amount on an item of food or clothing, but of having 'saved' x amount on the item. You would certainly never boast about having spent an excessive sum of money on something, but you are allowed to take pride in finding a bargain.
This rule applies across all social classes: the upper echelons would regard boasting about extravagant expenditure as vulgar, while the lower classes would regard it as 'stuck up'. Only brash, crass Americans display their wealth by boasting about how much something cost them. Congratulating yourself on a bargain or saving, however - boasting about how little something cost you - is universally acceptable among English shoppers of all classes. It is one of the very few exceptions to the money-talk taboo. What constitutes a bargain, what counts as cheap or good value, may well differ according to class and income level, but the principle is the same: whatever price you paid, you should if possible claim that it somehow constituted a saving.
The Apology and Moan Options
When it is not possible to make saving claims - when you have indisputably paid full price for something undeniably expensive - you should ideally just keep quiet about it. Failing that, you have two options, both very English: either apologize or moan. You can apologize for your embarrassing extravagance ('Oh dear, I know I shouldn't have, it was terribly expensive, just couldn't resist it, very naughty of me...') or you can moan and grumble about the extortionate cost of things ('Ridiculously expensive, don't know how they get away with charging that much, stupid prices, rip-off...')
Both of these options are sometimes used as indirect boasts, ways of subtly indicating one's spending power without indulging in anything so vulgar as an overt display of wealth. And both can also be a form of 'polite egalitarianism': even very rich people will often pretend to be either apologetically embarrassed or grumpy and indignant about the cost of expensive things they have bought, when in fact they can easily afford them, in order to avoid drawing attention to any disparity in income. Shopping, like every other aspect of English life, is full of courteous little hypocrisies.
The 'Bling-bling' Exception
There is one significant exception to the 'shopping as saving' principle, and its associated apologizing and moaning. Young people influenced by the black American hip-hop/'gangsta'/rap culture - currently a significant youth sub-culture in this country - have adopted a style that requires deliberate ostentatious displays of wealth. This involves wearing expensive designer clothes and flashy gold jewellery (a look known as 'bling-bling'), drinking expensive champagne (Cristal) and cognac, driving expensive cars - and certainly not being the slightest bit embarrassed about all this extravagance; in fact taking great pride in it.