Shopping - Chick vs Guy

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Post originally by Andrew Martin at 2002-01-02 19:37:10
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I've read somewhere that shopping is like hunting and gathering. Guys/Hunters do the hunting (going out to get the one item and then going home), and Chicks/Gatherer do the gathering (wandering around looking for a bargain or something nice).

Just another point of view.

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Post originally by Ashtal at 2002-01-03 04:50:36
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I'm definitely a hunter-type. Get an idea of what I want well before I go shopping for it, have a short list of places to price it out, and then buy. Boom. I rarely spend more than 10 minutes in a store once I'm there. Sniper Shopping. :D

I hate mallratting...gah...so...boring...and a game ABOUT shopping...bleh...eyes...bleeding...can't...breath...it's just such a time waster, you know?

'Course, this goes straight out the window if I'm in a Computer, Office Supply or Comic/Game store. But that's hobby shopping - and with that kind of shopping I see absolutely no difference between how I shop for it and how my BF shops for it. :D


Ashtal

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Post originally by David Mandrake at 2002-01-03 06:28:12
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Once again, hurray for gamer chicks!

DM

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Post originally by Sandy Antunes at 2002-01-03 08:22:55
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Hi,

See! Everyone shops as a gatherer, it's just we have different zones where we care. People who try to put everything into a gender-based dualistic framework (e.g. male "hunter" versus female "gatherer") end up obfuscating more than they illuminate.

(Especially as the range of variation in behavior, physical aspect, etc, within, say, women, is larger than the seperation between the 'average' woman and the 'average' male. Which means the so-called gender 'norms' are aren't as useful as one might first thing. But people like to take them and reverse them, say "women _are_ X" and don't realize that, in the process, they alienate more than they describe.)

Cheers,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net

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Post originally by Ashtal at 2002-01-03 10:56:33
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I totally agree with ya, Sandy. :)


Ashtal

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Post originally by Keith Vaughn at 2002-01-03 11:32:30
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In the battle of the sexes there was a comedian who did a routine called the above. He did it in a way to show some of the differences between the sexes could be due to genetic programming instead of social programming.

I believe you can find this in a search under the topic "Caveman."

With shopping a character/player is trying to outguess his referee and prepare accordingly. It is a form of chess match.

One final comment, in my home brewed game: Embers of Empire" I don't make the characters have plusses or penalities for their sex. Although there is a statistical difference between men and women, the characters are individules. To further this arguement, remember adventurers are usually the freaks and outcasts of their societies and don't fit it with the "average."

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Post originally by Guy McLimore at 2002-01-03 13:44:16
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As was pointed out, shopping for things you think are FUN is always "gathering" shopping. Different people just think different things are fun.

My wife Barbara thinks clothes are fun, therefore clothes shopping is, for her, a joy. I wear clothes for utility (and modesty) and could care less about fashion, so I usually am a reluctant clothes shopper.

On the other hand, turn me loose in a new (to me) game/hobby shop or video store and I'm likely to wander around for an hour or more, just seeing what they have that is new and different. Barbara would be bored to tears after 10 minutes -- she games and watches DVDs, but isn't devoted to either pursuit the way I am.

But we BOTH shop the same way in bookstores and office supply places, though we don't necessarily look at exactly the same individual wares. We can wander around forever, comparing this to that and contemplating the possibilities.

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Post originally by Pen at 2002-03-03 21:40:50
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What most people forget about that kind of gender based stuff is that once upon a time it actually worked. When the survival of the people who could bear children actually mattered it was important that women did easier on the body, stay at home stuff. Then whoever isn't having babies can go out on week long hunting expeditions.

Nowdays however we don't really go far from home to work/shop, we don't do anything very dangerous or strenuous, and weomen don't actually HAVE to have babies. Ao the whole thing falls apart.

I know that I actually enjoy shopping less than my BF. I don't have these "wonderful social skills" that women are supposed to have. I don't feel the need to share my emotions with people. In fact I can't think of any female sterotype that I actually fit. And I think that that is becuase we don't need to fit those stereotypes anymore. We can do pretty much what we like without endangering the survival of the species.

P.

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Post originally by contracycle at 2002-03-07 16:22:57
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> What most people forget about that kind of gender based stuff is
> that once upon a time it actually worked. When the survival of the > people who could bear children actually mattered it was important
> that women did easier on the body, stay at home stuff. Then whoever > isn't having babies can go out on week long hunting expeditions.

Except this is only partially true, as it happens. It is true that a certain degree of inside/outside dichotomy exists, but it is not true that it is based on the toughness or effort required by the labour. Even today, 2/3 of manual labour is done by women, much of it heavy, according to the UN. A notably common example is water-carrying, water of course massing a kilo per litre. Hunting may be risky, but it is comparatively light labour. Female skeletons recovered from archeological sites exhibit a significantly higher frequency of har labour-induced symptoms, for example a recent female skeleton recovered from the channel islands with the lower vertebrae fused, probably from carrying water or rocks for her entire life from early adolescence onward.

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Post originally by gwen at 2002-08-02 05:39:35
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I can't spend more than 15 minutes in most stores without feeling a sense of suffocation, so I tend to do the "go in, get one item" thing myself.

Exceptions to this (in order of length spent in them)

Fry's Electronics
Other computer stores
Gaming stores
Music/Video stores
Book stores (especially those with good computer books sections)

Adding my voice to the female cry of "not all of us!",
gwen.