Circle of 13: 'why women, in particular, need to resist the "buy" buttons'

Women Should Buy Into Holiday Shopping Boycott

9 Nov 2007

By Susan Feiner
WeNews correspondent

The biggest retail day of the year hovers at the end of this month. Susan Feiner flags the reasons why women, in particular, need to resist the "buy" buttons that advertisers are trying to push and to join a consuming boycott.

(WOMENSENEWS)--Female shoppers, beware.

It's November and that means that Black Friday--the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year--is lurking at the end of the month, raising the risk of a post-holiday debt hangover.

Twenty-three percent of Americans will not pay off their holiday debt until March or later, equaling $14.6 billion in interest-accruing debt, according to a Consumer Reports 2006 survey. Over one-quarter of Americans use credit cards most often when holiday shopping, contributing to the $63.6 billion charged on credit cards throughout the shopping season.

Since as much as 75 percent of retailers' profits accrue during the holiday season, Black Friday represents the point in time when retailers' account books shift from red (debt) to black (profit).

But black fades into red when we switch our standpoint to the consumer's perspective.

The money flowing into cash registers accentuates the red tide of consumer debt, which is especially toxic for women, whose bankruptcy filings have risen ninefold in the past 20 years, according to research published in the Brooklyn Law Review.

Women Aren't Profligate

It's not that women are profligate in their spending, at the holidays or otherwise.

Yes, Women's Wear Daily may tell us that "yuletide bling" appeals to multiple generations of women and that "jewel-encrusted bras, camisoles embellished with feathers and silky crotch-less panties sold like hot cakes last year."

This could tempt you to think that women have become downright hysterical in their spending. But more methodical research tells us that when it comes to overspending our society has achieved a rare gender balance; both sexes do it to pretty much to the same extent.

Instead, overspending during the holidays is a women's issue in particular for a very simple reason: we can afford it less. That's because we continue to earn less--75 cents to the dollar on average--and we are also less likely to have other financial safeguards such as jobs with good health care and pension benefits.

Much more often than men, women are using consumer credit to pay for life's necessities.

Retailers Worried

Retailers, meanwhile, are clearly worried that spending will not match the double-digit sales gains of the last several seasons, which gets us to the real warning of the story.

In 2006 companies spent a staggering $209.74 billion on advertising. The results of all that money are, in their immensity, difficult if not impossible to either avoid or ignore.

Advertisers target women for a simple reason: We do about 85 percent of all consumer spending. The constant buzz of advertising is, as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith once put it, "relentless propaganda on behalf of goods."

The array of available goods grows daily, and so inevitably does the list of what we know we don't have. This induces a perpetual state of wanting, and millions of us heed the siren call of malls, department stores, upscale boutiques, downscale discounters and everything in between.

It's all particularly dangerous for women who head households. Saving a portion of your earnings is an essential element of long-term financial security, but a recent report in the Survey of Consumer Finances, says 53 percent of female household heads spend all or more than all of their incomes.

The dominant media doesn't want to focus on the systemic reasons for women's financial problems. Instead they focus, as usual, on self-improvement, running endless how-to articles about ending impulse spending, making a list and sticking to it, cutting back on your make-up routine, finding a less expensive hair salon, and don't forget the $64,000 question: Do your finances need a makeover?

Social Policy Void

This individualist focus misses a deeper point: there is no social policy working to protect people from the aggressive influence of marketing; that not enough is being done to make sure women have more workplace equity.

Women as individuals and consumers should, of course, develop habits that get them off the consumer escalator. Read a book, take a walk, talk to a friend instead of reaching for that credit card. Sure.

But there's more to the story than any one woman's individual behavior.

For one thing, there's recent political history. Over the past 25 years, kicked off by the massive tax cuts of the Reagan era, income in the United States has been distributed less and less equally. That has created a huge gulf between the very rich, the posh well-to-do, and the rest of us.

Not only ads, but entertainment programming such as "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" make people earning $35,000 a year desire the ways and means of those earning $135,000. Economist and social commentator Juliet Schor describes the new consumerism as a cycle of "see, want, borrow, buy."

So when we think about consumerism as part of social policy--rather than a simple set of "free" individual choices--it becomes obvious that our national fascination with "more" is being driven by policies designed to reduce public attention to the values that sustain us as a community.

As citizens we value parks, clean energy, recreation, housing, and the environment. But the share of federal spending devoted to these public goods has been declining since the beginning of the conservative attack on government in 1981 when these were 11 percent of the federal budget. Spending in these areas is now a mere 8.6 percent of federal spending.

Households strapped to make monthly home, car and credit card payments are not likely to look fondly on spending to enhance community life. Funding for health care, parks, public recreation, elder care, child care, transportation and education become less palatable.

So with that in mind, maybe the best approach to the day after Thanksgiving this year--rather than rushing around the mall--is to join anti-consumer, pro-environment activists in Buy Nothing Day.

After all it's a political campaign season. With all the time we save by not shopping we can start looking over the candidates. Who's talking about women's pay and benefits disparities? Who's talking about health care, park, public recreation, child care, transportation, education?

Susan Feiner is professor of women's studies and economics at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.