Page 26 - IFV_Issue 5_May_2022

Humour

SHOPPING

BY JAMES CLARKE
en seriously don’t like
shopping. I don’t think we
Monly ‘pretend not to like
it’ as British psychologist, Kate Fox,
suggests. She avers that men seem to
have an unwritten rule ‘prohibiting any
enjoyment of shopping’ and that they see
shopping only as something that has to
be done, and done fast. Women, on the
other hand, love it.
Hardly surprising. After all, shopping
is surely a form of gathering and, for
aeons, it was the woman’s lot to gather.
While the men went hunting, the women
would go off gathering stuff, like berries,
palatable insects, etc.
Kate Fox’s observations mainly
concern the English (in 2004 she wrote
Watching the English), but urban South
African males, no matter what their racial
background, are no different.
Fox tries to equate the way men Appearing to be useless at shopping can, more and more heart attacks. Notice how,
shop with hunting – “they select their says Fox, be a “significant source of pride” since Mrs Bandaranaike became prime
prey and then, single-mindedly and for a man. A woman interviewed by Fox minister of Ceylon in 1960 – she was the
purposely hunt it down.” No, we don’t! said, “I send him off to get tomatoes and world’s first female prime minister – one
If I go out to buy something – let’s say he comes back with a bottle of ketchup third of the world’s governments is now
a ‘man thing’ like a hammer – I know and he says, ‘Well it’s made of tomatoes run by women.
exactly where I will find one. I simply isn’t it?’ So I go, ‘Yes, but it’s not much use The growing concern regarding
drop in at the hardware and get one. in a salad, is it?’ Men! Typical!” The woman masculinity and men’s subservience to
That’s all. No hunting. I don’t crouch low added that her husband stood there women is nowhere more manifest than
and creep up on some unsuspecting and “positively glowed with pride at this in contemporary humour. Look how
hammer and then hold it aloft and confirmation of his virility.” TV comedies usually show the male as
shout in triumph. I then I go home and As I said, we urbanised South African pathetically inept. Look at Basil Fawlty
do manly things with it – like smash my males are not much different – and our – then look at Sybil – in command, in
thumb. fears regarding our masculinity are daily control, insufferable.
But a woman might set out to buy, say, being questioned in so many other ways. Compare Dagwood with sensible
bread and milk, and come back with a A few years ago, Gina Bergman sent Blondie; Hagar with down-to-earth
R300 ‘top’, new shoes and something for me a short piece entitled “Men are just Helga; Clinton with Hillary . . .
somebody’s birthday which isn’t until happier people – they see chocolate as Where are the swashbuckling Errol
next January. Her mind is still wired the just another snack; they can be President; Flynns and the strong, silent Humphrey
same way it was 200 000 years ago when they can pee anywhere; they can never Bogarts? Remember the manly baritones
she set out looking for berries but happily be pregnant; and car mechanics tell them in Show Boat and South Pacific and West
became distracted by a rotting zebra the truth.” Side Story? Compare them with latter-day
carcass full of delicious little maggots But make no mistake, women are singers. Yet the girls love them!
ideal for hors d’oeuvres. asserting themselves over men as What does it say for the future of
Fox says men “choose to prove their never before. Notice how trousers have masculinity?
masculinity by emphasising how replaced skirts. Notice how women are I’d like to answer that . . . but my wife
hopelessly bad they are at shopping”. filling executive posts – and suffering says I have to go with her to the shops.

24 • Issue 5 2022 • The Villager