Consider Boycotting Holiday Shopping

By Susan Feiner, Women's eNews. Posted November 12, 2007.

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.

See more stories tagged with: advertising, holidays, shopping

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

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