I should
support real jobs. I should enjoy meeting new people. I shouldn't be avoiding
the checkout guy who tried to chat me up, when I was shopping solely for
paracetamol, tissues, nose spray, and cough medicine. (Seriously, dude, choose
your moment.) But there's something that freezes out all my principles, and
sends me spinning into the arms of the automatic scanner. Something that makes
the self-checkout machines irresistible.
Ice cream.
As a young,
apparently single, obviously female person, there used to be no way I could buy
ice cream without meeting as many judgemental glances as there are flavours of
Carte d'Or. A girl stocking up on ice cream is always assumed to be single and
sad. Because frozen ambrosia only tastes good when you don't have the sweet,
sweet taste of a man's kisses to replace it, right? Or something
like that.
The idea of
the lonely gelato-guzzler is astonishingly persistent. It's pushed by pop
culture from every angle. Romcoms play ice cream as an understudy to your
handsome prince - the kindly, tubby friend who's there when the Real Man
leaves. Adverts show us the sexy side, offering a Calypso or Cornetto to fill
the gaping void of loneliness. This isn't just silly and annoying, it looks
like bad advertising too. Surely no one would want to replace a significant
other with something rainbow-patterned and covered in sprinkles. I'm starting
to worry about what they're actually putting in my Magnum. And it's only a
matter of time until we see the first frozen frivolities in Ann Summers...
Attempts to
avoid such a bizarre stereotype have been many and various. Some women deny
eating ice cream at all; I suspect the craze for frozen yoghurt is because it
sounds hip and yoga-compatible (froyoga, anyone?), rather than homely and
lonely. Others try concealment, even downright deception. A friend's been to
known to describe, in exquisite detail, her polyamorous live-in relationship
with two dashing young blades known as
Benjamin and Jeremiah. (I like to imagine Mr Haagen-Dazs as their rich uncle,
with a top hat and a monocle.)
Until the
revolution comes, I myself cast a surreptitious blessing on the clunky
cashier-robots lining the walls of the supermarket. All they see are barcodes
and pin machines. The only judgements they make involve brand comparisons;
their speakers don't include suggestive snigger circuits. The closest they come
to imagining our sex lives is 'unidentified object in bagging area'.
But using
technology to avoid other human beings can only be a temporary solution, and
all this pretence is a bit too much effort. Rather than waste any more time
feeling embarrassed, we need to bring out the big feminist guns. Chauvinist
Chip ice cream has two ingredients: the assumption that all women are the same,
and the assumption that they all need looking after. It's a fatal mistake - not
to mention sexist - to see women as one homogeneous vanilla-flavoured mass. We
all have our own reasons for eating chilled caramel concoctions, and we're not
interested in others' opinions of our relationship statuses or our flavour
combinations.
If I see a man
at the checkouts buying deodorant, I don't assume that he's surrounded by
gorgeous young women and followed everywhere by subtle muzak. Nor do I feel the
need to look impressed and whisper 'Cor!' as he breezes past me in a rancid
cloud of leopard hormones. This is because we, as human beings, are capable of
separating screen from reality. It's also because we, as human beings, are
theoretically capable of minding our own damn business. We're just not trying
hard enough.
We can change
popular stereotypes by talking to advertisers, talking to film-makers,
protesting people who reduce women in all their glorious variety to the status
of generic film extras. We can call people out - including ourselves - when
they make foolish and lazy assumptions at the expense of reality or politeness.
We can buy what we want to buy, without shame, whether we pay into a coin slot
or a cashier's hand. Heads held high. Flake 99s in hand.
-CK
