After conducting much research on the mysterious allure of shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, a day (by the way) for which it would be most reasonable to assume that everyone, after feasting for the past twelve hours, would be too full and tired to run off on a shopping spree, I have concluded that the creation of Black Friday only furthers society’s image of and discrimination against the fair sex—-that is to say, women.

1. The (diabolically) targeted audience is women. In case the reader demands proof, a study done by Professor Jane Boyd Thomas of South Carolina’s Winthrop University shows that “Women do most holiday gift-buying” and that “stereotypes hold true for researchers.” This is a problem for multiple reasons. For one, what guy wants to be dragged up at twelve a.m. to embark on a shopping spree that he could definitely care less about? It’s a given that men will become aggravated when forced to accompany their wives to random stores at ungodly hours for the sake of buying random items that (again) they could care less about. This could easily lead to deterioration of the marriage, which then goes to divorce…and I will assume that any tolerably intelligent human being will understand why this is bad and not demand an explanation.

Oh, and from the Huffington Post: “Black Friday is sort of like “hunting for women,” said Dr. Leisa Reinecke Flynn, professor of marketing and fashion merchandising at the University of Southern Mississippi. “It’s so much like deer hunting it’s hard to tell the two apart.”

2. Stereotypes!!!! Because it is predominantly women who run out of the house to seize the best deals on Black Friday, this annual event only reinforces the idea that it’s the women who shop, cook, look after children, and actually have any idea about how to manage household affairs. Thus, men are immediately stereotyped to the opposite extreme and are assumed to work all day, then come home and sit comfortably on the couch to enjoy life as the women continue to clean up after them and take care of every living thing in the house. Funny…I thought we weren’t living in the Stone Age anymore.

3. Black Friday turns women into feral, dishonest, awful human beings. Due to the general rush for the best deals on the market (and as almost all of the shoppers are females), many women engage in consumer misconduct. Some will steal merchandise out of others’ carts, or they will fight over the last item left in stock. Thus, due to the societally-expected competition, women are warped into beings that are only interested in being miserly and saving money, which society uses as evidence for its own judgments. Because of the poor conduct and fierce competition to which women fall prey, men can now point out these faults and assume themselves superior. Tyranny and exploitation!

4. Even after the day of infamy, women retain the qualities of being arrogant and shallow. After proving their intelligence by finding the best deals on the market, or grabbing the last highly contested item off the shelf, it is only natural that women will feel the need to express themselves. They will therefore boast tirelessly about how ingenious or wily they were in securing their own gain, and thus everyone will tire of and shun them. This would never happen if there was not such generalized competition for the mere notion of shopping! Society’s ability to portray women in such negative light is an awful accomplishment, furthering discrimination against and oppression of ladies.

Dear reader, taking all of this into consideration, I hope that you will keep in mind how cruel and unfair Black Friday is to women. Every shopper who embarks upon an adventure on the day after Thanksgiving is supporting the continued injustice against and belittling of the fair sex.

This article was submitted by Laura Lin!