Why supermarkets are a feminist right

Time-saving, convenient and ideal for the after-work grocery dash.  Supermarkets are a feminist right, argues Laura Freeman
Getty Images
Laura Freeman31 May 2018

In this centenary year of female suffrage — thank you, Millicent, thank you, Emmeline — let us celebrate another great 20th-century symbol of women’s liberation. Not just the vote, the pill and the washing machine — but the supermarket, with its doors still open as the working woman leaves the office and makes her way home to an empty fridge. Aisles of milk and honey.

I used to shriek at supermarkets. Plastic! Waste! Bolivian winter strawberries! On Saturdays, I would skip to the Notting Hill Farmers’ Market to buy fruit and veg and free-range chickens with the giblets left in. Then home like a pious packhorse, with rhubarb and beetroot in Daunt Books bags.

Early this year I moved to Paris with my Foreign Office fiancé and was thrilled to be living the French cheese-shop fantasy I’d read about in MFK Fisher books and seen in Amélie. I spent the first freezing week of January, umbrella inside out, queuing at the fromagerie, boucherie, boulangerie and epicerie, at the tiny shop where a stern grandmère crimped pincushions of ravioli. A different filling each day: pumpkin and amaretti; mortadella and myrtilles.

I tried four greengrocers with Garden of Eden names — Verger Saint Paul, La Bonne Pomme, La Vie en Fruits, Le Paradis du Fruit — in search of The Diplomat’s favourite, oranges sanguines. I walked to the crémerie for butter, the pâtisserie for pudding and the poissonnerie for bottled bouillabaisse. Isn’t this romantic, I asked myself as I queued and rummaged for small change and weighed satsumas. By Friday I was sobbing for Tesco Metro, Aldi and M&S Simply Food.

What had been a pleasure on a Saturday morning in London had become une peine massif in Paris. For my dirty, inorganic secret was that the farmers’ market was heavily supplemented by Sainsbury’s Local and home delivery. Pop-up pickle stalls are fine for the weekend. Day to day? Epic time-waste. I know the French way is the way we should ideally shop. Local stores, passionate producers, seasonal fare, cooking from scratch with the best ingredients. But it all takes so long. French planning law effectively bans big supermarkets from town centres so there are few places that are reliably open every day, at all hours, selling everything one could possibly Waitrose-wish for.

I had been flogging myself to meet an ideal that only half exists. French women who work come out of the Métro, Longchamp briefcase in hand, and buy poached salmon, boxed dauphinoise and cucumber salad from the traiteur. Maybe they stop at the bakery for a baguette and a tarte aux mirabelles. But they do not, as the smug French-Women-Don’t-Get-Fat-Or-Feed-Their-Children-Fish-and-Chips-With-Tomato-Ketchup books tell us, spend whole evenings filling their Céline handbags with chèvre from the cheesemongers and olives from the delicatessen. They certainly don’t do anything so taxing as cook. Not on a weeknight, anyway. I had been suckered by the books and blogs when I should have been going to Picard (think: posh Iceland) and buying frozen moules marinières as my chicest French friend, Camilla, does. More fool me.

Still, my experiment has been an insight into how generations of women shopped. Butcher to baker, out to the high street every day if they didn’t have a fridge. No wonder our grandmothers didn’t have careers. What gifts the supermarket, the microwave and the ready-meal have been. Not without their downsides, but think of the freedom they’ve given us. Now, Hello Fresh dices onions for you, Deliveroo does away with washing up. What couldn’t women achieve, unslaved from chopping boards and soap suds?

I love small shops. I love the butcher who exclaims, ‘Mais, vous êtes malade, madame!’ when I buy chicken legs for flu-fighting soup. I love the man at Marché Bastille who wears apple stickers on his nose. But they are timerich luxuries. Ocado is true emancipation

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in