Photo: Arty Smokes / Flickr

Remember the haggling scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brain? Escaped convict and unintentional Messiah Brian, trying to avoid recapture by the Centurions, visits a beard-seller’s stall to buy a disguise. When Brian, in his hurry, is willing to pay an inflated price for a fake beard, stallholder Harry the Haggler is disgusted. ‘We’re supposed to haggle,’ he tells Brian.

Well, at times, we’re supposed to haggle too. But it looks like the majority of Brits just don’t feel comfortable bargaining, with women finding it hardest.

Women feel ‘bullied’

New online community Incahoot that helps its members (using their collective buying power) get exclusive deals on essentials like energy spoke to 1,000 UK homeowners aged 25-44 about their experience of negotiating prices.

They found that, while both men and women expressed difficulties bargaining, women are more likely to feel confused by the process, and to feel powerless and even ‘bullied’. In addition, they’re more likely to find bargaining frustrating. According to Incahoot, many women would prefer better information on products and prices and a simpler way of negotiating.

Compounding the difficulty

One-third of respondents told the new online community that a lack of time makes them more likely to accept a price at face value than to demand a better deal. Over half complained of not being able to reach the right people to negotiate with. And just under a third cited confusing technical jargon to be an issue.

Why women don’t ask

According to authors of Women don’t Ask Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, negotiating is particularly difficult for women because society teaches them that ‘it is not appropriate or “feminine” for them to focus on what they want, assert their own ambitions, and pursue their self-interest.’ Often, Babcock and Laschever say, women ‘don’t realise that they can ask for something they want [like a good deal], that asking is even possible.’

Babcock and Lashever note that, asked to choose metaphors to describe negotiating, men chose phrases like a ‘wrestling match’ and ‘winning a ballgame’. Women picked ‘going to the dentist’.

Not as bad as being followed by a horde of Roman soldiers, but painful nonetheless.

Tags: women