For my gendered analysis of an event I well to the mall of America and did some people watching. When getting off the light rail while walking through all of the Doors through the transit station up to the doors of the mall a common theme that occurred were guys holding open the door for women and other people. Growing up one of the things that always heard when given pointers on how to be a gentleman was that they hold open doors for women. I think it is it expected of guys to hold open doors or women because it is polite.
After walking around and enjoying my time at the mall before focusing on this assignment the first thing that I noticed were the pictures of all the people modeling clothes and how During that Ted talk by Cameron Russell how they Constructed the image of her using style lists and photographers and technology to make her look completely different when they showed pictures of her on the same day but taken at a different time by different people and no stylist. It made me think about how the people modeling clothes on these advertisements really look like in real life. For women I only thinks it makes the double standard of beauty much worse because all of the physical appearance of the women on the advertisement is very appealing. The women news were also younger looking. The advertisements used beauty ideals to appeal to the popular culture in order to sell more merchandise. "Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire no greater destiny than glory to their own feminity." Betty Friedan, Excerpts from The Feminine Mistique(1963).
The next thing I started to think about was the 1947 how to be popular movie and how women and men dressed. The way people dress now is way more diverse and overall different than how that film projected people of that time. Females are a lot less preservative for the most part. But for the most part from the way men and women socialize in public you may never thought they had been oppressed. You don't see men asserting their power or authority in public because its not normal anymore. Over time they became just as privileged. There is equality for all types of people when it comes to shopping at the mall because if your man, woman, gay, straight, bisexual or transgendered there will always be somewhere for you to shop.
The MOA is a great place to view gender and individuals of all races. When I think about my own shopping experiences in terms of males and females and gender roles it is pretty clear that my family sticks to the expected norms. As females we will often spend the day at the mall and find it a fun way to spend the day with family or friends. In contrast males usually have to be forced to spend the whole day at the mall and are usually bored after a little while. Women are expected to do the shopping and buy clothes for their husbands and family, thus leaving men to not have to shop much. Men are usually sitting outside the stores on the benches waiting for their wife.
ReplyDeleteThinking of the store Victoria's Secret there have been multiple times when I have thought that the men in the store look very uncomfortable. They are following their wife very close, not making eye contact, and just giving off the vibe like they want to get the heck out of the store as fast as possible.
Women are expected to enjoy shopping but this is something that in reality many women do not enjoy. It can often be frustrating and large crowd's can be annoying. Along with the pressure of sticking to a family budget.