Mall Identity

Transforming Social Spaces: Female Identity and the Mall was a very interesting article. I previously had read some other articles about malls and shopping but nothing this in depth. I found it to be very interesting and accurate to some extent. I find this topic to be really interesting especially from a woman’s point of view. As we all know women get target for consumer goods more than any other type of person. One statement in the introduction I found to be very accurate is “As a result, the mall has become the symbol of escapism, information, and socialization for Americans.” (2). I feel that although women’s rights has drastically improved over the last twenty years there is still the stereotype that the women should stay home and raise their children. From what I have observed in the malls during the day are a lot of mothers pushing their kids in strollers. I also feel that not only are middle aged mothers target but all ages of women raging from young elementary school kids with their Hannah Montana backpacks to teen girls all the way up through college and on to family life.
This subject of marketing and shopping and how it relates to kids and therefore how it integrates with their education is a very interesting yet challenging topic. As it says in the article “through the process of purchasing, Americans are encouraged to assume a ‘consumer self’ identity, or to identity themselves with the commodities they consumer”(3). I agree that this is true but especially as a female, beauty products and what we wear defines who we are. Relating this to education and students it is very obvious when walking down a hallway of any high school or m idle school to distinguish the different groups of kids by what they are wearing. The popular kids tend to wear Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister while other groups such as the skaters or punks tend to wear Quicksilver clothing or other name brands.
Once children reach middle school what they wear and how they look becomes one of the most, if not the most important aspect of their life. Social circles are built in middle school and usually do not change much entering high school. As a female, I feel that there is more pressure on girls to look a certain way compared to boys. From my point of view I remember if some girl who was in the popular group wore something that was not ‘in’ it was the talk of the school that day. I also don’t remember boys having to worry so much about what they were wearing. For some items I do feel it is more important for boys to have rather than girls such as maybe technology things like the newest video game or bike or basketball shoes. The mall aspect and shopping is a huge part of school. Take for instance the week before school starts all the major stores and malls aimed at high school students or younger all have sales for going back to school and the malls and stores are still busy at nine at night. I feel that with all the new technology such as TV and the sex appeal that Hollister and similar stores offer teens especially girls feel pressure to wear certain clothes. I remember in high school I would always shop at Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister or Express and many of their clothes require the girls to show a lot of skin and my parents were never happy. I do not shop at those stores anymore but I went with my younger sister once, and I was very surprised to see the large number of parents in these types of stores supporting their daughter or son to wear such scandalous clothing. The music and smells in these stores are often very loud techno like music and there is a very strong smell of perfume that could be smelled from outside the doors.
I feel that Americans are very easily swayed by commercials and what is ‘in’ or being cool. I feel that this is even true for adults to some extent. One of the things that the article mentions is the flip side of spending so much time at the malls that citizens are not being created. I think this is the real issue with spending so much time on superficial things such as shopping and making our appearance look good is it takes time away from ‘public discourse’ and evolving as citizens. I think that this integrates very well with education and students. The students feel that how they look and what they buy is more important, to some degree, than their education. Girls will sit and talk about what clothes or make up to buy while the boys will talk about who won last night’s football game.
Overall, I think this article, as a female, was very accurate and brought up many good points. Not only did it reach the subjects of the cultural, social, and political impacts of mall shopping but also went into great detail about the set up and marketing plots of mall designers.

MEN: AT TARGET

For this exercise I went to Target to do pick up some things for my house. I went to the Target in Coon Rapids on a Saturday morning around eleven. I would have to say it was fairly busy with a wide variety of people there. The first thing I noticed about the men that I saw there was that many were with a girlfriend or their family. I only saw two sets of guys that were together and they were around my age (21) or younger. The first section I went to was the outdoors section, which is somewhat between the housing (rugs, cabinets) section and the little infant/children clothing section. One thing that I did notice with the men who came with their families was that they were also having some sort of conversation with their wives usually. For instance, one man was trying to pick out a mini fire pit that is above ground that goes outside. He would bring one over and then ask his wife if it was ok and then when they finally picked one out he went back to the section and started looking at other things. He then motioned that he was going to look around the store for the other items they needed while wife seemed to stay in the clothing for infant’s section.
Another thing I noticed was that when the men would walk into the store they would walk right pass the dollar corner and other women products and knew exactly where to go. Also, Target is set up so the purses and jewelry and go straight in the back to the men’s or housing sections. On the other hand, the women did the opposite they sat and looked around at everything. This is just in general, there were some women who went straight for what they wanted and some men who stopped and looked at the dollar corner.
I also noticed that when the men were with their wife or girlfriend they were often lagging behind while the woman was ahead of them. At the Target I was at there are two doors on the same side but at other ends. When you walk into on of the doors, the first thing you see is the purses and women’s accessories and the other door is at first beauty products but then food and housing. I saw more men walk in through this door than I did the first door. A few observations that I have made are that men more often than not came with someone else rather than alone. They also stayed very clear of all the women products that were placed in front of the store when you first walk in.