Shop till you drop!

I would like to stem off of the topic of shopping brought up in class. I believe shopping for clothing (outside of necessary items) is something socially constructed. Everything in culture makes us take a position, therefore we either like shopping or we don’t like shopping. However, whether we like or don’t like shopping is determined by the culture associated with shopping. Shopping signifies having money and along with that femininity. Shopping is also used as a way in which people can culture their own body.

Howard Becker makes the claim that someone will only be able to use marijuana after a series of things occur in specific cultural settings. Fitting into certain social groups or subcultures takes a series of requirements such as becoming a pot smoker does. For example lets say you want to be preppy or look preppy, you need to learn what types of clothes fit that subculture and find the means to buy them, you need to be able to recognize yourself as preppy and as fitting that group, and at some point you need to be able to associate being preppy with pleasure or you would not continue (by choice) to be a part of that specific subculture. You cannot simply just become preppy just as you cannot simply just become a pot smoker things such as these actually have no reality without the discourse around them that forms them. Shopping can also get at what Susan Bordo is discussing with culture. The way people dress has a lot to do with the way they empower themselves in today’s society. In Susan Bordo’s argument she talks about women taking control with their body, women can also do this by altering the clothes the wear. Women’s dress has changed from very feminine too much more gender neutral or even masculine (shown in the example of a nurse above), I think this is one way that women have modified to give themselves a different voice in society. In the same way some women dress a specific way to fit the general gender roles that society has constructed for instance the “housewife” (shown in the images below). As in Susan Bordo’s writing what women’s bodies look like or in this case what they are wearing is not just about the clothing but about the cultural implications it has.