Please note that this syllabus should be regarded as only a general guide to the course. The instructor may have changed specific course content and requirements subsequent to posting this syllabus. Last Modified: 17:48:22 01/14/2011 GENDER AND CONSUMER SOCIETY SC 372.01 Spring 2011 Professor Patricia Arend Time: Tuesdays, 2-4:30 Office: 410c McGuinn Hall Email: arend@bc.edu Office hours: After class and by appointment We live in a consumer society, where advertising, shopping, having and displaying goods is central to the economy and to the social construction of everyday life—who we are (our identities, fantasies and experience), how we live, and our impact on the environment around us. We also live in a world that is gendered—where bodies express and enact masculinity and femininity and where life chances are structured and unequal. This course examines the relationships between consumption and gender, focusing on several important themes, including: 1) histories of the gendered divisions of labor in society where “men work and women shop,” 2) women’s responsibility for family consumption in the (heterosexual) domestic sphere, 3) representations of men and women in advertising, 4) the role of commodities in the embodiment of gender (clothing, cosmetics, etc.) and 5) ecofeminism/feminist environmentalism, consumption and the environment. This course takes an intersectional approach to gender, which means that it is considered in relation to other structures of inequality and difference such as race, class, and sexuality. CLASS MECHANICS: Readings: Many of the readings for this course are available online. They may be accessed directly from the O’Neill library course reserves website. In addition, the three books listed below are on sale at the BC Bookstore. These will also be available on two hour course reserve at O’Neill. 1. The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader edited by Jennifer Scanlon. New York University Press, 2000. 2. The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective edited by Victoria de Grazia with Ellen Furlough. University of California Press, 1996. Page 1 of 11 3. Food is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America by Katherine J. Parkin. University of Philadelphia Press, 2006. The fourth book below, is out of print. You should be able to find a used copy on amazon.com or half.com. It will also be on reserve at the library. 4. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture by Kathy Peiss. Henry Holt and Company, 1998. Course Website: There is a Blackboard Vista site for this course. Requirements: 1. Consistent attendance. 2. Active, serious and respectful participation in class and small group discussions. 3. Thorough reading of course materials, including note-taking and/or response writing to be referenced in class discussion. 4. On-time, thoughtful completion of all assignments. 5. Strict adherence to campus policies regarding plagiarism and intellectual integrity. Assessments: 1. Class preparation, attendance and participation. 25% 2. Lead group discussion during one class period, with a partner. 10% 3. Five 400-500 word thought pieces on course reading (6% each). 30% 4. Term Paper 35% 1. Class attendance is mandatory. Since I don’t want to waste too much time taking attendance, I will not take roll every day. Instead, I will take attendance at random intervals during the semester. If you are not there for one of those classes, you will not be penalized, but after that, unexcused absences will impact your final grade. Class starts promptly at 2:00. Chronic lateness to class will have a negative impact on your class participation grade. Keep in mind that if you are not in class you cannot participate. Your participation involves completing and taking notes on the assigned reading and bringing questions to class. If you come to class regularly, but never speak, the highest grade you are eligible to receive for class participation is a C-. If you participate regularly, but never or rarely address the reading, the highest grade you are eligible to receive is a C-. The course reading is difficult. Completing it will be time consuming. Plan accordingly. Page 2 of 11 2. Discussion. The last half hour of ten class periods will be reserved for student lead discussion. You and your partner will bring questions to class to foster discussion. You are responsible for and will be graded on stimulating and managing the discussion and should prepare accordingly. It is usually best to ask specific questions one at a time. Feel free to follow up on points raised or pursue a debate if it is relevant to the course material. This is your opportunity to focus the class on what matters to you in the reading: take advantage of it! 3. Thought pieces: This class deals with complex ideas that require regular completion of the readings and regular attendance. To help you actively process the readings and relate them to the world around you, you are required to write five 400-500 word thought-pieces over the course of the semester. Thought pieces should respond to questions and/or comments found on Blackboard and deal explicitly with the readings they reference. They can be informal or unconventional in style, but thoughtless, cursory or late pieces will not receive credit. Thought pieces should be posted on the Blackboard website in the Assignments section. Your five thought pieces may be selected from six opportunities, due by 11pm: Feb. 14, Feb. 28, March 21, April 4, April 18, May 2. 4. Term Paper. Your term paper has three components. 1) A one page proposal due March 1st. 2) A short outline with an annotated bibliography containing no fewer than seven relevant sources due April 5th. (Ten is better.) The outline can be in traditional format or written as prose. 3) Final 20 page paper is due May 10th at 10am. You are welcome to submit any of these assignments as soon as you are finished. All should be submitted in the assignments section of Blackboard. Your paper must have a thesis and be written with grammar, spelling, prose and attribution appropriate to college level writing. Academic Honesty: Students are expected to comply with the standards for academic honesty outlined by the University’s AcademicPolicies and Procedures at http://www.bc.edu/offices/stserv/academic/resources/policy.html#integrity). Any plagiarism or cheating – including on thought pieces – will result at a minimum in an F on that piece of work and notification of the academic dean. Late Paper Policy: All assignments should be submitted to Blackboard. Every calendar day your assignment is late results in the lowering of your grade by one third. For example, if you turn an “A” paper in on a Friday when it was due on the previous Tuesday, your grade will be a B. Papers late by only a few hours will be counted as one day late. Grade Scale: (no rounding, an 89.9% is a B+) 93+: A 90-92: A87-89: B+ 83-86: B 80-82: B77-79: C+ 73-76: C 70-72: C67-69: D+ 63-66: D 60-62: D0-59: F Page 3 of 11 Class Environment Laptops are not allowed in the classroom. Cell phones should be turned off before class, not just silenced. You may bring drinks to class and, if you need it, a small snack. Please do not eat full meals or make noise with wrappers. Please be respectful of each other, especially during class discussions where you may have disagreements over course material. We will take a short break about halfway through class to stretch and use the restroom. CLASS SCHEDULE (LR=readings to be found on library reserve) *I reserve the right to alter the schedule with due notice.* 1. INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND CONSUMER SOCIETY January 18: In class film: Codes of Gender January 25 (LR) Kathy L. Peiss, “American Women and the Making of Modern Consumer Culture,” in The Journal for Multi-Media History, Vol. 1(1), 1998. (LR) Thorstein Veblen, “Chapter 4: Conspicuous Consumption,” The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York: Penguin Books, 1994(1899). (LR) Kowaleski-Wallace, “Introduction” in Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century. (New York: Columbia University Press), 1997, pp. 1-15. (LR) Susan Willis, “Gender as Commodity” from A Primer for Daily Life, New York: Routledge, 1991. (LR) bell hooks, “Eating the Other,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation, Boston: South End Press, 1992: 21-39. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Juliet B. Schor, “Towards a New Politics of Consumption” in The Consumer Society Reader, edited by Schor and Holt, New York: The New Press: pp. 446-462. Page 4 of 11 2. MEN WORK AND WOMEN SHOP? HISTORY AND DIVISIONS OF LABOR IN SOCIETY February 1 Introduction and Part I—All: Changing Consumption Regimes from The Sex of Things, pp. 1-150. o Victoria de Grazia, Introduction, pp. 11-24 o Jennifer Jones, “Coquettes and Grisettes: Women Buying and Selling Ancien Régime Paris” o David Kuchta, “The Making of the Self-Made Man: Class, Clothing, and English Masculinity, 1688-1832” o Leora Auslander, “The Gendering of Consumer Practices in Nineteenth-Century France” o Abigail Soloman-Godeau, “The Other Side of Venus: The Visual Economy of Feminine Display” Kathy Peiss, Introduction and Chapters 1-3, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture. February 8 Part II—All: Establishing the Modern Consumer Household from The Sex of Things, pp. 151-274. o Victoria de Grazia, Introduction, pp. 151-161 o Erika Rappaport, “’A Husband and His Wife’s Dresses’: Consumer Credit and the Debtor Family in England, 1864-1914” o Anna R. Igra, “Male Providerhood and the Public Purse: Anti-Desertion Reform in the Progressive Era” o Susan Porter Benson, “Living on the Margin: Working-Class Marriages and Family Survival Strategies in the United States, 1919-1941 o Sue Bowden and Avner Offer, “The Technological Revolution That Never Was: Gender, Class, and the Diffusion of Household Appliances in Interwar England” (LR) Kristin L. Hoganson, “Cosmopolitan Domesticity: Importing the American Dream, 1865-1920,” in The American Historical Review, Vol. 107, No. 1, pp. 55-83. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Susan Willis, “Playing House: Domestic Labor as Culture” from A Primer for Daily Life, New York: Routledge, 1991. Andrew Heinze, “Jewish Women and the Making of an American Home,” in TGACCR #1 Steven M. Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself: Constructing, Repairing, and Maintaining Domestic Masculinity,” in TGACCR #4 Page 5 of 11 February 15 (shopping: work, leisure, or ?) Erika D. Rappaport, “’A New Era of Shopping’: The Promotion of Women’s Pleasure in London’s West End, 1909-1914,” in TGACCR #2 (LR) Colin Campbell, “Shopping, Pleasure and the Sex War” from The Shopping Experience: edited by Pasi Falk & Colin Campbell, London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage, 1997. (LR) Marjorie DeVault, “Chapter Two: Provisioning,” in Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. (LR) Jan Phillips, “’Attention Shoppers – Family Being Constructed on Aisle Six!’: Grocery Shopping and the Accomplishment of Family,” in Lived Experiences of Public Consumption: Encounters with Value in Marketplaces on Five Continents, edited by Daniel Thomas Cook, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. (LR) Merl Storr, “Classy Lingerie,” in Feminist Review, 71, 2002, pp. 18-36. Recommended, but not required: (LR) William R. Leach, “Transformations in a Culture of Consumption: Women and Department Stores, 1890-1925,” Journal of American History 1(2): 319-342, Sept 1984. (LR) Rachel Bowlby, “Modes of Modern Shopping: Mallarmé at the Bon Marche” in The Ideology of Conduct: Essays on Literature and the History of Sexuality, ed. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse (New York and London: Methuen), 1987, ch. 7, pp. 185-205. 3. GENDER AND ADVERTISING February 22 (message makers) (LR) Betty Friedan, “The Sexual Sell,” in The Consumer Society Reader, edited by Schor and Holt, New York: The New Press: pp. 26-46. Intro and Chapters 1 & 2 from Food is Love Jennifer Scanlon, “Advertising Women: The J. Walter Thompson Company Women’s Editorial Department,” in TGACCR #12 Kenon Breazeale, “In Spite of Women: Esquire Magazine and the Construction of the Male Consumer,” in TGACCR #13 (LR) Elspeth H. Brown, “Marlboro Men: Outsider Masculinities and Commercial Modeling in Postwar America,” in Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture and Consumers edited by Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Philidelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2008. TGACCR #17 Archival material: New Yorker and Fortune Cartoons Kathy Peiss, Chapters 4-5, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture Page 6 of 11 Recommended, but not required: (LR) William R. Scott, “California Casual: Lifestyle Marketing and Men’s Leisurewear, 1930-1960,” in Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture and Consumers edited by Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Philidelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2008. March 1 (advertisements) – One page proposals due. (LR) Marilyn Maness Mehaffy, “Advertising Race/Racing Advertising: The Feminine Consumer(-Nation), 1876-1900,” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1997 23:1, 131-174. Anne McClintock, “Soft-Soaping Empire: Commodity Racism and Imperial Advertising,” in TGACCR #7 Robert E. Weems, Jr. “Consumerism and the Construction of Black Female Identity in Twentieth-Century America,” in TGACCR #9 Katherine J. Parkin, Chapters 3-end (pp. 79-224) from Food is Love (LR) Michael A. Messner and Jeffrey Montez de Oca, “The Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events,” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2005 30:3, pp. 1879-1909. View the short film Killing Us Softly 3 online before coming to class. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1993368502337678412# o You can view Killing Us Softly 4, an updated version, in the media center at the library. Given the time commitment already involved in your reading, you are not required to view it. The themes are similar in 3 and 4, so the online version will suffice. Recommended, but not required: Jeffrey Steele, “Reduced to Images: American Indians in Nineteenth-Century Advertising,” in TGACCR #6 (LR) Dawn H. Currie “Decoding Femininity : Advertisements and Their Teenage Readers” in Gender and Society, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1997: pp. 453-477. March 8: NO CLASS. SPRING BREAK. 4. COMMODITIES AND THE EMBODIMENT OF GENDER March 15 (LR) Douglas Schrock, Lori Reid, and Emily M. Boyd, “Transsexuals’ Embodiment of Womanhood,” in Gender and Society, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2005, pp. 317-335. Kathy Peiss, Chapters 6-8, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (LR) Jie Yang, “Nennu and Shunu: Gender, Body Politics and the Beauty Economy in China,” in Signs, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2011, pp. 333-357. Page 7 of 11 (LR) Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners,” in Gender and Society, Vol. 22. No. 3, 2008, pp. 281-302. (LR) Xuan Santos, “The Chicana Canvas: Doing Class, Gender, Race and Sexuality Through Tattooing in East Los Angeles,” NWSA Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2009. March 22 (clothing/fashion) (LR) Georg Simmel, “Fashion,” in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 62, No. 6, 1957: 541-558. Malcom Gladwell, “Listening to Khakis: What America’s Most Popular Pants Tell Us about the Way Guys Think,” in TGACCR #10 Stuart Cosgrove, “The Zoot-Suit and Style Warfare,” in TGACCR #20 (LR) Daniel Miller and Susan B. Kaiser, “Betwixt and Be Tween: Age Ambiguity and the Sexualization of the Consuming Subject,” in The Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 4(2): 203-227, 2004. (LR) Christian Jantzen, Per Ostergaard, and Carla M. Sucena Viera, “Becoming a ‘Woman to the Backbone’: Lingerie Consumption and the Experience of Feminine Identity,” The Journal of Consumer Culture, 6:177, 2006. (LR) Özlem Sandikci and Güliz Ger, “Veiling in Style: How Does a Stigmatized Practice Become Fashionable?” in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37(1), 2010, pp. 15-36. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Amy L. Best, “Fashioning the Feminine: Dresses, Jewelry, Hair and More” in Prom Night: Youth, Schools and Popular Culture, Routledge, 2000. March 29 (focus on weddings) (LR) Otnes and Pleck, Ch. 2 “The Rise of the Lavish Wedding,” from Cinderella Dreams. (Berkeley: University of California Press), 2003, pp. 25-54. (LR) Vicki Howard, “A ‘Real Man’s Ring’: Gender and the Invention of Tradition,” in Journal of Social History, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2003, pp. 837-856. (LR) Ellen Lewin, “Chapter Three: Old Symbols, New Traditions,” in Recognizing Ourselves: Ceremonies of Lesbian and Gay Commitment, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 47-86. (LR) Beth Montemurro and Bridget McClure, “Changing Gender Norms for Alcohol Consumption: Social Drinking and Lowered Inhibitions at Bachelorette Parties,” in Sex Roles, Vol. 52, Nos. 5/6, March 2005, pp. 279-288. (LR) Bonnie Adrian, “The Camera’s Positioning: Brides, Grooms, and Their Photographers in Taipei’s Bridal Industry,” in Ethos, 32(2), June 2004, pp. 140-163. Page 8 of 11 (LR) Naomi Wolf, “Brideland,” in To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, edited by Rebecca Walker, New York: Anchor Books, 1995, pp. 35-40. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Judith Butler, “Introduction (pp. 1-16 only), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, New York and London: Routledge, 1993. (LR) Boden, S. (2001). “Superbrides”: Wedding Consumer Culture and the Construction of Bridal Identity. Sociological Research Online, 6(1). (LR) Chrys Ingraham, White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture, New York & London: Routledge, 1999. April 5 (focus on masculinity) – Outline with Annotated Bibliography Due (LR) Doris Witt, “’Eating Chitterlings is Like Going Slumming’: Soul Food and Its Discontents,” in Black Hunger: Soul Food and America, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004, pp. 79-101. (LR) Russell Belk and Janeen Arnold Costa, “The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy,” in Journal of Consumer Research Vol. 25, Dec. 1998, pp. 218-240. (LR) Douglas B. Holt and Craig J. Thompson, “Man of Action Heroes: The Pursuit of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday Consumption,” in Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2004, pp. 425-440. (LR) Ruth Halliday and Allie Cairnie, “Man Made Plastic: Investigating Men’s Consumption of Aesthetic Surgery,” in Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol, 7, No. pp. 5778, 2007. (LR) Amy L. Best, “Chapter Three: Race-ing Men: Boys, Risk and the Politics of Race,” in Fast Cars, Cool Rides: The Accelerating World of Youth and Their Cars, New York: New York University Press, 2006. (LR) Katherine Sender, “Queens for a Day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the Neoliberal Project, “ in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 23, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 131-151. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Craig J. Thompson and Douglas B. Holt, “How Do Men Grab the Phallus: Gender Tourism in Everyday Consumption, in Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol.4(3), 2004, pp. 313-338. (LR) Schouten, John and James McAlexander. (1995) “Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of New Bikers,” Journal of Consumer Research 22(June): 43-61. Page 9 of 11 5. SEXUALITY AND CONSUMPTION April 12 (focus on gay and lesbian consumption) George Chauncey, “Lots of Friends at the YMCA: Rooming Houses, Cafeterias, and Other Gay Social Centers,” in TGACCR #3 Lillian Faderman, “Lesbian Chic: Experimentation and Repression in the 1920s,” in TGACCR #8 Danae Clark, “Commodity Lesbianism,” in TGACCR #22 (LR) Katherine Sender, “Sex Sells: Sex, Class and Taste in Commercial Gay and Lesbian Media,” in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Vol. 9(3), 2003, pp. 331-365. (LR) Steven M. Kates and Russell W. Belk, “The Meanings of Lesbian and Gay Pride Day: Resistance through Consumption and Resistance to Consumption,” in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 30, 2001: 392-429. Recommended, but not required: (LR) Heather Murray, “Free for All Lesbians: Lesbian Cultural Production and Consumption in the United States during the 1970s,” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2007, pp. 251-275. (LR) Michael Warner, “Introduction,” in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, edited by Michael Warner, University of Minnesota Press, 1993. April 19 (sex tourism) (LR) Cynthia Enlow, “On The Beach: Sexism and Tourism,” from Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. (LR) Kamala Kempadoo, “Freelancers, Temporary Wives, and Beach-Boys: Researching Sex Work in the Caribbean,” in Feminist Review, No. 67, Spring 2001, pp. 39-62. (LR) Julia O’Connell Davidson and Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor, “Fantasy Islands: Exploring the Demand for Sex Tourism,” in Sexuality and Gender, edited by Christine L. Williams and Arlene Stein, Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002. (LR) Jaqueline Sanchez Taylor, “Female Sex Tourism: A Contradiction in Terms?” in Feminist Review, No. 83, 2006: pp. 42-59. (LR) Jenny Huberman, “Shopping for People or Shopping for People?: Deciphering the Object of Consumption Among Tourists in Banaras,” in Lived Experiences of Public Consumption: Encounters with Value in Marketplaces on Five Continents, edited by Daniel Thomas Cook, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Cowboys in Paradise-In Class Film Page 10 of 11 6. FEMINISM & CONSUMPTION April 26 (resistance or cooptation?) Victoria de Grazia, Introduction, pp. 275-286. The Sex of Things (LR) Janice Radway, “Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context,” in Feminist Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1983, pp. 53-78. Elaine S. Abelson, “Shoplifting Ladies,” in TGACCR #18 Natasha B. Barnes, “Face of the Nation: Race, Nationalisms, and Identities in Jamaican Beauty Pageants,” in TGACCR #21 Susan J. Douglas, “Narcissism as Liberation,” in TGACCR #15 (LR) Josée Johnston and Judith Taylor, “Feminist Consumerism and Fat Activists: A Comparative Study of Grassroots Activism and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2008 33:4, 941-966. Rachel Bowlby, “Soft-Sell: Marketing Rhetoric in Feminist Criticism” in The Sex of Things Recommended, but not required: (LR) Mary M. Talbot, “Strange Bedfellows: Feminism in Advertising,” in All the World and Her Husband: Women in Twentieth-Century Consumer Culture, edited by Maggie Andrews and Mary M. Talbot, London and NY: Cassell, 2000. Kathy Peiss, “’Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-Class Sexuality, 1880-1920,” in TGACCR #19 May 3 (ecofeminism/feminist environmentalism) (LR) Ynestra King, “The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology” in Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Publishers, 1989. (LR) Vandana Shiva, “Development, Ecology, and Women,” in Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by Judith Plant. New Society Publishers, 1989. (LR) Dorceta E. Taylor, “Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism,” in Karen J. Warren, editor, Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. (LR) Juliet Schor “Cleaning the Closet: Toward a New Fashion Ethic,” in Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century, eds. Juliet B. Schor and Betsy S. Taylor, Boston: Beacon Press, 2002. (LR) Joni Seager, “Rachel Carson Died of Breast Cancer: The Coming of Age of Feminist Environmentalism” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2003 28:3, 945-972 Page 11 of 11