shopping

When doing some shopping for a present for my dads birthday. I noticed, not the first time, the difference of shopping departments. They really cater more to women then men, unless of course it is a Male's store, but even then there's  not that many stores that are just for men.  One of my favorite stores to go to is JCPenney, I go there first before any other store.  I like the style of clothes, their prices and their coupons, plus I have a cousin that works there so that extra discount is always nice :-).  While looking for something for my dad, I noticed that they don't have a large section for males, or at least not as big as the women's.  Since my dad is also a bigger man, it took me a while to find the Big and Tall section, lets just say its not much of a section but more of a small corner.

Something that I also noticed is the prices of clothes, It seems that clothes for men are usually more  expensive than the women's. I try and think of why this could be, women for the most part shop the most, and therefore buy more clothes, sometimes at high prices, but a women could probably still get 1-2 nice outfits for maybe $100, while a male can probably get only one, or not even a full outfit. I could see how materials could be a part of it. Males are typically bigger, bulkier so therefore more materials are used to make their clothing but even then, women's plus sizes, I think are still cheaper than regular males clothing are just about the same. I wonder why this could be?  Is it that women are regular shoppers so the clothes are at lower prices because they shop more and to keep women coming back? Sale racks are also usually cheaper for women too, some $5 or up,  products can be found while Male's sales racks are usually at $10 or up.

When thinking back at some of the things that we have read so far this semester, we could also see that media has been a big part of the social construction, of why women are bigger shoppers than men.  When we look at commercials and television shows, for the most part, women are spotlighted in store advertisements. Yes, there are some men as well but not as much as women. Shows like "Sex and the City", "House Wives of Orange County, Atlanta..etc" all have women that are always so nicely dressed and therefore also contribute to the promotion of clothing, especially some that have their own line of clothes. In the book John Fiske, talks about audience power, the power of the audience to interpret media text, and determine their popularity, far outweighs the ability of media institutions to send a particular message or ideology to audience through their texts (Gauntlet 2002). With this we could see that the commercials and the advertisements that some television programs have, as well as the promotions that other artists make are sending a message to the audience. A message that can promote buying certain brands or items.  All this can also contribute to reasons why stores can also have more women's clothing, than men, because for the most part men are not as interested in clothing as women are or do not have as much time as women. Or because there so much marketing for womens than men that they give women a larger variety of clothes than they do for men.

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