Equality in Clothing Stores

Happy Tuesday (again!) I am going to try to make a blog post every Tuesday for ten weeks in a row. It is the only day I do not have class so keeping up with it should be pretty easy.

During the first couple of Women's Studies classes, we got on the topic of gender equality; my Gender and Discourse class also had a focus discussion about how much more privilege men have versus women. Our discussions included the wage gap, political figures in office, the negative stigmas of men and sex, etc. There is definitely one area where women have an extreme advantage over men: clothes shopping and variety of stores.

Let me give you an example to illustrate the point I'm trying to make. The Fox River Mall, located in Appleton, WI has an extensive variety of clothing stores - http://www.foxrivermall.com/directory. Without counting the department stores, (Target, Younkers, etc...) I counted 38 stores that sell women's clothing. An overwhelming number of stores are exclusive for women too, such as Discovery Clothing, Aerie, Ann Taylor, Catherine's, Victoria's Secret, Christopher & Banks, the Deb, J. Jill, Maurices, White House Black Market... do I need to go on? Only 12 stores sell men's clothing and four of them are exclusive to men – which are all formal-wear .

I went to Panama City Beach in late August 2012 with family (and obviously did some shopping, too.) We went to an outdoor mall where the clothing store ratio was the same as I was used to anywhere else. As I was walking by Forever 21, I noticed an advertisement for men's clothing. I walked in to check it out and had a pretty good laugh at the selection. I was trying to think outside the box in terms of my fashion palate and almost bought a shirt, but realized I would probably never wear it - http://www.forever21.com/Product/Category.aspx?br=21men&category=m_whatsnew. It is at least a good attempt to expand their consumer prospects even though the “men's section” took up about 10% of the entire store.

So for the men:

1) What do you think about the tiny selection of clothing we have to choose from in comparison to the ladies?

2) Would you like to see more clothing stores exclusive to men, or just more equality among stores? Why?

For the women:

1) Do you think I should just stop complaining already? 

2) What do you think about my observation?

Roommates and Gender Performance

Happy Tuesday! For my second blog post, I would like to focus on one personal experience of gender performance in the media. It would be helpful to view the media before reading on, so I have enclosed the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5_i4cC6ls I believe the commercial was originally aired sometime in the fall of last year.

To preface this post, I would like to explain the reason this commercial has gained my attention in the first place. I live with two roommates, one male (Jason) and one female (Kim,) who both have a bachelors degree from UW-LaCrosse and Marquette University, respectfully. When we saw the commercial for the first time, we all happened to be watching TV and Jason and Kim started a small discussion about the boy's selection of toys. During the first couple scenes, Kim mentioned, “apparently this boy is playing 'house' by himself.” After the boy realizes his father came home, Jason remarked, ”Oh now he's got to explain why he was playing with Barbies.” I sat quietly and listened to the dialogue but ultimately never gave my opinion on the commercial at the time; I tend to remain relatively unbiased towards petty debates. I would assume the boy has a sister for the female gendered toys to be present in the first place so if I was his father, I wouldn't think twice about him playing with a pink horse trailer, purple-haired dolls, or Barbie houses.

One of the comments posted on YouTube was, “I never understood why the kid is playing with girl's toys... maybe he has a sister? But at the end of the commercial it's just him, his mom and dad outside... no sister... I guess he's confused about his sexuality.” Another post commented, “I think it's great that they show a little boy defying gender stereotypes and playing with both trucks and dolls in the innocent way all kids can. Good job Chevy!”

So what do you think? If you were a parent of a young boy about his age, do you think you would notice his gender performance, or would you dismiss the concept as young innocence? If he was playing with the toys and a girl about the same age was in the room with him, would the context of the boy's gender performance change?

Introduction and Observation

Welcome to my blog for the Introduction to Women's Studies 201 class I am taking during the Fall, 2012 semester! Since this is my first blog post, I will quickly introduce myself. My name is Christopher Noack and I am a senior at the Univeristy of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, majoring in speech communication with a minor in organizational communication https://twitter.com/cjnoack12. I am taking this women's studies course not only as elective credits, but also because I enjoy gender studies. I am enrolled in the Gender and Discourse (Communication/Women's Studies 316) this semester and I have already taken Gender in Communication Contexts (Communication 436) last winter interim. I am graduating in May, 2013 and I hope to use this blog as a possible professional reference – I will still speak very openly about what I think and believe with some examples from my own experience, while maintaining a professional composure.

For this specific blog post, I would like to highlight a personal observation example of gender in the workplace. I currently work at the Bergstrom Buick-GMC Truck dealership located in Appleton www.bergstromappletonbuick.com. We are currently undergoing a $2,000,000 renovation – almost a complete overhaul of the store's showroom and service departments. The dealership employs a ratio of approximately 90% male vs. 10% female workers, with 100% of the female employees enrolled in administrative and sales roles. About five years ago there were a few female employees working in the detail departments, but we have generally lost our female population in that service industry for our store. During the renovation, the wall between the men and women's bathroom/locker room in the service department was demolished, resulting in the creation of one large changing room for the male gender only. As soon as I noticed this, I immediately had come up with my first blog post idea. Since the workplace is more about gender equality in the year 2012 than ever before, it surprised me this change was made.

I asked myself three questions,

1) What if in the future we end up employing female detail or service technicians?

2) Would this be a form of discrimination?
3) Have any other employees in the company noticed this change? Or has anyone else thought as critically about the removal of a woman's bathroom as I have?

I spoke to the few female co-workers of mine about the renovation; most of them didn't even know the change had taken place, but ultimately expressed and questioned the same concerns as I have. I had to somewhat play devil's advocate to get some of the rational behind the change – some of the male co-workers had commented, “Of the .05% of women in the service field who would ever be employed at this dealership, they can use the women's bathroom in the showroom.” What do you think? Comment on your thoughts! Thanks again for checking out my blog... more posts to come.