The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective Ess

The Sex of Things Gender and Consumption in Historical sentimentThe Sex of Things is a collection of thirteen essays discussing the social history of expenditure (loosely defined) and gender in France, England, Germany, Italy, and the United States from the eighteenth to the late twentieth century. taking a primarily historical approach to the topic of gender and custom, the contributors uprise from various academic disciplines history, economics, ara studies, English, art history, and gender studies. The contributors contextualize their analyses of gender and consumption historically in visual representations and popular social and political lines of thought. In the introduction, de Grazia lays the groundwork for why we should be concerned with how gender impacts the study of consumption. simple nonions of naturally or inevitably identifying the effeminate sex with shopping sprees are challenged in favor of a deeper inquiry into the assumptions revolving around AMr. Breadwi nner and AMrs. Consumer(3). Instead of provided debating whether consumption is liberating or oppressive, these essays are concerned with the study of consumption in terms of the construction of gender roles, class relations, the family, and the state.Essays in the first class relate to the transition of consumption patterns from aristocratic to buttoned-down society. De Grazia locates the growth of bourgeois consumption practices in the Afeminized world of the home, where female heads of household not only were expected to be nurturing and sociable, but were also consumers of food, clothing, and furniture. Through their purchases, these women stash away (for themselves and their children) what Pierre Bourdieu called Acultural capital, b... ...en women and melodrama by consideration of statistical data on the female audience, as well as discursive contributions from popular media. The Sex of Things concludes with selected bibliography by Ellen Furlough, highlighting gender and consumption in historical perspective. The bibliography includes histories of consumption and consumer market-gardening as well as theoretical contributions and contains a number of categories root in feminist research on consumption. These categories include sites of consumption, marketing and figure , spectatorship and reception, production of representations, domesticity, sexuality, appearance, and politics and ideologies of consumption. Each section ranges historically from the Middle Ages to the present. Unfortunately, the bibliography is dominated by Western perspectives only a few of the sources are non-Western in orientation.