I read this in the New York Times yesterday, and it didn’t sit well with me. Here is a quote:
But on this day I’ve come not to bury Abercrombie. I am here to observe my daughter and her two friends make their way around a suburban mall to help me understand why shopping seems to have become an acceptable hobby, even an obsession, among some young girls. And to see how stores like Abercrombie and American Eagle Outfitters, as well as luxury brands, successfully court these young girls and turn them into customers.
This is why it bothered me:
1) It seems to be promoting the idea that girls are materialistic and superficial, and I don’t know that young girls are any more materialistic than boys.
2) These kids who don’t have a job or any money are getting designer clothes. Why would any parent pay for a 10 year old to have “Juicy Couture”? Why?
3) It is the most class biased piece of writing I have seen in a long time, and the author seems utterly unwilling to acknowledge that.
There are other things that I just can’t put my finger on since my brain is toast (always happens at the end of the semester). BTW, I love Juliet Schor, the sociologist mentioned in the article. Here is a really good article I have the students in my mass media class read on the politics of consumerism.
Go read it and tell me what you think.
My god, is this article saying that twelve-year old girls follow trends?! That’s COMPLETELY INSANE!
This article bothered me because it is making an issue out of something that just isn’t an issue. Yes, it’s ridiculous that parents spend $60 on a bracelet for a tween, but that is something that the upper classes have been doing forever. Maybe this article is freaking out because it seems like the middle class is doing it as well.
In 2005, Ms. Liebmann quantified that impact and was “astounded” to find that parents said 75 percent of their children under 13 had some say — always or occasionally — on the purchases of home décor for their own room. Forty percent had some say in the skin care products they used, 45 percent on hair care products, 65 percent on sneakers and 58 percent on jeans.
Now, why is it astounding that children under 13 are allowed to have “a say” in their clothing? Why shouldn’t a ten-year-old be allowed to say, “Those jeans suck. Can’t I try on these instead?” Shouldn’t a child be allowed to give input to bedroom decor? Why should parents be forcing their clothing choices on kids? We aren’t talking about four year olds; the quote says “children under 13.”
This reminds me of the “omg teens dance sexy-like!” articles that have been everywhere lately. Instead of examining the culture of consumerism and manufactured sexiness, the articles just hem and haw about girls having choices.
Thanks, I needed this:
I remember 12 year olds of 20 years ago….My, how time *haven’t* changed.
(I will add, this is far from the only classist article in the NYT. There was one this past week about girls being “perfect,” i.e., high-achieving and bound for private four-year colleges.)
Oh yeah, on the NYT and class. They are really classist. In fact, the NYT is how I learn about upper middle class and upper class people. Growing up in southern Ohio, much of this was completely out of my realm of existence. New York has been a baptism by fire for me, and I thought the Hartford Connecticut area was bourgeois. Then, I moved to suburban NYC. OMG, it is awful, absolutely awful.
Donna, thanks for pulling out that list from the Schor article.
Everyone should read that article.
From the list above:
Wouldn’t this just make the high-end status goods even more exclusive, thus strengthening their ability to function as status symbols?
More generally, has an attempt to stamp out the drive to compete for status ever been successful? Or is there at least a good reason to believe that it can be? Even if we could completely eliminate income and wealth inequality without causing an economic catastrophe, people would still find some other way to establish a pecking order (consider, for example, the provenance of the term “pecking order”). It’s not clear to me that this is something that’s going to go away come the revolution.
You’re welcome, Rachel. Before I saw this article today, I felt alot of pressure to achieve a lifestyle based on “luxury, expensiveness, exclusivity, rarity, uniqueness, and distinction” as opposed to a lifestyle that is “democratic, egalitarian, accessible”. No one spells these things out for you.
It’s more interesting to me that the parents shell out the money for designer stuff. Where’s their collective spines? Of course the girls want to wear what is declared the “in” thing by the alpha girls. A great many girls are lemmings at that age. That’s why I like the idea of school uniforms – remove as many status symbols as possible from the daily school scene.
I grew up in that class, and the uniforms helped disguise the fact that I wasn’t a clotheshorse and didn’t really care – it made geekitude slightly less visible. But I don’t remember such intense label lust back in the late ’60s.
Oh geez. My daughter just turned 11 (yesterday!) and as far as I can tell she doesn’t even think about this stuff. Nearly all of her clothes are hand-me-downs from her four teenaged cousins, at least two of whom do think about and buy this stuff, but as far as I can tell DD only cares if it’s sparkly or pretty, not what label is on it. At this stage I try very hard not to care what she wears unless it’s way inappropriate for the weather, or *so* garishly mismatched as to hurt my eyes. (She has no color sense whatsoever.)
The day will come, though: we live in a fairly upscale town, and I’m told high school can get ugly competitive in all kinds of ways. I’d thought about sports and grades, hadn’t even considered labelmania. I think I’d better print out that list and paste it on my mirror. Maybe hers too.
Am I a Bad Bad Mom even to allow her to wear label clothes, even if I didn’t pay for them?
If I don’t let her wear ANY label clothes in a few years when she’s outgrown the hand-me-downs, and all the other kids ostracize her, is that really a good thing? Should we move to the backwoods, if there are even backwoods to move to any more? I want to be a good mom and raise her to be a good strong woman, truly I do, but I had at least 50 kids picking on me every day of junior high, and I really really don’t know if that much suffering is good for the soul.
I suppose I should jump off these bridges when I get to them.
I don’t think the article’s author was implying that girls are any more materialistic than boys are. She was talking about an experience with her daughter and her daughter’s friends. Perhaps she doesn’t have any sons (or at least none in that age group) and therefore hasn’t had the same opportunity to observe young boys shopping till they drop.
Shorter version of article: I edit Marie Claire magazine, and am astonished to find that my daughter has an inane fixation on fashion and image.
I agree with Batgirl and outlier. This is such a non-issue. Twenty years ago, the hot items were Izod, Polo, Pappagallos and Limited / Hunters Run for those who were slumming it. Nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing. Yawn. What kind of idiot thinks that this is new news, or worth writing about?
And of course my 14 and 15 yo daughters have had input on their room decor for quite a few years now. As well as their skin care or hair care products. For what possible reason wouldn’t they?
100 points to Anne for great truth.
Possible reason to forbid it: Mother or father are control freaks. Of course, if you aren’t a control freak, this didn’t occur to you.
“Perhaps she doesn’t have any sons (or at least none in that age group) and therefore hasn’t had the same opportunity to observe young boys shopping till they drop.”
Paul,
The image of teenage girls shopping til they drop is much more prevalent in the media than the image of boys doing the same. Therefore, the concept that this article feeds into an impression of women as more materialistic than men is derived from context, rather than a single article.
I thought about that for a second. Than I wondered if maybe she was just looking for a personal ‘hook’ and doesn’t have any sons. Whether it was intended to or not whether it was true/innocent or not it reinforces the stereotype. Than it occurred to me that since the stereotype is teenage girls shopping until they drop an article that included reference to boys as well as girls would have been more interesting. Especially if it had some way to measured teen consumer habits and was able to compare buying patterns over time. Than I realized that this was just another article about how these damn kids today are lazy/spoiled/not as good as we used to be and gave up.
Yeah, I know what you mean, joe. I did magazine journalism part-time my last couple years of college, and you definitely do write crap just because it has that ‘hooky’ quality.
It’s still not really an excuse (not that you’re making it one, but…). I once took a class that concentrated on Africa’s political economy, and we looked at the reportage, and lo and behold, Africans live in huts. And, as a writer, I’m sitting there going, “of course they live in huts; you save words by calling them that. and get descriptive power at the same time.”
But of course the descriptive power you get by calling an African house a hut, where you’d call the same house something else in the United States, is descriptive power that relies on cliche — you’re tapping into the cultural stock image of what Africa looks like. As well as having problematic social implications, it’s lazy writing.
Twenty years ago, the hot items were Izod, Polo, Pappagallos and Limited / Hunters Run for those who were slumming it.
No way, dewd! The hot items were Farlow jeans, Guess, ID, and Nike’s.
Mandolin and Joe:
I see your point, but I still think it’s important to remember that we’re talking about an autobiographical essay about the author’s experiences with a particular group of people, all of whom were “tween-aged” girls (and presumably all from an upper-Middle to upper-class suburban community outside New York City).
Perhaps the author could have prefaced her article with a series of disclaimers:
“This article is based on the author’s experiences with a group of girls ages 11 to 13 at an Abercrombie & Fitch store in an upper-middle class neighborhood outside New York City. This article should not be read as endorsing the idea that all girls ages 11 t0 13 at Abercrombie & Fitch stores in upper-middle class neighborhoods outside New York City engage in the same behaviors. Nor does the author intend to suggest that girls are any more or less likely to engage in these behaviors than are boys, that children ages 11 to 13 are any more or less likely to engage in these behaviors than are children in other age groups, that people from upper-middle class neighborhoods are any more or less likely to engage in these behaviors than are people from other socio-economic backgrounds, that customers at Abercrombie & Fitch stores are more likely to engage in these kinds of behavior than are customers at other retailers, or that persons in suburban neighborhoods outside New York City are more or less likely to engage in these behaviors than are people who reside in Manhattan, in the outer boroughs, in other communities in the United States or in other countries.”
Two thoughts:
1. School uniforms are not the answer. Most school uniforms are extremely gender normative. This is hell for gender variant kids.
2. I think it is possible to create situations where rarity and accessibility are not in conflict, especially in regards to non-functional items like art or music. Steve Keene is an extremely interesting artist who has work hanging in the NY MOMA. He’s also got works hanging in my house and a bunch of my friends houses. This is not do to outrageous wealth or luck. He paints a LOT of paintings and sells them really cheap. They’re great. It’s an awesome idea.
I’m inspired by that, so I’m doing a similar project with music commissioning. Arts patronage is the ultimate in conspicuious upper class attention getting. If you buy a paitning, you get the painting, but if you commission music, you getg your name attached to the work forever, but that’s it. However, I’m doing it for $14 / each. It’s thus totally rare and exclusive, but still very accessible (I hope).
The exclusivity in this kind of art, therefore, doesn’t come from monetary capital, but rather cultural capital. I haven’t thought much about how to transfer this same idea to functional consumer goods, but it’s an interesting question that deserves investigation.
I used to buy mugs and other stuff from craft shows. I could get really nice handmade-by-artist stuff for prices that were good for what I was getting. Which is to say that it cost more than k-mart, but less than some mass produced “designer” stuff you might see at a fancy store. This is still less economically accessible than a real painting that costs the same as poster or a music commission that costs the same as an album, but it does offer people nice stuff without a lot of the problems that the mall has.
It’s arguable that the designer (which is to say well-designed) stuff at Target is a democratizing urge to make functional art available to all. I think that argument falls apart, though, when you factor in the working conditions and whatnot for the folks who actually made the stuff. Again, there’s an issue between cultural capital (famous designer) and economic captial (underpaid workers). (Note that I don’t have any specific information about Target, I’m just suspicious in general of mass production and chain stores.)
Paul,
She’s not helpless before her experience. One can sculpt experience to show many different things. If she’s creating an unintentional narrative, she can control it. Writing is a craft.
Paul,
I’m not saying that the author did anything wrong.
I’m saying that even if the author was being 100% accurate and completely well intentioned the article still reinforces the stereotype that girls like to shop.
I’m also saying that it’s a pretty pointless article.
How dare these kids want designer clothes. they should be begging for a nintendo like I was!
Twenty years ago, the hot items were Izod, Polo, Pappagallos and Limited / Hunters Run for those who were slumming it.
No way, dewd! The hot items were Farlow jeans, Guess, ID, and Nike’s.
Fifteen years ago, it was Keds. Oh yeah, white shoes that come with a keychain.
Mandolin:
Let’s say that you were asked to ghost-write an article based on what the author of the article observed and experienced while going shopping with her daughter and her daughter’s friends. What would you have added (or deleted) from the article so that it didn’t enforce the stereotype that girls like to shop more than boys?
Also, even if it can be shown that girls like to shop more than boys (I haven’t read any studies on the subject, so I really don’t know), that doesn’t mean that girls are more materialistic than boys. It may just mean that because of the way they are socialized, they tend to exhibit their materialism differently. I suspect that a lot of 11 – 13 year old boys are every bit as interested in *having* the “right kind” of jeans, or shirts, or shoes, etc., as their female classmates. I’m not sure that getting together with their friends to go shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch is as likely to be a 12 year old boy’s idea of a rip-roaring good time (but I’m certainly open to the possibility that I’m wrong).
I would gather facts & anecdotes, sculpt an outline to hit the facts and anecdotes, and make sure I hit the relevant points.
While being aware, of course, that my choices could be critiqued. As, indeed, anything can be critiqued.
Anne wins!
Paul, what you’re stubbornly not getting is that this is typical me-and-my-friends NYT journalism; the author isn’t merely talking about her daughter, but extrapolating from that to all same-age girls.
Les: the bit about uniforms being gender normative isn’t necessarily true. Where I live (in the UK), in most schools the children wear shirts, jumpers and trousers. Yes, some girls do choose to wear skirts, but it’s nowhere near the majority. Yes, if a boy wanted to wear a skirt, there’d be hell, but that’s true anyway and is part of a much wider social problem.
Who’s Anne? And what does she win?
I’m not really disputing the idea that the author is extrapolating from her daughter and friends to many (if not all) same-age girls. My disagreement is with the idea that the lack of any reference to boys means that author is implying that same-age boys don’t act the same way or that they are less materialistic than girls.
BTW, has anybody seen any actual studies on the shopping habits of girls vs boys? Is the conventional wisdom that girls like to shop more based on fact or is it a myth (a lot of advertising seems to be premised on an assumption that it’s the former)? Also, even if it’s true that girls like to shop more than boys, that doesn’t mean girls are more materialistic. There’s a difference between liking to have things and liking to shop for them.
In comment # 27 crys t talks about children wearing shirts, jumpers and trousers as a typical school uniform. Not all American readers of this blog may know that in the UK a jumper is what we Americans call a pullover sweater, not a sleeveless dress worn over a blouse or sweater :-)
“Who’s Anne? And what does she win?”
Read upthread.
“I’m not really disputing the idea that the author is extrapolating from her daughter and friends to many (if not all) same-age girls. My disagreement is with the idea that the lack of any reference to boys means that author is implying that same-age boys don’t act the same way or that they are less materialistic than girls.”
I think you care more about this individual and author than we do. I certainly think you care a lot more about her intent than we do. We’re talking about a society-wide pattern of representation, wherein shopping and materialism have, yes, been condensed as part of a larger narrative wherein women are portrayed as frivolous (interested in unimportant things) and unable to handle money. Check out a few episodes of _I Love Lucy_.
I think that the specific part of Anne’s comment that made me slap my head in agreement was that . . . hmm . . . okay, there’s this idea that ‘there’s something wrong with the kids’.
You see it in the panic over childhood obesity, you see it in panic over sex, you see it in panic over violence . . . it’s every-freaking-where. The point she made is that, look, what we do as adults is part of the same system. I can’t get all freaked out about materialism and fashion while contributing to Marie Claire any more than a “Bomb Iran” booster really has a right to get all freaked out over youth violence.
If we don’t like it, we need to change the culture, not proclaim ‘one culture for me, one for my kids.’
I think the simpsons/everbody loves raymond/king of queens/life according to jim/whatever have done a decent job of spreading that stereotpe acrss gender lines. Fat dumb lazy guy married to thin pushy competant woman has become a staple.
“I think the simpsons/everbody loves raymond/king of queens/life according to jim/whatever have done a decent job of spreading that stereotpe acrss gender lines. Fat dumb lazy guy married to thin pushy competant woman has become a staple.”
But they support it in gender-conventional ways. Fat, dumb, lazy guy is too fat, dumb, and lazy to be expected to cook or do housework — he’d just make a bigger mess, better leave it to the women, hee hee.
I agree that the materialism in more modern versions (Home Improvements, etc.) is not pinned on the wife, so much as on any available teenage girls.
Yeah, typically the fat dumb lazy guy (FDLG) is too incompetent and unmotivated to anything right. I see it more as a class issue than anything else. The idea that anyone working in a blue collar job is basically Homer Simpson.
My theory (to derail the thread) is that the writers of 30min family sitcoms are lazy and uncreative and can’t come up with anything funny in a family setting other than laughing at an idiot (that or it’s what people actually want). White Guys are the easiest to cast as a buffoon since there aren’t as many historical stereotypes to worry about. They do plenty of class based stereotypes. For instance it’s rare to see the Buffon have any interests outside to sports, centerfold models, beer and machines. But the US isn’t as sensitive about class as about race and gender.
I don’t see this as a problem. Working class white guys seem to be doing well on average. I’m not convinced that self esteem etc. is either critically important or that affected by sit com characters.
as an aside I think Matt Judge has shown done a good job with Hank Hill. King of the hill is funny and at least a little different from the formula.
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I haven’t watched King of the Hill, but that sounds like a good reason to start!
I’ll save the rest of my response (what of it exists, or may exist) for the other thread. ;)
You’re absolutely right. I was concentrating on the author and the intention I thought was being imputed to her. I still disagree with Rachel S.’s (and other’s) take on the article itself, but I’ve already expressed my opinion several times, and so I don’t see any value in belaboring the point further.
On the broader issue of whether girls are stereotyped as being more interested in shopping than boys are, there’s no question that this stereotype is out there. As for whether there’s any truth to the stereotype, I don’t know, but if so, I would guess that it’s more due to the way girls are socialized than to anything else. I think it’s fair to say that girls (especially in the socioeconomic class of the one’s in the article) are taught at a much earlier age to be conscious of their appearance than boys are.
As few as five years ago I attended a school with uniforms and adolescent girls. And I can tell you right now, having uniforms did little to minimize markers. Girls simply found other ways to distinguish themselves from other, “beta” girls; this was mainly accomplished through the use of accessories and hairstyles. However, the markers were there, and they were very distinct. Even how you wore your uniform was a marker. Taking away access to designer clothes won’t limit the human and adolescent instinct to set others apart from “the group”; people will just adapt.