Gender Roles

I would like to talk about the gender roles on the background of consumerism. 

In the reading about the early department stores it was mentioned how shopping became a predominantly female activity, in this way dividing and stiffening gender roles even further. I have a feeling that consumer culture was influences by gender roles rather than vice versa. The difference in gender roles always existed so it seems more likely that consumerism was the one joining in and internalizing the existing social event. 

What I want to focus on is the personal experience I had back home in Georgia. I used to spend my summers in the countryside with my cousins. There are two of them, both boys around my age. We got and get along really well and sometimes we had informal discussions about things. And several times the discussion was about what kind of labor a male consumer should do. Of course this was not the phrasing at the time. Everything started with one of our super old Soviet bikes breaking down. After gathering all the parts someone had to do the repairing. My cousins were quite good at it and that’s where the argument started. The idea was that since I could not repair bikes by myself I was lacking something from being able to be called a “boy”. Later the conversation moved to cars, cell phones and soccer and not knowing much about these either I was further pressed with the idea of not having the required knowledge and understanding of certain things that was supposed to make me more masculine. I did not and still do not understand what was the logic behind this required knowledge. My answer was usually a question why, to which my cousins did not have a satisfying reply; the answer I got was: “You should know about cars and cell phones because that’s what boys like” or simply almost outraged comments on my dislike for soccer, later followed by invitations to play the game to make me like it – “You’ll get embarrassed in the future if you don’t start liking it.” 

Another short episode I remember is from high school. Two of my classmates, a boy and a girl were having a conversation about the differences in the likes of genders. The boy was trying to act girly and mimic the girls’ excitement with nice or fashionable clothes while the girl said: “At least it’s better than uselessly knowing every screw and bolt of a car!” 

Since I am not from US myself I do not know if people from our class will find this episode familiar or not. For some reason I would expect a somewhat different situation here. One thing that should be pointed out is that in Georgia the gender roles are stricter, which would actually be a sort of evidence for the idea of gender roles influencing consumerism. This would mean that consumerism is flexible and is able to internalize the preexisting cultural particularities. Or to say it better consumerism adjusts itself to the culture it enters and depending on the culture creates a different set of problems and influences.