Sex is Shopping: A Focus on the Downfall Created for Women

Sex is Shopping: A Focus on the Downfall Created for Women
With the holiday season in stride, there is one societal topic dominating the minds of adults; money. In the capitalistic country we live in today, money is necessary for nearly every aspect of indulgence including love and romance, holidays, vacations, relaxation, presents etc. Nothing is accessible without money. The contemporary looming stock market, depressing recession, declining job market has affected all classes, sexes and especially all relationships. The primary contributors that shop during the holiday season are women. Unfortunately, even with the changing dynamics of families and various relationships, women still do the majority of shopping and spend the money regardless of whether or not they earned the income. However, shopping is not the focus of this paper, but rather the ignition to a larger dilemma. The sexual liberation women find through embracing materialism significantly damages society as whole. To begin, the freedom women embrace in sexuality will be explored. Secondly, the reasoning for women embracing materialism will be inspected. Lastly, how overall damage occurs due to the liberation women find through a consumer society will be evaluated. The main contention being that sexual freedom is found through materialism and has negative conditions for society as a whole will be exemplified through Mark Capote’s film Mean Girls and Truman Capote’s novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Each of the concepts will be analyzed along with the following authors: Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, Chris Barker, Susan Bordo and Jean Baudrillard.

To open, the idea that the freedom women embrace is in sexuality will be expanded upon. Although women have acquired several freedoms in the past few decades, the overriding freedom that women actually embody is through sexuality. Women have become an icon for sexuality more than in any other time period. Women wear provocative clothing that attracts men instead of for reasons such as comfort, sustainability, or even independent choice. In Capote’s text, the main character Holly Golightly is a young attractive female who seeks after the attention of males. Usually, this attention is gained through the clothing she wears which reflects the materialistic state that enraptures this society. She is initially described by the clothing upon her, a “slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker” (12). Rather than identifying her personality traits, sexuality is exuded by the basic black dress, the scantiness of sandals and the richness of a young woman in pearls. Men are attracted to this sort of attire and it creates an image of a young, beautiful, autonomous woman. Although sometimes this analysis of materials defining a person is ignored or deemed untrue, it is undeniably part of daily life. Likewise, Holly Golightly clothes herself in a robe with nothing underneath when she sneaks upstairs through the fire escape. Although this may seem unmaterialistic because her body is bare, she still resorts to her sexuality as an object she can use to sell to men. Although there are other freedoms for women, the noteworthy ingredient is that this is the portion they embrace. There are attempts to find equality in spaces such as the workplace and the home but these have not yet been achieved. In the movie Mean Girls, the main character Cady Heron is made over took look like less of the “girl next door type” to a sexpot. Her popularity grows the shorter her skirts become and the more makeup she piles on. As Aaron Samuels, the desirable male, becomes attracted to Cady, she embraces this sexuality by flirting incessantly. Many might argue that confidence is raised when women contribute to societal consumption and sexuality is merely a byproduct, however, the confidence is artificial since it is through materialism. Chris Barker explains, “[C]ultural studies has developed a form of cultural materialism that is concerned to explore how and why meanings are inscribed at the moment of production […] [C]ultural studies has been concerned with: who owns and controls cultural production; the distribution mechanisms for cultural products; the consequences of patterns of ownership and control for contours of the cultural landscape” (9)The truth of this statement is that men are in control and that men make the women allured to this power through sexuality. Materialism is unquestionable in society and evokes a sense of sexuality for women. The ownership component is inevitable in fashion for women and is a sure way of expressing sexuality.

Since women embrace this sexuality, it is also leads to the acceptance of materialism as principal. With women as the majority shoppers, the objectifying of women is affirmative. In Breakfast at Tiffany’ the men in Holly’s life expect that they can offer her money in order to make her happy. With the money, she can buy whatever clothing or gifts she desires and she only desires the best. This exchange alone is representative of the modern materialistic realm. Holly goes weekly to visit a notorious inmate in exchange for money. This is the addictive manner capitalism produces. Women who previously had no means to making money will now do anything in order to establish a mound of meaningless materials. This sad practice is accepted as Susan Bordo indicates; “Popular culture does not apply any brakes to these fantasies of re-arrangement and transformation” (1100). In Mean Girls, Cady is addressed and judged by the clothing she wears on the first day of school, including a bracelet that looks homemade. It is only later on that we learn that she is comparatively intelligent. Also in Mean Girls, when Cady is made over by the Plastics, she is immediately perceived differently by the other students. But why? Objects are an imperative part of defining society. Materials, especially clothing, enable women to make themselves distinctive from other women and therefore may make them more attractive as compared to other women. Chris Barker states, “Culture does not float free of the material conditions of life” (46). Also, women have a tremendous amount of varying options for clothing that can easily them separate from men in a patriarchal period. Culturally, women have to appear unrelated to their biological opposite. Although they must distinguish themselves as unique, they are undoubtedly linked. Jacques Derrida explains “Every concept is necessarily and essentially, inscribed in a chain or a system, within which it refers to another and to other concepts, by the systematic play of differences” (392). Males are still in power while women are the “other”. Women and men are linked yet one still holds more power. Men and women could be considered opposites yet would not exist without the other and could not be fully described. Both female protagonists fight another counter whether it is a mean group of girls or the men that are trying to capture them. Michel Fouccault says, “[N]ever have there existed more centers of power; never more attention manifested and verbalized; never more circular contacts and linkages; never more sites where the intensity of pleasures and the persistency of power catch hold” (691). That struggle for power between the men and the “other” is constituted by society and its consumption and relies on the relationship between the two. One counterargument would be that the more materials owned, the more power a woman possesses yet, the more attention that is paid to the characters and their material state, the more powerful they “seem”. Their lacking qualities and insecurities are instead covered by materials but still exist.
Lastly, women finding liberation through a consumer society is damaging overall. Women strive to become the sexual objects that men have created through their ideas. When incorporating themselves to these ideas or choosing to remain natural, they are becoming part of a group. For example, when Regina George in Mean Girls, the leader of the Plastics, wears sweatpants to school on a day when it does not agree with the rules, she is deemed inferior. This separation of society whether it is on a large scale or a smaller community lacks the idea of utilitarianism. Unfortunately, material possessions now seemingly create a greater definition of persons. Barker states, “[T]he moment of consumption is also a moment of meaningful production. The moment of consumption marks one of the processes by which we are formed as persons” (11). For the characters in the novel and the movie, we access their inner qualities by examining their possessions. This practice is destructive since the materials are being judged instead of individuals, as if judging is necessary at all. Barker also notes, “However, consumption-orientated cultural studies argues that meanings are produced, altered and managed at the level of use by people who are active producers of meaning” (50). Those with the power have the ability to shape the meaning they desire. Basically, the consumption of society is the abridgement between women and their sexuality. Men have created women to be sexual objects and by the participation of women in the consumer society, they are actually forgiving of the freedom they possess. In Holly’s story, she is considered free when she is able to be sexually innocent. When the man she is engaged to breaks it off and she is no longer on the typical pedestal of becoming a wife, she feels more free and able to surmount any negative obstacle. Also, Cady is freed when she reveals the clothing on the outside matches her demeanor in personality. When she is not dolled up in another person’s material ideal but alternatively in a simple astute outfit of jeans and a long-sleeve henley. Jean Baudrillard describes the reasoning as, “Consumer society (objects, products, advertising), for the first time in history offers the individual the opportunity for total fulfillment and liberation; The system of consumption constitutes an authentic language, a new culture; when pure and simple consumption is transformed into a means of individual and collective expression” (410). Although this distinctiveness in style serves as a way to distinguish people, it is still enveloped in the vision of the creator. There is no freedom in developing a person to a perfect idea, as Bordo explains “that we are surrounded by homogenizing and normalizing images-images whose content is far from arbitrary, but instead is suffused with the dominance of gendered, racial, class and other cultural iconography- seems so obvious as to be almost embarrassing” (1101). Both characters are eventually freed in a diminutive sense when they are allowed their own individual “style” and materialism and which is the instant their sexuality shines through. While these texts serve as examples of the negative features of how materialism limits freedom and sexuality, both women eventually return to their naturalistic and basic states. Overall, “Mean Girls” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” show how society is divided and damaged through the covering of materials in place of intangible values.

In conclusion, sadly in the female world, women find their sexuality through materialism. They are pursued as sexual objects that the men have created themselves. The participatory effect that materialistic shopping has had on women overall has been negative. Beauty is skewed to be unnatural but through materialism it is fun and exciting. This thrill is reached through the impossibility expensive maintainability of the never-ending fashion and technology of society. A further distinction between the sexes has occurred while the power has not budged. The negative conditions of the freedom women express through society are irresistible. So while in the holiday spirit, are you purchasing for the ideal or for the natural, because the two are not the same. The superficial world has arrived.