Fiske & Jordan Journal 5/30 - Leigh Bagood

In Shopping for Pleasure, Fiske explores the consumer power of women in a patriarchal world. I believe the consumer power of women is a form of cultural resistance that is both counter-hegemonic and contradictory. Shopping is cultural resistance as it challenges the position of women in households and transforms shopping into exertions of consumer power and expressive liberation. I think it also represents women’s economic power as they demonstrate their freedom to spend their individual earnings, which is a powerful statement considering men are traditionally viewed as family breadwinners. However, this can also be viewed as contradictory considering the free market as predominantly male. As the article states, the majority of shops women feed into are not created by women, so in a way women are still commodities in the patriarchal world as the survival of the market is dependent on their spending. In addition, shopping can be driven by trends and culturally hegemonic ideals imposed on women by the predominantly male society through commercialism. However, it is power in that women have the freedom to feed into this culture or not, and the market is highly dependent on their agency.
In The Art of Necessity, Jordan talks about DIY protests as an innovation of historical forms of political action. These types of street protests use art and culture to bring their statements alive. This reminded me of the videos we watched in class about flash mobs in India which incorporated Bollywood dance into their political statements. I think these contemporary forms of protest are extremely powerful in that they reach a wider audience by making their statements through the culture of the common people. By enabling freedom of expression and utilizing public space, more people are encouraged to participate, the message is more widespread, and the oppressors are weakened by the massivity of their actions.

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