Consuming

Two books from the long reading list were very similar in theme:

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketer's Schemes by Sharon Lamb

Both were about the marketing that is done to young girls, preparing them to constantly be buying goods and services.

Packing was much longer, so had more information on types of merchandising. Even for relatively young girls there are lifestyle magazines and novels that are actually catalogs, and many toys have web components that provide the opportunity for more brand association and more shopping.

(I'm sure parents of young girls have a much better idea already.)

Packaging was also more scholarly, which has value, but Cinderella is a much shorter and more engaging read. Both pay attention to the psychological effects, though I think Orenstein has a better grasp. Neither was able to offer much in the way of solutions than awareness: know about this, discuss it sometimes, but they are still going to want these products.

Although we have not covered them yet, when we get to The Feminine Mystique and The Beauty Myth, those also have a lot to do with marketing, so there are ways in which they all go together. I am also more aware now of how consumerism is incompatible with environmentalism. It is hard changing things that systemic, so it's a concern.

But the point I will leave with today - I think it came from Orenstein - is a claim that the focus on dieting and weight loss started around the turn of the century. Previously preachers had tended to focus on greed, but as many people were doing really well financially, that became less safe to condemn. Gluttony was also a deadly sin, and about taking more than your share, so it made a good substitute.

That indicates that before, people thought of body size as more like height or hair color - maybe some variations were more popular, but there wasn't pressure to change it.

Now there are many products and services designed to help you change your body size, but it is still almost as difficult to change as your height. (At least changing hair color has gotten much easier.)

The almost guaranteed failure of the products combined with the likelihood of the consumer blaming herself makes it an almost perfect business. Yes, you have to make your offering more attractive than the many competing offerings, but there is still a strongly motivated market.

There are plenty of problems with that, but it's interesting to think that it could have all started as a dodge for ignoring the destructive behavior of capitalists right around that time that "robber barons" and "gilded age" were entering the lexicon.