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Feminism, Consumption, Fashion
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Reviews McRobbie's article which discusses the nexus between women, feminism, consumption, and fashion.... More...
4 Pages / 900 Words
1 sources, 9 Citations, MLA Format
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Paper Introduction:
Article Analysis In Bridging the Gap Feminism Fashion and Consumption AngelaMcRobbie states that she is writing partly out of a sense offrustration that so much recent writing on women and consumption has beenflawed by an inattention to the processes of exclusion which structure andlimited access to consumption In her discussion of the nexus betweenwomen and consumption and the fashion industry as a feminized sector McRobbie - argues that recent scholarship on consumption does notsufficiently address income differentials and questions of poverty theproblems

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Ultimately, McRobbie (84) argues for a process of reintegrating "thestudy of production and consumption and to foreground not just work andemployment in the production, but also to take into account the changingnature of work and employment." Women are vital actors not only inconsuming fashion but also in producing it - at all levels beginning withthe agricultural production of fibers through to the retailing of fashiongoods. Thus, one of her arguments, bolstered bymultiple references to the theories and studies of others is that there isin adequate attention being given to the roles that are undertaken by womenas consumers of fashion and sellers/creators of fashion. This omission indicates that inadequate attention hasbeen given to the roles played by these women and it suggests that they areperceived albeit erroneously as engaging with consumption from theperspective of exclusion. Women'semployment in the low paid retail sector and in the garment industry aswell as in private service as lady's maids and housekeepers is integral tothe nexus between fashion, consumerism, and feminism. When it comes to both working class and poorwomen as well as minority women, McRobbie (82) claims that it "is difficultto embrace the language of the new consumerist studies without questioningthe terms of participation. Many women would not want to be understood asirritating in the consumer culture with the same casual confidence as theirwhite, middle-class counterparts." Exploring the experience of exclusionsof consumption is therefore designed by McRobbie (82) as a necessity whichmany feminist materialist as well as feminist culturalist writers havefailed to adequately address. From a scholarly perspective as well as apractical one, learning more about the actual relationships betweenwork/production/consumer behavior and gender can only add to our overallunderstanding of the situations in which women are positioned. McRobbie (74) suggests that for many if not most women, from the mid-nineteenth century through the early years of the twentieth century,consumption was an aggravated activity that was linked with the necessityof both paid work and unpaid work in the home where women consumed fashionitems as the precursor for further domestic labor. Contemporary writers,who McRobbie (75) describes as either materialists or cultural feministsoften fail to understand or to discount the material context of theproduction of consumption. A failure to recognize the inherent complexity of the relationshipbetween women, work/production, and consumption is a failure tospecifically understand how modernity has brought about changes in thelives of women. Given that women's place in contemporary society hasundergone rapid changes particularly after the last century, it isimportant to move beyond discussion of women as consumers to analysis ofwomen's roles in the production of consumption. McRobbie (74) maintainsthat a major problem with the scholarship on this subject is that "on bothsides of the Atlantic the imagined female consumer was invariably white andalmost always middle class. Running throughout McRobbie's (87) narrative are multiple referencesto the scholarship of other feminist and non-feminist writers. "Bridging the Gap: Feminism, Fashion, and Consumption." Feminist Review, Spring 1997, 55: 73-89. Article Analysis In "Bridging the Gap: Feminism, Fashion, and Consumption," AngelaMcRobbie (73) states that she is writing "partly out of a sense offrustration that so much recent writing on women and consumption has beenflawed by an inattention to the processes of exclusion which structure andlimited access to consumption." In her discussion of the nexus betweenwomen and consumption and the fashion industry as a feminized sector,McRobbie (8 -81) argues that recent scholarship on consumption does notsufficiently address income differentials and questions of poverty, theproblems of consumption, and the lack of policies which make the fashionindustry as a predominantly female workplace a poor place to work. Equally compelling in the view of McRobbie (82) is that newconsumerist studies tend to investigate the position of black and Asianwomen as consumers. Anynumber of issues are addressed by the author who takes issue with feministtheorists and cultural historians who tend to use a narrow view ofconsumption and who most significantly ignore all but the most affluent orat least comfortably situated women consumers. Here again, theauthor uses a variety of historical sources to establish her centralarguments, noting that "class, gender, and ethnicity have to be continuallyre-interrogated for their meaning and they also have to be 'thoughttogether'" (81). Most of the studies of consumption offashion by women have tended to ignore the production of consumption,focusing as noted above on a select group of women and not on women as awhole. Thesereferences comprise the support that she acquires for her arguments whichare not based upon either statistical data or anecdotes. It is this inequity in the literature that McRobbie (78) argues thattends to ignore the fact that with respect to fashion, women have been asengaged in the production of consumption as in consumption itself. Her call for amore collaborative and integrated approach to understanding what is anextremely complex and longstanding relationship or set of relationships isultimately quite valid. McRobbie (77) says that "the emphasis in the new consumerist studiesis on what women and girls do with consumer goods and with how commoditiesgive rise to meaning making processes which are frequently at odds with theintended meaning or usage." Having gained "public freedom in the newdepartment stores," women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,become key actors in what McRobbie (77-78) characterizes as theperpetuation of class inequalities. Work CitedMcRobbie, Angela.

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