The sex of things : gender and consumption in historical perspective / edited by Victoria de Grazia, with Ellen Furlough ; introductions by Victoria de Grazia.
Material type:
TextPublication details: Berkeley : University of California Press, c1996.Description: x, 433 p. : ill. ; 24 cmISBN: - 0520201973
- 658.8 DEG
| Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Loan | LSAD Library Main Collection | 658.8 DEG (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 39002000201781 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
This volume brings together the most innovative historical work on the conjoined themes of gender and consumption. In thirteen pioneering essays, some of the most important voices in the field consider how Western societies think about and use goods, how goods shape female, as well as male, identities, how labor in the family came to be divided between a male breadwinner and a female consumer, and how fashion and cosmetics shape women's notions of themselves and the society in which they live. Together these essays represent the state of the art in research and writing about the development of modern consumption practices, gender roles, and the sexual division of labor in both the United States and Europe.
Covering a period of two centuries, the essays range from Marie Antoinette's Paris to the burgeoning cosmetics culture of mid-century America. They deal with topics such as blue-collar workers' survival strategies in the interwar years, the anxieties of working-class consumers, and the efforts of the state to define women's--especially wives' and mothers'--consumer identity. Generously illustrated, this volume also includes extensive introductions and a comprehensive annotated bibliography. Drawing on social, economic, and art history as well as cultural studies, it provides a rich context for the current discourse around consumption, particularly in relation to feminist discussions of gender.
pt. 1. Changing consumption regimes: Introduction / Victoria de Grazia -- Coquettes and grisettes: women buying and selling in ancien régime Paris / Jennifer Jones -- The making of the self-made man: class, clothing, and English masculinity, 1688-1832 / David Kuchta -- The gendering of consumer practices in nineteenth-century France / Leora Auslander -- The other side of Venus: the visual economy of feminine display / Abigail Solomon-Godeau -- pt. 2. Establishing the modern consumer household: Introduction / Victoria de Grazia -- A husband and his wife\'s dresses: consumer credit and the debtor family in England, 1864-1914 / Erika Rappaport -- Male providerhood and the public purse: anti-desertion reform in the progressive era / Anna R. Igra -- Living on the margin: working-class marriages and family survival strategies in the United States, 1919-1941 / Susan Porter Benson -- The technological revolution that never was: gender, class, and the diffusion of household appliances in interwar England / Sue Bowden and Avner Offer -- pt. 3. Empowering women as citizen-consumers: Introduction / Victoria de Grazia -- Food scarcity and the empowerment of the female consumer in World War I Berlin / Belinda Davis -- Making up, making over: cosmetics, consumer culture, and women\'s identity / Kathy Peiss -- Nationalizing women: the competition between fascist and commercial culture models in Mussolini\'s Italy / Victoria de Grazia -- Deviantpleasures?: women, melodrama, and consumer nationalism in West Germany / Erica Carter -- Soft sell: marketing rhetoric in feminist criticism / Rachel Bowlby -- Gender and consumption in historical perspective: a selected bibliography / Ellen Furlough.