The Sign and Science of Shopping

               Reading the essay, The Signs of Shopping, by Anna Norton gave me a complete different perspective about shopping.  Norton state that shopping is a “subversive activity for women”, this is like saying something about men and sports.  Her claim about female shoppers is the average stereotypical truth, but it is not like that for all female shoppers. Not all female shoppers use shopping as a subversive activity. She states that in society women shop to relieve stress and it is a time where they are intimately enjoying it.  Norton also claimed that women are socially dependent on men because of their money. She thinks that women identities are made of “possession of property and the recognition of their dependence. I find that this kind of statement may be accurate a couple decades ago, but it is not the same anymore. Women are independent and they are capable of providing for themselves.

                The mall is one of the strangest places where people would shop. Norton states that “the mall has something of the Mercado, or the agora, about it. It has both a place of meeting for the young and one of the rare places where young and old go together. “It is very rare for a place where old and young people could agree on, but the mall somehow places different age groups in a place where they are doing one thing, which is shopping. Norton also explains some of the signs that reflect the space of the mall. I agree with Norton about how the malls catch our attention by using visible things to catch our attention. They influence our space a lot by having commodities that are wants in life , but not necessities.  It is also true that store hanging a variety of identities on their racks and mannequin. They use this as a source of luring people to change their identities.

                The Science of Shopping is another article that states an excellent source also about shopping. Out of the whole blog, I think that the idea of what Paco Underhill said about banks and stores is true. To create a business right next to a bank means asking to go bankrupt. For myself I see the bank as a place to exchange money and the stores near it makes it seem like I am just passing by it. Store tends to attract customers in many ways. The local stores around my area are walking distances. That was the way things were built back in the early days, but now there are many construction of homes that looks just like apartment complexes in new York. There are people living in the top of stores and restaurants. I think this is the new way of living because most of their resources are there for them already. By doing this, the businesses in that area will have 100% guarantee that their business would at least make minimum revenue.