Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

62 Jeanne van Eeden
to offer a new form of community life. Jon Goss therefore alerts us to
the fact that ‘shopping has become the dominant mode of
contemporary public life’ that has in effect colonised other spheres of
activity. 6 In South Africa, the shopping mall has become the preferred
site of entertainment (in cinemas, pubs, restaurants, and such), and
worldwide it has appropriated the place of the former market square
in social life. Critics have observed that the privatisation of public
space in South African cities, represented by the proliferation of
places such as malls, creates ‘whimsical settings for consumption and
pleasure’ that divides space along socio-economic lines but does not
construct meaningful public spaces in post-apartheid society. 7
Shopping malls are therefore a contemporary cultural form or
landscape that deserves to be studied critically from diverse vantage
points. 8
In order to undertake a more detailed analysis of some of these
aspects, I first point out some issues related to shopping and spatial
practice and their alignment with gender. I then trace how spaces
were gendered during nineteenth century modernity and indicate how
this led to the separation of the masculine and feminine spheres. I
then point out the implications of this split for the acts of
consumption and shopping, and lastly explore some of the aspects of
gendered space in shopping malls. Gender politics, (feminist) cultural
geography, and (visual) cultural studies inform this investigation,
which does not pretend to offer a definitive explanation but rather an
exploratory account of some contemporary tendencies that support
retail specialist Paco Underhill’s assertion that ‘shopping is female’. 9
2. Shopping for pleasure
The practice of shopping has elicited extensive academic debate.
Most strands of thought focus on shopping as part of the
commodification of western society that inscribes all manner of
identities and consumer lifestyles. The specific prominence given to
gender and shopping acknowledges that shops have colluded in the
creation of so-called sexual cultures that influence social perceptions
regarding the act of shopping. Many interpretations of malls have
been overwhelmingly negative since they are believed to be
6
Goss (as above).
7 R Marks ‘From densification to Disneyfication. Architecture and urbanism in the
post-apartheid city’ (2001) The Digest of South African Architecture 22, 24.
8
In particular, a detailed historical and ethnographic study of South African
shopping malls needs to be done in order to determine more accurately the
differential use and co-option of mall space than is attempted in this chapter (cf
J Fiske Reading the popular (1989); M Morris ‘Things to do with shopping centres’
in S During (ed) The cultural studies reader (1993) 391; Miller (n 4 above); J van
Eeden ‘“All the mall’s a stage”: the shopping mall as visual culture’ in J van
Eeden & A du Preez (eds) South African visual culture (2005) 39).
9 P Underhill Why we buy. The science of shopping (2000) 113.