Assignments: Batch One: Assignment 6

Illustrate and critically discuss gender-differentiated visual merchandising in shops within Aberystwyth or your own home town.

Guidance

For general guidance about what is expected in your essays for this module, see the general criteria.

What Key Features Do I Look For?

  • Familiarity with relevant texts
  • Evidence - the stronger the better
  • Argument - coherent and balanced
  • Theoretical discussion - relation to relevant theories
  • Understanding of relevant concepts
  • Reflexivity - reflections on methodology
  • Examples - insightfully analysed
  • Style - readability and effective presentation

Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here.

Advice for this particular assignment: Many shops have permanently separate sections for men and women (especially in relation to clothing). In addition, some shops introduce temporary sections 'for him' and 'for her' (or 'boys' and 'girls'), often seasonally based: e.g. Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day and Christmas (the latter notably in relation to children). For instance, on some of these occasions there may be a special display of 'gift ideas' such as perfumes or DVDs 'for him' and 'for her'. Try to document such differentiate photographically (as far as is possible within what shops are prepared to tolerate). You may refer where appropriate to supporting evidence from advertising campaigns and from marketing demographics but remember that this assignment is primarily about point of sale material and in-store visual merchandising. Remember that, whatever the sources of your ideas, you should employ an explictly semiotic framework. You are expected to demonstrate your understanding of relevant semiotic concepts, in particular signifier, signified, syntagm, paradign and codes and the commutation test. Use the commutation test, for instance, to imagine what might happen if you took a visual feature associated with one sex and replaced it with the equivalent feature associated with the other sex.

What do the contrasts you have noted reveal about the construction involved in the representation of gender? In discussing sex and gender, remember the distinction: 'sex' being a biological category and 'gender' a cultural category. If you are talking about males and females then you refer to sex (as in 'the two sexes'); if you are talking about masculinity and femininity then you refer to (constructions of) gender (see Chandler & Munday 2011). The concept of 'the opposite sex' only makes sense symbolically, but in our constructions of social reality, such symbolism is fundamental. Do not assume that women will naturally share certain preferences just because they are women (that is called naive gender essentialism). Try to avoid sentences that start with generalizations such as 'all women...', 'women naturally...', 'female preferences' or 'the female mind'.

This essay needs substantial illustration, particularly with photographs (ideally, many of these should be your own); essays with minimal illustration will lose marks for this. Remember to include a list labelled either Figures or Image sources after your list of References. Try to group related images together for comparison and contrast in order to assist your discussion. Do not take photographs in commercial premises without asking permission first. Note that if you take photographs featuring people's faces that you must obtain permission first: use a consent form explaining that you are doing this for educational and research purposes only. Anyone featured will need to sign such a form granting you permission to use such photographs for these purposes only; pixelate out faces of bystanders where you have no such form. Any consent forms used must form part of your submission.

Although this is effectively 'a photographic essay' the same criteria will be employed as for other written assignments, so do not neglect such essential features as the discussion of relevant academic sources. Only some of the books on the suggested reading are explicitly semiotic and you may need to recast their insights within a semiotic framework.

Some suggested reading

Note: Treat with extreme caution sources labelled with this symbol!


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