Blog One

Prompt One: My cultural artifact is a purse. I chose this because I always carried a purse similar to this one even though I was only six with no business having or needing one. It was filled with snacks and cheap play makeup that target sells to little girls that want to play makeover with. I was compelled to choose my childhood purse because it was something I adopted from watching grown women. They always carried purses around and wore makeup so I felt that I also needed to. It was something that I picked up as a young girl about women. Whenever I would go to the mall I observed hundreds of women because a little girl has nothing better to do than to look around. The one thing most of them had in common was a purse so there I was, a six year old that now needed a purse. Prompt Two: The social world in which my object, the purse, exists and acts is on a day to day life of most women. The creators of the cultural object is the fashion industry. They are always trying to advertise what new, hot, and “in” purse a woman needs. Their intended audience is women. They make a purse a fashion accessory for millions of women across the world. It is something that has never really gone out of style because the fashion industry has changed its look with each new collection to make it match what they are selling.

Prompt Three: Behaviors depicted with this object regarding gender would be a sense of responsibility and maturity. This is because most of the time women typically tend to carry their valuables in their purse. Things like their credit card, car keys, drivers license, and sometimes even a checkbook. All of these things represent a sense of responsibility because you’ve gotten your act together long enough to attain all of these things and maturity in a sense that you’re old enough to have them. With this object the idea that is being sold is femininity. This is why men do not use purses, they want to keep their masculinity intact. The purse definitely reinforces traditional ideas about gender. It is more common that women carry them around simply because they are women. If a man were to use one, people would more often than not question his sexuality even though it has nothing to do with the accessory a man chooses to use..