I'm interested to note that no women (except Veronika) have yet commented on it, negatively or positively
Good point - I'd be very interested to know what any women who post here think, rather than us men being the only ones to discuss it.
Moi aussi!
In The Beauty Myth, she had many important things to say about how women are exploited by the beauty industry who are only interested in extracting maximum profits. I'm just surprised that she doesn't seem to at least consider the possibility that this process might occur in most forms of retail, and that the people pulling the strings might be the producers rather than the consumers?
Another good point!. Whilst not against absolutely every aspect of "consumerism" (much as I loathe the term and almost all of what it has been made to stand for) on principle, I am (I hope) as aware as anyone that there are people out there who, without any external encouragement, will think nothing of taking unfair, unreasonable and unpleasant advantage of anything and everything, the reasonable desires of the consumer being no exception; this kind of thing in practice muddies many waters and, I think, encourages the formation of deeply entrenched positions about the subject to the point that any sense that what may work in the world of retailing simply won't work at all in what a lot of us are involved in just doesn't even figure any more. Sorry, I'm making a depressing comment, I know, but it has largely come to pass that "market forces" has almost become inseparable from exploitation and this, I feel, has been and remains deeply damaging to the two worlds of legitimate retailing practice and artistic endeavours. There are people out there genuinely trying to eke a living from legitimately selling their wares, yet they are inevitably drawn, however unwittingly, into the more unpalatable areas of "market forces exploitation" in the perceptions of many.
Sorry for the waffle!
Best,
Alistair
