By E. Bestpitch
“The paramount obligation of a college is to develop in its students the ability to think clearly and independently, and the ability to live confidently, courageously, and hopefully.”*
Ellen Browning Scripps
The mission of Scripps College is to educate women to develop their intellects and talents through active participation in a community of scholars, so that as graduates they may contribute to society through public and private lives of leadership, service, integrity, and creativity.
The smells, sounds and sights of my alma mater are not yet unfamiliar to me. Only six months ago I was preparing for my departure from Scripps College, and a short two years before that I lived in this very dorm, Kimberly.
The Resident Advisors’ rooms are in still in the same spot, the familiar television room houses the same hotel lobby-looking furniture, and students’ doors are still plastered with pictures, stickers, and notes from friends. Nothing seems to have changed much at all since I left, with the exception of the wall decorations that the peer mentors** put up every year.
The year I lived in Kimbo, laserjet print-outs of classic Peanuts characters were plastered on the walls. We each got one character on our door, next to our name. My last year in school I lived in an ocean-themed dorm—construction paper cutouts of sand castles, beach balls, sea horses and fish lined our halls. Other themes which were considerably less tolerable included fairytale fantasies, replete with princesses flouting long hair, flowing dresses, and the signature helplessness that compels an inevitable heterosexual storybook coupling of a schlub-turned-dragon-slayer and a helpless heiress to unfathomable fortune.
Since I chose not to take part in the peer mentor program, I had no say in the decorating and thus did not complain. But as I recently traversed the halls of the school that granted me my Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, I could not help but fume over the colorful cutouts decorating my much-loved Kimbo. The images in the halls shocked and bewildered me for a moment, then angered me. Upon approaching the front hallway in this Vegas-themed dorm, I noticed cutouts of Prada and Gucci purses, shopping bags, a Visa Black credit card, novelty-sized diamond rings, and ornate high-heeled shoes.
Women are consistently depicted in commercial advertising as consumers, unrelenting in their attachment to products (the slogan “diamonds are forever” comes to mind), and also as the consumed—often as the reward for a (heterosexual) male using or purchasing a specific product. (Think of Axe body product commercials, wherein Axe users are depicted as literal magnets for females.)
Females are seen as both primary consumers as mothers and keepers of the house, as well as commodities in and of themselves. While these roles may seem contradictory, the fact remains: advertisers target females in their ads, playing upon traditional gender roles of women as caretakers while simultaneously attracting males to consumerism by depicting women as commodities to be possessed. Walking through Kimbo and seeing reproductions of advertisements that encourage a life of consumerism for the sake of being a commodity did not sit well with me. It bothered me not only from the perspective of gender but also of class.
It would be one thing to post construction-paper cutouts of the Target logo, Payless shoes, and cubic zirconium rings. But Prada and Gucci represent a consumer market that is limited to an upper-middle class status to which many students do not belong, and to which many do not aspire, myself included. For a school that boasts diversity, the dorm decorations chosen by peer mentors certainly alienate students who cannot and/or do not relate to upper-class consumerism. And as a school that extols the importance of female empowerment I have to wonder at the implicitly sexist quasi-advertising of high heels, Prada, Gucci, and diamonds—things that females consume in order to become more valuable commodities.
The mission of Scripps College is to breed a sense of integrity, creativity, compassion and thoughtfulness in our lives. Kimbo’s Vegas-themed decorations--staring students in the face every day—encourage an unequal and thoughtless brand of capitalism and promote a sense of materialism that lacks any creativity or compassion. While some students may recognize that this display is an undeserved lauding of vacuous consumerism, I undoubtedly believe that this re-creation of media-touted models of consumer and class practices comes from the subconscious consumer voice that commercials, billboards, and Hollywood have worked so hard to fuel within us. That scares me.
Funny how walking down a hallway that flaunted such richesse could make me feel so cheap.
*Scripps College mission statement, as laid out in their college catalogue.
** peer mentors are students who assume middle-management positions between other students and the resident advisors. Ostensibly their duties include resolving dorm conflict, counseling first year students as needed, and planning dorm-wide or school-wide events.
References
Female as consumer/commodity advertising images: http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/pages/consume.htm
A video depicting the female consumer:
http://ia300120.us.archive.org/1/items/Consumin1967/Consumin1967.mpg
A discussion of women as consumers and their consumer role in the economy:
http://www.unpac.ca/economy/consumers.html
For more information:
Leading author and lecturer on advertising and its effect on women as consumers and commodities
http://www.jeankilbourne.com/index.html
An article on female empowerment, consumerism, and the “metrosexual” phenomenon
http://hedonisticpleasureseeker.wordpress.com/2006/11/05/in-which-the-hedonistic-pleasureseeker-muses-on-female-empowerment-metrosexuals-and-consumer-culture/
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