Roles Of Mannequin Gender Analysis

We make gender attributions, at least in part, on the basis of superficial clues such as dress, hairstyle and name, independently of what we know about someone’s assignment, identity and role” (Kessler & McKnna,1978,pg. 39). Gender plays an important role when dealing with people’s identities. Gender refers to the social and cultural aspects of being male and female which basically means societies perceptions or thoughts on how females and males are suppose to look and act. This essay will focus on the visual and verbal representations of gender and sexuality portrayed on mannequins in three different clothing shop window displays in Greenstone. The different concepts I will be refereeing to during this essay are feminism and masculinity, …show more content…
All three mannequins represent well built men, shaven beards and short hair which can be an example of feminism vs masculinity as the mannequins are all portraying very masculine orientated appearances. All three men are also in long pants which can relate specifically to the most common example of the male symbol (refer to image C) which represents an individual with long pants and standing in a masculine manner. This example clearly indicates the separation between men and woman as the woman are represented by wearing a dress and standing in a feminine manner. This specific clothes shop depicts well built bodies on the mannequins which can be an example of subversion as men who are overweight or not toned may feel alienated or even rejected. They believe that society looks down on them as they are not the perfect representation of the “suitable man”. An example to support this statement would be “masculinity is a socially constructed positionality which is negotiated through power relations, social structures and subjectivity” (Martin & Ghali, 1994, pg.247). It does however represent different colour skins such as white coloured and black. This means that they are not a racist company and do welcome a diverse range of cultures and social groups to shop there. There is some indication of language and gender design being portrayed in this image …show more content…
We can see that both shop mannequins represent the perfect bodies that fit their sexuality. This can relate to feminism vs masculinity as we can see the different ways the specific clothes shop portray (men and woman).There is however a sense of change in this image. We are aware that the female mannequins represent the woman posing, crossing legs and having their hands on their waists but when observing the male mannequins we can see one the mannequins with legs apart and arms at their side but also one of them who have both hands on their waists. This may represent a slight change in norm as it is slowly trying to portray a more modern society which resembles different people’s sexualities. This can definitely be a move forward as subversion isn’t occurring in the male clothes shop unlike in the woman clothes. There can definitely be a sense racism occurring in this image due to the fact that in the female store all the mannequins are white and in the male store all of them are black. People may feel uncomfortable or even upset that the clothes stores are not portraying a diverse society which may make them feel alienated or not welcome in the stores at all. As for the gender design both clothes shops seem to have a similar look going on. All the mannequins are wearing pants and most of them are wearing sneakers expressing a more modern society and indicating that woman do not always