Shopping As Symbolic Interaction

Race, Class, and Gender in the Toy Store

Hanna Foster Kaitlin Knapp

Overview
The rules of corporate culture in the toy store Ropes of the shopping floor Interactions

The Rules: Corporate Culture in Toy Store

Toy Warehouse
Fun atmosphere

Diamond Toys
High-end specialty store

Little training required

Bright clothing worn

More training
Uniform requirement

Idea Customer
Toy Warehouse
Middle-class white mother Children expected to have ideas about what they want

Diamond Toys
Adults Children less important Sales associates are the experts

Customer Stereotypes
Rich white women are most demanding
Sense of entitlement Exempt of store policy

African Americans and Latinos do not complain

Suffer discrimination in public places

Service Workers
Toy Warehouse
Customers expected little help Workers avoided customers Embodied diverse, creative style

Diamond Toys
Avoiding customers tabooed Embodies whiteness physically and symbolically

Interactional Skills
African American workers developed skills to minimize involvement Attitude of suspicion created respect Customers mimic service worker s emotions Hochschilds feeling rule

Interaction Breakdown: Social Control in the Toy Store

Customers misbehave in stores
Leaving trash Knocking down merchandise

Men were hardest to control

Annoyed in stores Shopping is womens work
Need to assert masculinity

Conclusion
How we shop shaped by race, class, and gender inequalities Three dimensions of process
1. Corporations script customer-server interactions 2. Interactions that stray from script that take into account social inequalities 3. When interactions break down, ability to repair depends on how characteristics of customer/worker are interpreted

Discussion Questions
1. What are some rules and ropes that you abide by in your life? 2. Have you ever felt discriminated against because of your gender or race? 3. Do you have any examples of gender designated roles that have been broken in your daily life? 4. How do our daily interactions with people affect the way we behave in society?

Discussion Questions
5. Do you have an examples of customerserver interactions that are representative of what we read for this chapter? 6. How do predetermined judgments on gender affect our interactions with new people? 7. What are some of the difference between the two toy stores and what is the main cause of these differences? 8. How does social class affect children and how they are raised?