Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Cross-dress Shopper

Camille Abaya                                                                                       September 29, 2014
Zia De Leon                                                                                                        Emily Roque
Ethan Mallari
Pilar Matoto
Renee Nuevo

SA 21 – A
Breaching Experiment: Cross-dress Shopper

1.    What norm did you violate?

We violated the norm of straight men showing an interest in buying/trying on women’s clothing. (In a way it was also a test of gender roles and norms).


2.    Describe the breaching experiment in detail.

For the activity, the group went to the SM Marikina department store where our male groupmate went around asking to try on women’s clothing. The female groupmates were his “shopping buddies” and were in charge of discreetly documenting the reactions via “hidden” camera phone. Ethan (male groupmate) went around the department store, asking for women’s clothing in his size, and proceeded to ask where he could fit them. The group went to Paperdolls and the swimsuit section for these articles of clothing. Note that Ethan was doing this as a completely straight male, and made no effort to appear feminine or flamboyant so as to highlight the deviance. We chose for a male to do this with women’s clothing, because women wearing men’s clothing is not exactly a form of deviance in today’s perspectives.
He then tried on the clothes, making sure employees and other people could see, and the group observed these reactions. Most observations were gathered from salespersons and SM staff, as they were most available during the experiment.

Sections Visited: Paperdolls, Swimsuit Section
Articles of clothing fitted: blouses, dresses (only one of them fit), bathing suit cover-up


3.    What were the different reactions of the people? Why did they react this way? Did the deviant act reaffirm existing norms?
4.    Aside from the norms, what sociological themes are at play for people to react in a certain way?

(Answers to both 3 and 4)
Person
Gender
Reactions
Saleslady 1 (Paperdolls)
Female
Did not mind the fact that Ethan was looking for female clothing, and was helpful in looking for sizes.
Saleslady 2
(Accessories Section)
Female
Upon being asked where the fitting room was, and upon seeing the clothes Ethan was about to try, she tried to hide her laughter, and seemed taken aback.
Saleslady 3 (Fitting Room)
Female
When asked where to get bigger sizes, she was surprised to find out they were from the women’s section. (She was extremely confused)
Salesman 1 (Fitting Room)
Male
Pointed out that these clothes were from the women’s section, and was also confused, but visibly tried not to make too much of a fuss about it.
Salesman 2 (Male Accessories Section)
Male
Pointed us towards the men’s fitting room, even if he saw the clothes were from the women’s section.
Saleslady 4 (Swimsuit Section)
Female
She was very helpful, even helping Ethan to put on the bathing suit cover up, and giving him the proper size. She did ask whether the garment was going to be used for a costume, and did not know how to react when she found out it was only from himself. (She visibly tried to remain neutral).
General Salespersons (when asking for directions)
Male & Female (Majority Female)
Most were helpful and tried to maintain straight faces and neutral expressions, however all of them directed the group towards the male dressing rooms even if the clothes were for women.
Other customers
Mixed
Although not given an opportunity to say what they thought about the situation, we did notice that other customers were staring and “sizing us up” so to speak, seeing the clothes that Ethan was going to try on.

Many of the SM staff and salespersons were actually very helpful, and we could see that they were trying as much as possible to keep straight faces and not make a fuss over the situation (save for a few in particular). This could be because it is their job to please the customer. In service jobs, and even SM jobs in particular, employees are taught that “the customer is always right”. This can be seen as a form of economic social institution in which the capitalist (SM itself or the big man behind it) can dictate employee’s behavior and dictate the flow of the system because that is how the flow of power works. This degree of control has gone to the point where even when they see a customer deviating norms, they do not react in the same way as a normal person and instead put on the role of a helpful sales personnel who only cares for the needs of the customer. That being said, we could tell the reactions were not genuine in that they looked “robotic” and rehearsed. It was apparent that they were still confused and a little bothered by the deviance.
The other salespersons were notable confused and even found it funny. This is an expected reaction we would get from someone who is observing deviance. The other customers, even if we did not get to talk to them did stop and stare and take the time to look at what we were doing. This doesn’t commonly happen in department stores and malls in general where everyone wants to mind their own business. Generally when people stop to stare or take a look at you, this is a sign that you are indeed defying a norm. This confirms that gender roles when it comes to fashion are very much prevalent here.
Reactions were quite similar regardless of gender, as we were able to observe. However, it seemed men were less affected by the act and more obviously tried to “brush it off” as if it was nothing, whereas women garnered more reactions and confusion. There seems to be an unspoken attitude among men that is similar to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It is as if they would rather not find out more about the situation as long as they are not being greatly bothered. However it was clear that some of the women wanted to know more, and wanted the reasons behind the act such as the woman who asked if it was for a costume. It seemed hard to grasp that a straight looking man would want to wear women’s clothing simply for his own sake. Reactions of salespersons versus customers did differ, as salespersons visibly tried not to react whereas customers freely looked and raised eyebrows. This can be attributed (as mentioned earlier) to the certain degree of control the corporation has over its employees behavior, while customers were “free” to react how they chose.


5.    How did you feel when you did this experiment?

We weren’t so hesitant to do the activity, save for Ethan (which is understandable, since he would be the one defying norms). We wanted to go to the lingerie section and have him fit those garments, yet he did not want to. We were excited to do the activity, however were not expecting it to be so exhausting, especially since it was a very simple activity. It was more of a social exhaustion, having to make a conscious effort to garner reactions, and hide our own thoughts of the activity.
For Ethan himself, he felt it was not too difficult as he has quite a high shame threshold, so he was not hesitant to begin with. He did garner many strange looks from other shoppers as he walked across the store with girls’ clothes, but was quite nonchalant about the whole thing. (He does acknowledge that he looked ridiculous in those blouses). However, in the end he found himself hesitant, because he felt that the salespersons may be starting to get annoyed and think that we were wasting their time. He also refused to do the experiment in the lingerie section.


6.    Other observations/analysis.

It was interesting to note that people directed Ethan towards the men’s dressing rooms, which were on the other side of the store even when he took clothes from the women’s section. This reinforces the gender roles in society, so that even as a deviant you are still being forced to conform in some way. It is interesting to bend and defy gender roles in an environment such as the Philippines especially since we do still have a largely traditional way of looking at them. It is also interesting to note that no one would react the same way if a girl were to try on men’s clothing (this is almost seen as normal).
The great control of social norms and institutions is quite apparent in the reactions of the employees (SM may be secretly abusing their contractual agreements, as even their reactions to deviance are quite controlled and rehearsed. But going deeper into that would require different research and a new project entirely, also of interest.) However, to their credit they did remain kind and accommodating during our stay. It is also of note that social norms make it so that it is extremely inconvenient for men to shop for women’s clothing in most malls, since the dressing rooms are on opposite ends of the mall and no matter the clothing, people of different genders cannot change in the opposite’s dressing rooms. Even this construction reinforces and shows the prevalence of the gender norms in our society (having the mall split between male and female sections instead of one coherent space). However much we think it is a form of organization, it is actually also born from a social construct. Through this, it was clear that every little thing, every rehearsed or unrehearsed reaction, and even the placement of physical structures have some root in social norms and systems entrenched within our society.


*There were some limitations as to documentation. As this was a very mobile experiment, and we had to be moving around to really observe and document reactions, videographers could not stay in a fixed position. The videographers had to follow Ethan around, and therefore be discreet with the cameras so as not to attract any suspicion or “observer effect”. However as a result of this, much of our footage was very shakey and sometimes unusable. Therefore, here is only one example of our clearest video clip.



(Here is a Youtube link to the video, because the upload was not working)


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