Boys vs Girls in Macy's

For my excursion, I went to the Macys in the Kings Plaza mall in Brooklyn. This was an interesting assignment, because although I love to shop, I've never thought that there may be any discrepancies between the prices of male clothing and female clothing. I started with women's jeans vs men's jeans.



Men's jeans ranged anywhere from $40 to $130, while women's clothing ranged from $60 to $90. I assume that men's jeans are more expensive because the material and the way that the material is cut have to be different to women's. Obviously, a pair of jeans made for a female figure wouldn't be cut in the same way as a pair of jeans made for the male figure. For both men and women, Ralph Lauren was a more expensive brand, which makes sense, seeing that Ralph Lauren is one of the more high end designers. Buffalo by David Bitton and Armani were two of the most expensive in men's, although I'm not personally familiar with Bitton's reputation in the fashion world. On average, the regular prices vs sale prices for both genders was the same. The prices were reduced anywhere between $15 and $35 less than regular price.

What was most interesting for me was observing the customers. In the women's department, there were mostly female customers. Some of them had children with them, aging in range anywhere from infants to elementary school age. There were very few men, maybe two or three. In the men's department, there were a few couples, possibly husband and wife. There were mostly men in terms of the lone customers, about ten to twelve, compared to maybe two or three women. I expected that there would be more women in the women's department and more men in the men's department, of course, but it was just interesting to see that my assumption was correct.

Next I went to the children's department to record the prices of boys' jeans and girls' jeans, specifically for toddlers.



There weren't many options for toddler's jeans. I assume this is because it may not be a comfortable choice of clothing for young children or it's not "in fashion". Girls' jeans were more expensive than boys'. Although three different brands were found for girls compared to only two for boys, there were more jeans in the boys section than in the girls'. Most of the clothing for female toddlers were dresses, skirts, and that type of clothing. That made me think of the discussions we've had about all of us learning the way that society expects girls and boys to behave from an early age. Obviously, these clothing departments are telling parents that their little girls should be in dresses and skirts decorated in flowers and frills and the like. Boys, on the other hand, because they're the ones who'll be "rough housing" and getting their clothing dirty should be in jeans, overalls, etc.

There were about twelve women in the children's department compared to only about three men. Most of the women had small children with them. Any other men in the department were employees. There were a couple of women behind the registers, but the employees walking the floor were all men. I don't see anything unusual about any of those observations; I'd expect more mothers to be shopping for their children's clothing, which is probably just a societal norm that's been drilled into my mind for years. As far as I know, the women in my family are usually the ones buying the clothing for the young children. I'd also expect either gender to be working in the department.

Overall, I thought that the prices for both genders in the adult departments were equally a bit ridiculous. I didn't see as much of a difference as I thought there would be, but the ones I found were notable. The most significant was the difference in the girls' and boys' departments for toddlers, and how they perpetuated gender expectations in that subtle way, even down to the customers' genders.