Where's the Price Tag?

My excursion assignment consisted of a shopping day filled with ordinary, mundane experiences. I made sure it was as typical as any other day. I went to the VF Factory Mall in Reading, PA since I just happened to be there the weekend before the assignment was due but since I didn't really like that mall I then went to the Philadelphia Outlets. 

Famous Footwear VF Outlets	Women	Men
Converse	$49.99	$49.99
Nike Running Sneakers	$44.99	$109.99
Roxy/Adidas Sandals	$44.99	$26.99
Nickels Heels/Dockers Dress Shoes	$39.99	$49.99
Children’s Nike Fusion	$46.99	$36.99

 The prices attained from my excursion are subtly different. From a glance at the charts one sees similar prices on both columns. However, with a closer inspection one can notice the differences. The first store I visited was the Famous Footwear outlet store in the VF Factory Mall in Reading, PA. Immediately one can see the women’s section, or maybe I was just automatically drawn to it since I am a women and I do only shop women clothes. Anyways, since it was only a shoe store it was difficult to find exact styles and brands of shoes to compare from women to men and until now I had not realized that women do have much more options when it comes to shoes and clothes in general compared men. While in the store, I picked shoes at random but as I analyze this table I see I’ve got an average and general look at this shoe store. The same exact type and brand of shoe is the same price for both women and men, however when it comes to Nike the difference is huge. A pair of sandals for women is much more expensive for men but consider the variety of sandals women can choose from compared to men therefore it makes sense that it takes more labor to make a women’s pair of sandals rather than a man’s. Though, when it comes to men’s dress shoes the price is slightly higher. Would it be because it needs more material to cover more or is the material just more expensive in itself? Lastly, Nike surprised me again with their children’s shoes. This time I made sure it was the exact same kind of brand and style but the girl’s shoes were more expensive than the boys? Is it because boys are more likely to wear sneakers than girls?

Children’s Place Philadelphia Outlets	Girls	Boys
Tees	$11.99	$7.99
Shorts	$12.00	$11.99
Flip Flops	$2.99	$2.99
Swimwear	$14.99	$14.99
Tanks	$14.99	n/a
Shoes	n/a	$17.99

The next store I visited was all the way in the Philadelphia Outlets and it was the Children’s Place simply because it was convenient for my cousin whom had accompanied me on my excursion and she had to buy clothes for her two daughters. This store also made the excursion much easier because as soon as I walked in I could see all the prices posted up in large signs on top of every single style of clothing piece, therefore I only had to stand in one place in order to jot down all the prices. So, I begin jotting down prices and I immediately notice that the same kind of clothing style is more expensive for girls than boys. However, their flip-flops and swimwear are the same price even though a girl’s swimwear requires two pieces instead of one. Now the reason for the not available pricing in this table is because I wasn’t able to find tanks for boys as easily as I did for girls. Thinking back at it though, when one thinks about tanks for boys those are usually the ones that go under the shirts which then makes sense why the girls tanks was posted up and readily available. This is also the same reason why I didn’t include dresses in the list, since they weren’t really selling dresses for boys. The shoes’ row refers to dressy shoes and since it is a children’s store they weren’t selling heels either.

Calvin Klein Philadelphia Outlets	Women	Men
Dress Shirts	$59.59	$69.50
Jeans	$69.50	$59.50
Dress Pants	$79.50	$150.00
Jackets	$129.50	$400.00 (Whole suit on sale for $200)
Tops/Tees	$29.50	$49.50
Belts	$36.00	$49.50
Panties/Boxers	$12.00	$19.00

 After visiting a very warm, friendly store and constantly going “awe” at every cute baby that would pass by, I entered upon a completely different jungle, Calvin Klein. Since I was overly observant this time, I could automatically notice a different environment especially after coming from the Children’s Place. But more on this further along in my post. Now, the differencing in prices in this store is rather alarming. A dress shirt for a woman is less expensive than a man’s but her jeans cost more. And the suits! I can now understand why men only have a couple pairs of suits; they are so expensive. I loved how they had a sale for buying the entire suit and the price was cut down by about 70%. Maybe that would get them to buy more suits. Everything else I listed seemed to be more expensive for a man however, why is that? My only explanation is that they need more material to make men clothing, like the panties for a woman and a pair of boxers for a man.

Simultaneously while writing down the prices for these stores I also observed the people I encountered. In Famous Footwear I found a little bit of everything, families, couples, single parents, individual people and a creepy Hispanic girl staring at everybody. Taking a trip down to the Philadelphia Outlets, I was delighted to see a more variety of customers. In Children’s Place I saw many families and I noticed that the dad’s happened to be pushing the strollers. There were two couples without their children and all the single moms were Hispanic. I enjoyed being in this store because of all the lovely children running around and because of all the friendly families. After this I was then faced with entering Calvin Klein, a completely different scene. In Children’s Place I stood staring at everybody and the employees didn’t really look at me weird or question too much. But in Calvin Klein as soon as I walked in, I felt like the employees were staring me at and almost felt obligated to buy something. There were less people in the store and only one mother with her children. I also struggled to find the prices tags for the clothing, I had to dig into the shirts and the pants pockets just to find how much it costs, compared to just looking around a store and easily finding the prices posted up everywhere. So why when the prices are expensive they can’t just have them right there in front of you instead of hidden within the lining?

From this excursion I have further realized that gendered notions and differences are so subtly hidden within our everyday lives that they are barely seen. For example, when searching for men price tags in Calvin Klein I had to actually touch the shirts, suits, jackets, boxers just to find the price and as soon I crossed to the men section an employee immediately asked if he could help me with something. I know that that’s his job but after walking around in the women’s section for almost half an hour nobody had asked me anything. What? I can’t be shopping for some boxers for myself?