Shopping at the Center Point Mall

Last class we talked about Girly films and their reinforcement of the importance of consumer culture to women. I remembered that I saw a TV commercial on TV of Center Point shopping mall, which depicted a fabulous experience of shopping over there for women, and used the female word for “you” in Arabic to say that “you are the center point here.” That spiked my interest, and so, I went out to the Center Point shopping mall to look for other things that cater to and encourage women to shop at the mall.



When I got there I noticed that many shops catered to women based the gender roles assigned by society. Fore example, City’s Life Style shop catered to women since it sells accessories, make up, and household accessories, where it tends to be the responsibility of women to decorate their houses. The Baby Shop also caters to women, since its also the responsibility of most women to take care of their children and buy for them what they need. Shops like Splash and Shoe Mart cater for both men and women. However, they tend to place female products closer to the main door, and they also assign more space for them, which encourage women more than men to shop for these items.






When I went up I found the Home Center that sells household furniture and accessories. In this particular shop I noticed more female-male couples coming in, in comparison to the City’s life Style shop, which also sells household accessories. This may be due to the fact that adult males tend to have some responsibility when it comes to shopping for expensive products like houses, house furniture, and cars. The reason for this might be that most men make more money and are responsible of household expenditure to keep their power at home. However, overall women tend to shop more than men, and some people say that women tend to be even better when it comes to shopping.





On that same floor, there is a Fun City, where moms, or parents take their kids to play. The existence of the Fun City in the shopping mall represents a significant motivation for moms to come and shop there as well. Moms or parents can send their kids with their maid to the Fun City to play, and they go to do their shopping without the distractions from their kids, which encourages more women to come for shopping.