The phenomenon of consumerism

Today sociologists and historians actively discuss the development of the phenomenon of consumerism in the modern society with paying much attention to its positive and negative aspects. Consumerism is one of the main features according to which it is possible to characterize the contemporary society in the developed countries.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The phenomenon of consumerism specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More It has a long history of its development, and different periods had various impacts on the formation of the customers’ behavior and the progress of the social phenomenon. The World War II era provided the society with possibilities to transform the attitude to the traditional aspects of consumerism. Women and African Americans became the influential figures which could regulate and change the peculiarities of the social consumption. The peculiarities of consumerism during the World War II era developed depending on the fact that in the new situation women became the major consumers on whom the whole market was oriented, and they could influence the market’s price policy, and African Americans acquired the right to reduce the discrimination with expanding their possibilities as consumers. These two social categories changed their consumer roles being affected by the alternations in the consumer economy and culture during the wartime. The economy during World War II was transformed in order to contribute to the war issues. The consumer economy of the World War II period affected women in such a way they changed their social roles and began to work in the war industry because of the significant demand for workers. They also worked as clerks and in service industries. However, women traditionally were considered as the audience on which the market of goods and services was oriented. During the war women had to change their shopping habits because of the total shor tages within the market (Cohen 66). The main task was to purchase effectively according to the peculiarities of the situation when the prices were rather high, and the variety and availability of goods were limited.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Women, as mothers and homemakers, tried to find the most economically advantageous solutions in order to meet the demands of their families. Meat, sugar, and butter shortages made them change the home menu and search for some scarce products. Moreover, definite services were not acceptable and women had to refuse the usage of such service as, for instance, laundry. Much attention was paid to recycling at home and expanding the possibilities to satisfy the family’s needs with minimal resources. Thus, the changes in the national economy influenced the changes provided by women in their domestic economy. The peculiarities of co nsumerism as the social notion of the World War II period influenced the development of the women’s movements against the growth of the prices and even led to their controlling role within the market. In spite of the fact women was traditionally considered as housewives who were not interested in the aspects of the policy, economy, and social life, they began to take the leading positions in controlling the development of the markets during the wartime. This shift was affected by the whole situation of the development of society during the war. Social positions of women were changed by the necessity to become the laborers at the wartime, and this fact contributed to the shift in their awareness of the peculiarities of consumerism. It was necessary to control the prices and prevent their growth. That is why women established the organizations and ruled the movements the main task of which was to protest high prices and control the situation in the market (Cohen 84). Women had no obvious rights to influence any political issues and their opinions were not discussed. Nevertheless, the role of women as consumers was evident, and now they could affect the development of this aspect of the social and economic life with concentrating on the expansion of their liberties (Cohen 84). That is why the actions of women were directed toward changing the situation according to their definite visions.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The phenomenon of consumerism specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More If the role of women as active consumers was emphasized by the history of the social development, the positions of African Americans in society were unclear during the wartime. The discrimination of African Americans in relation to many aspects of the social life was the controversial question for the American society. This discrimination was also reflected in the character of providing the prices for the â €Å"whites† and â€Å"blacks†. The accents on the higher prices and worse conditions and goods for African Americans were put according to the peculiarities of consumerism before the war. The changes in social roles and the aspects of economy gave the chance to realize the intentions of African Americans to take the social positions equal to the positions of the â€Å"whites†. Thus, many African Americans received the opportunity to get the job positions which were earlier occupied by the â€Å"whites† because of the fact the most of white men served as soldiers and because of the lack of workers and the general job availability in different industries. In the situation of the war African Americans got the opportunity to share the shift in the positions experienced by women (Cohen 65). The actions of women in providing their visions of the situation with the growth of prices were rather active. Now it was impossible to increase prices higher than the defi nite established level, and this fact made marketers to preserve the equal prices for all the categories of the population in spite of their ethnic peculiarities. The period of World War II contributed to the development of the notion of the ‘citizen consumer’ as opposite to the notion of ‘purchaser consumer’. The citizen consumer directs his or her actions toward gaining the conditions suitable for the whole nation but not only for him or her as a person.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Thus, the citizen consumer acts not only within the definite market but he is also involved in discussing the consumer issues in the larger economic and political context (Cohen 63). From this point of view, those women who led the consumer movements and conducted the boycotts in order to prevent the growth of prices and significant changes in the policy of consumption can be considered as citizen consumers because the results of their activities affected the whole development of the phenomenon of consumerism during the World War II period. The concept of the citizen customer is also connected with the progress of the women’s ‘customary responsibility’. Thus, women used all their energies and powers in order to turn â€Å"a customary responsibility into a new political opportunity† (Cohen 83). The peculiarities of the women’s lives during the wartime when they were responsible for households, purchases, and laboring were also associated with the nec essity to economize, to plan the budget according to the new economic issues, and with experiencing significant shortages within the markets. In this situation women did all the possible in order to preserve the freedom to consume in spite of the lack of the goods and services’ availability and price changes. Those roles which were played by women as consumers opened the perspectives to influence the public policy and realize the opportunity to establish the definite norms of the progress of consumerism during the World War II period. â€Å"Suddenly tasks that had been viewed as private and domestic were brought into the civic arena and granted new political importance† (Cohen 67). Customary responsibility as the first step to realizing the political opportunity affected the main features in regulating the products distribution, price policy, and the standards of the markets. World War II had a lot of impacts on the development of the American society including the shi fts in the social positions of such categories of the population as women and African Americans and the progress of the phenomenon of consumerism. During the wartime, women had to act not only as housewives but also as the active members of the society and laborers. In this situation their role as consumers became more significant because the peculiarities of the market development were oriented on women as the potential customers or the target audience of the definite products and services. In spite of the fact women experienced a lot of difficulties in functioning within the society under the influence of the new conditions, they acquire the opportunity to realize their ambitions and affect the real situation acting in the field of the market and concentrating on the consumer issues. Women reached the results in regulating the price policy with the help of providing the protests and boycotts against the growth of the prices. Moreover, not only women began to take the active positi ons in the society. African Americans also got the opportunity to reduce the discrimination them as consumers in the field of the American economy. That is why it is possible to note that the notion of ‘citizen consumer’ became the characteristic one for determining the positions of the definite social classes in realizing the economic relations during the period of World War II. Works Cited Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. USA: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008. Print. This essay on The phenomenon of consumerism was written and submitted by user Ingrid Mccray to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Inequiality In Education Essays - Social Inequality, Egalitarianism

Inequiality in Education I have spent sixteen out of my twenty years on this planet, in school. At age four I entered preschool and now at age twenty, as I embark upon my third year in college, school has become second nature to me. Besides my family and friends, school has been the one aspect of my life that has remained constant. In a general sense I hardly ever give it a second thought. Yet on a more specific level, I am constantly buried under an exam for one class, or a difficult lesson in another. It is only when I do begin to reflect upon my formal education in a broader sense, that the topic of equality arises. And in thinking about it as a theme that has run throughout my years as a student, I have come to only one conclusion: Equality is a concept that is supposedly taught to us as an early age, but ironically can never be achieved within the very schools we attend. On my very first day of elementary school, my Kindergarten teacher introduced herself to the class and shared with us what her aspirations were for the upcoming school year. She listed such things as counting, painting, and she even mentioned reading. Her assumption was that everything that she had to teach us had not already been learned by some of the children, and furthermore she assumed that everyone would have the ability to succeed in all that she had planned. Although I can trust that all of her intentions were innocent and that she meant well, she allowed our entire class to begin its education on unequal ground. This was nothing that I thought about at the time, yet I do remember feeling anxious about reading while my best friend had already been doing so for a couple of years. This leads me to the argument that equal opportunity does not lead to equal results (a question which arises in E.D. Hirsch?s book, The Schools We Need and Why We Don?t Have Them). My best friend and I both had the equal opportunity to learn how to read, yet she already knew how to, where as I had barely begun. At the end of that year, when I did eventually begin to read very simple readers, she was already on to chapter books. Yes we had equal opportunity, but she ended up being a more advanced student with a very different set of results. My point is that equal opportunity needs to be assessed from the start. Obviously every individual grows up differently. They experience individual circumstances and form their own points of view. What I am saying is that one can not assume equality from the beginning of school, when inequality is something that stems from the moment we are born. Thinking about inequality in this manner can seem very pessimistic and cynical. That however, is not my intention. Inequality is a word that drags along with it many negative connotations. It brings to mind ideas of perhaps racial inequality, gender inequality, and so on. In the context of education however, I speak of it simply as a given. That everyone is unequal for the sole reason that everyone is individual - every person in this world is different from everybody else. In my opinion this uniqueness needs to be more recognized if our schools are going to produce better results. Looking back over all of my years of United Stated History, I can not recount the number of times our class would focus on the very subject of equality. We must have read the beginning of the Declaration of Independence fifty times. It is the ideal that our whole nation is supposedly based upon, ?We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among there are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness? (Thomas Jefferson, 1776). Perhaps this is completely true and everyone is granted these rights, yet everyone can have the same rights and still be unequal. For example I had just as much of a ?right? to enter this world as any other newborn, yet we were

Essay Samples For High School Students

Essay Samples For High School StudentsWith essay samples for high school students in mind, you can find them throughout the internet. There are hundreds of websites, many of which offer you a variety of ways to produce your own essay. In this article we will take a closer look at some of the best essay samples and hopefully it will be able to inspire you to write your own academic writing.When writing a professional essay, a careful writer knows that there is no substitute for experience. Whether you know it or not, it is possible that you have seen countless essays all over the internet. On some of these pages you will read a paragraph about a person, for example, where you will see the name, title, photo and other details on a blog, message board or website. These essays were made by high school students who are seeking more advice or feedback regarding their essay topic.Before you decide on the type of essay sample to use, you should think about what type of writing you would like to do and whether or not you are likely to get any feedback from these essays. If you are a budding student and still have plenty of time on your hands, it would be a good idea to choose a simple template or a sample topic that you will read about on other websites.If you are not a high school student, it is possible that you can find some essays samples for high school students in the newspaper or on television. In this case, you should note that you may need to create an impressive academic essay to impress a teacher or an admissions officer in order to pass the entrance examination.Most high school essay topics are written from the perspective of a current student. The most important part of writing a good essay is of course being able to include a good number of ideas into your writing. When you include personal observations and reflections that make you look like a thoughtful reader, you increase the chances of getting accepted for a particular essay topic. In this case, it wo uld be a good idea to find online essay samples for high school students who may be willing to give their opinions regarding their topic. You can also find them in many dictionaries, while in some instances they are available online, most schools require that you visit the classroom or library so that you can study the course materials for the day and study all the different essay topics.High school students are often required to keep up with their studies can be boring. You should always give yourself the opportunity to work with and enjoy the learning process, which will come as a lot of benefits in the future.