Women and Capitalism

Image from: http://theothersideofthelake.blogspot.com/2007/09/its-1043.html
Johnson, Allan G. Power, Privilege, and Difference. Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination. McGraw Hill, New York. 2006.

The media item I choose is another picture I found on the Internet. It was actually found off another blog site, but there blog had nothing to do about the discussions we’ve had in class. The picture is of a lady standing in here with a counter full of ingredients for something she is about to make. There is a various amount of things bought from the store in her very nice kitchen such as the ingredients, appliances, cookie jars, and dinner sets hanging up in the background. The women herself is wearing an outfit that would have been from either the fifties or sixties and is holding a cook book wondering what she might make. The picture is overall very clean looking.
This picture can closely be related to Allan G. Johnson’s chapter Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination from his book called Power, Privilege and Difference: Second Ed. In that chapter, Allan Johnson talk about how “capitalism [. . .] shapes and makes use of gender inequality” (Johnson 49). He tells his readers that capitalism uses women and exploits them as a “source of cheap labor.” He points out that most of the work women do isn’t considered worthy or atleast wasn’t thought to be worthy back in that day, when the picture is trying to capture. He tells his readers that without women, much of capitalism couldn’t take place, because in American households women spend a majority of the money; “capitalism couldn’t function without the army of women who do the shopping for households and do the labor through which those goods are consumed—cooking meals, making the bed with the new set of sheets, and so on” (Johnson 49). So this picture is just portraying the capitalist kind of women, so that people can make money. Because the main point of capitalism is to make money, so if women don’t do their part and be this kind of women, capitalism wouldn’t work. These same women build families and provide for the new generations thus providing nutriments for the same people that will be carrying on the capitalism views. So this picture show the person that Allan G. Johnson thinks provides the backbone of capitalism.
I personally can see where Allan Johnson is coming from when he says that women have a great deal in common with how capitalism functions. I just don’t like how whoever made this picture, made it to look like the normal/stereotypical house mom should be. What about the women that don’t have flawless clean skin, not enough money to provide that nice of food for there families, and not enough money to have all that wonderful stuff to prepare meals with. I just feel it is right to put a picture to a group of people; it’s like a standard that every woman must live for. Even though every women wants to be the best mother for her family, they don’t have to always to it the same way everyone else does it. This picture only shows one source which can affect capitalism; women are very powerful and need to be treated with respect and not exploited by the capitalist companies in today’s society. The picture overall is a symbol that shows how women play an important rule in capitalism.