5/30 Tues

I feel conflicted with viewing shopping as a woman’s act of resistance. Resist to what? spending money for mega corporations mainly dominated by men? Or the mall can be a place for women to forget their daily oppressions at home because shopping is a good thing that can relieve stress? I feel that the mall, a place of resistance, is just a façade of women empowerment; those who work in the mall are definitely empowered by the wages to acting happy and kissing up to the customers (mostly females). For my experience, the mall is a location of gender restriction in a way, with all the clothes, jewelry, and accessories made for females, telling my brain to buy something because I am a female and I am supposed to own these female products. If I end up leaving the mall with nothing, I would either feel guilty for not executing my consumer power or feel bad that I cannot live up to the image of what the ideal females should look and behave like (from seeing store ads & posters).

However, I believe that the act of resistance does not have to cost much money (e.g. shopping), but it can be free and fun in a creative aspect. When it comes to politics, we all think it is something serious or something that has to do with life-and-death matters. Yes, we need that to provide the oppressed the perseverance to fight against the oppressors, who just happen to have a lot of money and resources that can literary get weapons to kill the oppressed. It is weird how we do not see that politics can be entertainments and aesthetics also. After reading the article about “Reclaim the Street/London,” I just want to laugh; though, not because it is a dumb idea, but how something that is not considered a serious political threat to ruling class (such as colonial slave rebellions), but more of an expression through diverse art forms, something that is happy and uplifting can have the power to shake authorities. If I was at the scene when there were a bunch of police arriving at the location of resistance, I would have started laughing at the look on their faces, which I would assume their thinking would be something along the line of “ I am being called here for this BS??? You have to be kidding me.”