Johanna Kelly-Activity #6

Johanna Kelly
Activity #6- Gendered/Sexualized Places

For this activity, I took a walk around my neighborhood in the East Village. I spotted many stores in the area that seemed to be very gendered. For example, at the Polish hair salon, I observed that only women worked there. They are notoriously known for gossiping while being there. Thus, is also being gendered bias saying that only women in salons gossip. A few feet away from the salon, was a Polish deli where Polish women shopping for groceries. This store also seemed to be gendered since very few men were there shopping.
As I continued to walk up the street, I noticed a deli where men would stand either inside or outside the store. They were busy buying their lotto tickets or the scratch offs. It was interesting to see how the deli had become a social gathering of men. I could hear them cursing in Polish as they did their scratches. Later on, I passed by a men’s barbershop. It specifically said on the store that they only did men haircuts. I also encountered a gym and noticed something interesting. The majority of the women were running on the treadmill and using the elliptical. Most of the men were using the weight machines or picking up weights. So it was interesting to even perceive these gender differences in a gym where both men and women were.
Something that I noticed were also the laundry mats. I looked at the time hours and they seemed very plausible. The laundry mat was opened from 7AM to 11PM. These hours seem very reasonable for enabling working people in doing laundry. In the article, Dolores Hayden states, “Because of residential zoning practices, the typical dwelling will usually be physically removed from any shared community space-no commercial or communal day-care facilities, or laundry facilities, for example, are likely to be part of the dwelling’s spatial domain” (Hayden, 174). This indicates that because of residential areas, such facilities are not available to perhaps women with families. However, the laundry mats located in my neighborhood prove differently because they are available to all people of distinct working schedules. In addition, it is opened seven days a week. Therefore, single working mothers have the same advantage of using those facilities as married women do.
A very entertaining place that I recognized in the East Village was the popular restaurant/bar Lucky Cheng’s. This place is definitely considered as sexualized and gendered space. Drag Queens work their as waitresses and thus, it becomes a place where certain people would like to go. This activity through my neighborhood was engaging to see how the gendered and sexualized places were mixed in various places.