Within these transactions, however, the relationship of women towards males in their lives is often reinforced in advertising, either by the woman's desire to buy products to beautify herself or her home, or to cook and clean the home. In contemporary life, it seems more difficult to trace the architectural genealogy of suburban and urban malls and shopping locations in as clear and in as sexually defined a fashion as the Burlington Arcade. Like the arcade, however, malls and other stores are public places where everyone is free to come in, but must behave according to the rules of the store, or else the shoppers are forced to leave by security guards. The exchanges are impersonal, like in any store, or in prostitution, and are governed by financial transactions, even though the employee...

Although it is not explicitly sexual, friendliness is reinforced to create the sense of a voluntary emotional exchange, to make the customer feel more 'at home' and to conceal the fact that he or she is engaged in a monetary exchange -- much like a prostitute might use a certain 'patter' that is flattering to a man to hide her real interests in sexual congress.
Finally, much like women's bodies might be used to cement alliances between men as mediums of exchange, an employee's attractiveness or store image might be used to sell a product -- or at very least, the employee's requirement that he or she dress in a particular uniform, to model the store's product. The employee's body becomes part of the transaction and the shopping experience in ways that reinforce Rendell's points about an older era, as does the blurring of private and public spaces within the confines of a store that is a commercial area, yet is filled with home and personal goods, and even places for customers to sit down and rest their feet.

Works Cited

Rendell, Jane. "Industrious Females' and 'Professional Beauties." In Strangely Familiar: Narratives of Architecture in the City. Ed. Lain Borden et al. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. 32-6.