Blumenstein

I chose to write about Mary Kay and her values and then compare them to what Allen Johnson would say about Mary Kay, and also to see if Mary Celeste Kearny would agree or disagree with the life style of Mary Kay, and Mary Kay Cosmetics.
 * This is from the article, Allen Johnson, revision from Dr. Hassels input .**

Johnson, who wrote "Where Are We" writes about how patriarchy is male centered, male dominated, male identified, and male controlled, and I believe Mary Kay challenged all of the four identifications of what partriarchy is. Johnson writes that "patriarchy is a knd of society, and a society is more than a collectin of men, but it is a society that both men and women participate." Johnson would say, with Mary Kay, who was profitting form cosmetics, Mary Kay was participating in patriarchy by encouraging other women to invest in theri appearance as a definition of their own self worth and identity.

Mary Kay would be an exception as far as a woman making a living in a society of patriarchy. She mangaed her own business, she was divorced, and had three children.she was divorced and was also raising three children on her own. Mary Kay wrote a book called, "How to Assist Women in Business,", and started her company on $5000.00. Mary Kay was known as the American Business women and won many awards and Mary Kay also founded the Mary Kay Ash Foundation to help victims of domestic abuse.

Ash was very successful in the business world and 1996 she suffered a stroke. Mary Kay would not be liked in the "patriarchy society", because of her success. Jonson says in a patriarchial world, women usually were not allowed to have a voice in anything. Johnson would probably say that Mary Kay was an exception to popular women. Mary Kay controlled her own business until she had a stroke in 1996 and at that time whe appointed her son Richard Rogers CEO of the Mary Kay beauty world, and by that time Mary Kay had over 800,000 represtentatives in 37 countries. So looking through the eyes of Johnson, Mary Kay stands against patriarchy and I think Johnson would agree to that. I also think Mary Kay is one of the strong women in a patriarchy society. When her representatives would sell a certain amount of cosmetics they could win a "pink cadillac" and pink is known as a girl color.

Mary Kay's cosmetics also promote the princess ideology because, Mary Kay says her cosmetics can help you to stay young looking, with her special formula that is designed to keep your skin looking young. She also carries her own line of fragrances, for women and men. Mary Kay claims her anti aging formula line of cosmetics and facial creams will leave your skin flawless and young looking. That would appeal to most young girls growing up in today's society.



I think Johnson would look at Mary Kay as a big threat to "patriarchy" there was nothing that she did that followed the four guidelines of patriarchy.Mary Kay profitted from her own cosmetic company and with her success she made other women believe in themselves to become more independant instad of relying on a husband.


 * This is from Kearney's view: Entry 2 **

I think Kearney would look at Mary Kay as mainstream culture. Mary Kay is about beauty, physical appearance, and she economically succeeded in her own cosmetic company. Kearney claims that female adolescent subjectivity and girls' culture are challenging earlier concepts of girls and female youth cultures as consumption orientated. Kearney sees that based on sex discrimination and the empowering of young girls to adolescent girls of all ages. The number of girls, and women completeing high school and college educations has grown tremendously, and is higher than ever before. Opportunities for girls that want to go beyond the roles of just being a mother and wife. So the magazines wrote an article which announced, "Calling All Girls," giving women a better chance at success. It was clear that women needed to learn how to negoiate their own way through life.

Mary Kay was an ideology because Mary kay had a women social movement when she started her own business. She drew attention to other women on how she started her own business. Through interacting with other women and holding conventions she encouraged women to become their own patricarchial society. Mary Kay represented a way of understanding the construction of contemporary mode of adolescent women and girls culture. Kearney states, "characteristic of this period in cultural studies, many early analyses of female youth culture focused on girl consumers as active cultural participants." That is what helped Mary Kay become a success. Kearney would say Mary Kay, complemented the ways for young women and girls to interact among themselves and for them to form a distinctive culture of their own, which is exactly what Mary Kay had done.

Mary Kay graduated from the University of Houston and set her own "golden rule", which he considered the founding principle of Mary Kay cosmetics. Mary Kay cosmetics were designed in such a way that allowed women to advanced and help other women to succeed in a business of their own. Mary Kay promoted her success by writing three books, and one of those books was called, "You can have it all" which achieved the best seller status. Mary Kay was her own voice and permoted herself through her own advertisement. Trying to reach audiences of young teenage girls to the more sophisticated housewife.


 * What would Parsons say? (Week 4 )**

I think Parsons would say, Mary Kay may appear to young girls or adolescents as an fairy tale world. Mary Kay imposes beauty and without a look into Mary Kay's background young girls may buy Mary Kay make-up because it makes you look beautiful and with the proper maintenance program on the beauty products, you will stay looking for-ever young. Mary Kay created a sense of a fairy tale to oother women through her cosmetic business, not only how to be beautiful but also to be rich. Whxih most fairy tales tell you is a "Happily Ever After." This creates a cultural draw to women who feel they want to be more than just a housewife. Fairy tales, according to Parsons, claims that leads to appropriate behaviors as well as drawing desires to women.

Fairy tales convey the message that women are weak, and need to be taken care of, and that you should find a handsome prince and get married and live happily ever after. Whereas, Mary Kay was married and divorced and she started her business without a handsome prince. Parsons would say to Mary Kay that cultural texts influence children's subject positions available to women and men. Mary Kay would be a symbol of reproducing social values through feminis'ts texts. Mary Kay's books would deal with issues of freedom, choice and expansion within other womens lives.

I think Parsons would say Mary Kay would stand for a women who earned and gained respect through her own ideologies. She was strong and very independent and set the course for other women who wanted to be involved in a fairy tale world. Parson's would also say that Mary Kay succeeded through her own imagination, and by proving to other women as well they could "Have it all". Parsons would not necessarily say that Mary Kay would antagonize young girls into believing Mary Kays' world came from a fairy tale. But Parsons would explain on how she got there.

I also think Parson's would consider Mary Kay a protagonists because of her strong voice of independence, which would also include Mary Kays business view points. Parsons would also say that Mary Kay gave a new vision to the world of independent women, in which how to survive. Parsons would say that Mary Kay had to keep up with revisions to her cosmetic line and be persistent in forming and reforming her products. In order for Mary Kay to be a success she had to stay within her bounds of a belief system in which she could prove and compete with other cosmetic lines.

Fairy tales will always be a part of culture, and some people will always believe in them. Mary Kay demonstrated a fairy tale world that came true.


 * What would Do Rozario say :**

I believe Do Rozario would label Mary Kay as a fairy god-mother going around the globe beautifying young women and girls, while showing them how to become totally dependent upon ones self. Mary Kay could easily place herself in the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney and maybe portray the wicked witch in the movie Snow White. Mary Kay would uphold the title of autonomy. To be self supportive, and to teach other girls that they can be something different besides daddy's little girls.

Do Rozario would claim Mary Kay is about teaching women and girls to step outside and the box and try to look beautiful and use different make-ups and also how to be beautiful and still run your own business. Do Rozario would also say that Mary Kay represents, “the continuity of rule, she represents source of life and source of rule.” I believe that when Mary Kay started her business she was under reconized and when her cosmetic line started to sell, it sold to all ages, from young teens to elderly women. Mary Kay was a princess of her own style.

Mary Kay represented fusion into a new set of conventions to both the teen audiences and the women who were confined to their homes raising children and being a typical housewife. Do Rozario would say that Mary Kay represents the source of life and a source of rule.

Do Rozario would claim Mary Kay is about teaching women and girls to step outside and the box and try to look beautiful and use different make-ups and also to be beautiful and still run your own business. Do Rozario would also say that Mary Kay represents, “the continuity of rule, she represents source of life and source of rule.” Mary Kay started her business in 1963, the world was still somewhat patriarchal and Mary Kay would be considered anachronism and re-invented her own skills from her previous position and continuously updated and reinvented her own company.

I also believe Do Rozario would proclaim that Mary Kay is a princess of her own wealth. She travels around the world training and showing young women and girls how to continue to take care of yourself through her anti aging creams. Mary Kay calls these products "turn back time".


 * What would Dr. Hassel Say: Week 6 **

I believe Dr. Hassel would compare the word subversive to Mary Kay. In a way such as, some people probably underestimated Mary Kays success at first because there were other competiters, such as Avon, and other cosmetic lines. Although Mary Kay set out on her own to build her business by traveling around and introducing a line of cosmetics that could be delivered to your house and you did not have to go anywhere to buy these items may have been the challenge that was needed.

I think Dr. Hassel would agree that Mary Kay is somewhat of patriarchal values. Patrirachy is a society that both men and women participate. Mary Kay is about her success. Mary Kay made herself and her customers, mainly women, how to be more attracting to men. Susan from the movie did not care about her success, only Dereks'. Mary Kay would have challenged Dereks' self-centeredness.

Mary Kay could be used in the term "consciousness raising", by the results of her success before she died in 2001. Mary Kay at that time had over 2 billion dollars in sales, world wide, and over 1.2 million representatives. She was successful and she did not have to change anything to suit her life style. Mary Kay realized she had to remove her blinders, and frustrations, and took control of her own life and rechanneled herself into success. (i.e.) Susan in the movie Monsters vs. Aliens, would have settled for her honeymoon in Fresno, just so she could please her husband, Derek, who was going to be transferred to a raido station there. Before he got that offer, they were going to be married and have a honeymoon in Paris. Susan did not disagree with Derek, instead she just went along with it, until she was hit by the Meteor.

I believe Hassel would agree that Mary Kay could have a sci-fi movie about her and her pink domination of the world. I think that Mary Kay could also be considered a "Femme Fatale", her beauty was alluring to men, as well as women. Women believed that Mary Kay's cosmetics could achieve these qualites because Mary Kay was the proof of looking good behind her cosmetics. Mary Kay was known as one of the most influential business women of the 20th century.



** What would Lisa Hager Say: **

I think Hager would say that Mary Kay could be compared to the Power Puff girls, in a sense that Mary Kay could rescue the women who could not get out to purchase make up or even know what make up was. Mary Kay could go around the world and sell her cosmetics in homes when husbands were at work. She would also agree that Mary Kay encourages identification, through many different types of women rom young teens to middle aged women and older. Mary Kay built her own identifications by using Pink as her signature color.

If we compare Mary Kay to the Power puff girls, Hagar would say, Mary Kay challenged to the notions of femininity in her own ways of displaying make up as a way to identify to different age groups of girls and women. Mary Kay went around proving through her success and her own beauty that girls, young adult females and women of all ages could occupy their own time with power of their own. Selling make up from their homes and becoming a successful business person.

Mary Kay could also demonstrate a strong sense of sisterhood by becoming Mary Kay beauty consultants. Once a year, Mary Kay would hold a seminar in Texas for her consultants. She would demonstrate new products and teach how to go about promoting her products. Her seminars would give all women a chance to get away for a week end and be just women. To go shopping, and spend time with other "sisters" and have a complete girly weekend.

Mary Kay represented an opportunity to see what women and girls could become rather than be a part of a patriarchal society. Mary Kay stands for independence. Her lifestyle proved she could do this herself and she carried on until she did have success. I believe Hagar would look at Mary Kay as a ideology of power through her own success. Hagar could use Mary Kay as a representation of one of the Power Puff girls, as far as a key cultural figure.



**Schrum Entry 7 from week 7**  As Kelly Schrum writes about Seventeen magazine and its’ success throughout the years. Seventeen magazine has been around since WWII. Schrum writes about how the magazine was suppose to appeal to young girls through the advertisements within the magazine. It was targeting to attract young teenage girls to consumerism.

Mary Kay did the same thing however, Mary Kay did not advertise in magazines, she promoted her products by displaying her beauty and recruiting women how to be successful, and be beautiful and independent. Mary Kay also attracted an audience of the young teens and the women of all ages. Mary Kay also wrote a book but it was not of a magazine type it was a book on how women could succeed in business. Mary Kay’s slogan was, “you can do it.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Mary Kay was another women who was passed b, when the company she was working for, and had worked for over 25 years resigned as a national training director when her promotion was offered to a man and he was going to be paid twice her salary. Mary Kay resigned and first wrote a book that would help women gain the opportunities she had been denied.

Schrum writes that Seventeen magazine was designed to develop images to teenage girls through promotional materials, such as make-up, lipsticks, and other cosmetics. Mary Kay was determined to do the very same thing, but Mary Kay had to go sell her products to consumers, rather than a magazine selling and promoting Mary Kay Cosmetics. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I think Schrum and Mary Kay had a lot of the same ideas with who their consumers was going to be, mostly young teenage girls, but Mary Kay stretched out to women who had less of an education because they did not have to have a college degree to sell cosmetics out of their own homes. In 1963 when Mary Kay started her own business, women back then did not have a college degree or were put in the position to work, mostly the women stayed home and raised the children and attended to the chores of the american housewife. Schrum wrote that Estelle Ellis, the first director of 17 magazine noted, “they are growing older, younger.” In correlation with that is Mary Kay, however Mary Kay has set out to make the older look better and feel young. Her anti-aging products were aimed mostly at the women of their early 40,s and 50’s to continue to look young. <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Looking at 17 magazine of the late 19th century the ads changed to some degree. There are now college education ads within the advertisements of this magazine today. A college education was not an option to women of the early 1940’s and 50’s. I think Shrum would be impressed with Mary Kay and her success.

Mary Kay was a feminist icon, and 17 magazine was meant to target young teens and fashion. They both were a success in womens and girls lives. Seventeen is a magazine that focuses mostly on girls, and younger adult females.

What would Zipes say: Week 9, Entry 8 **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Zipes would look at Mary Kay as phenomenon because her determination set the bar high for other women to follow. By becoming more than just a normal wife or mother, she became successful business women, and followed her own pursuit of success. Zipes would say Mary Kay could be described as an "extraordinary person, someone with exceptional talent." Mary Kay was a successful business woman and it drew attention to other women who wanted to try to follow in the business world. Mary Kay was a patriarchal person of the women’s power and that "such a phenomena defies rational explanation."

Zipes would say that Mary Kay was a phenomenon that turned her business into a phenomenal business because her cosmetic line was a "conventional commodity that was consumed to fit the cultural expectations." Zipes would also look at the hardships Mary Kay had to overcome to get to where she wanted to be. Mary Kay was passed by a work opportunity and the position she wanted was offered to a man, and Mary Kay left that company an started her own business, Mary Kay was also a divorced mother, however she did remarry, but Mary Kay started her business with 5000.00 dollars.

Zipes writes in his article that what appears as something phenomenal urns or is turned into its opposite through a process of homogenizations. Mary Kay was like Harry Potter because she was "ordinary and has become extrordinary."

Zipes would also say that for Mary Kay to become a phenomena in Western society her cosmetic business "would have to become conventional, her cosmetics would have had to be extraordinary, and recognized as remarkable, and outstanding." Zipes would say that Mary Kay and her cosmetics would of had to have been "popularly accepted, praised, or condemned, worthy of everyone's attention, and form the standards of exception set by mass media and promoted by the cultural industry." Mary Kay clearly fits that definition.

Zipes would say that Mary Kay cosmetics are nothing without her. Without her marketing techniques and promotional guides Mary Kay would not be in business. Zipes would also tie Mary Kay and J.K. Rowlings as successful business women or "phenomenal" women who have left a mark in history.


 * What would Heilmanand Donaldson say: Week 9 Entry 9**

According to Elizabeth Heilman, her views would be that Mary Kay would make some men nervous because she gave unlimited opportunities to women for which that time was completely out of the social norms. Nothing in Mary Kay's cosmetic world was about men. It was all about how to sell her product and become a successful business woman. Heilman would consider Mary Kay to be somewhat a revolutionary woman because of how she trained other women to be successful. Revolutionary because she offered bonuses to other women who were Mary Kay consultants in top sales. Mary Kay made a mark in the female society and built her company off the sales of other women she recruited. She would also say Mary Kay defined her own career, but her appearance and own feminitity. Mary Kay gave promise to other women by sharing her secrets to success.

Heilman also comments that "when females are given token power, their inequalities are reinforced, and their status is enhanced." That comment would hold true for Mary Kay, the more her company built up, the more famous she was becoming. Her inequality began when Mary Kay was bumped down at another company and given to her work partner who was male the same posistion they were both qualified for. She also writes that in the Harry Potter book, Sorcerer's stone, the women in this particular scene, women are demonstrated to be gossipy and emotional and vulnerable. I do not think Heilman would think that Mary Kay was any thing but. Mary Kay showed strength and determination. "Males seldom cry or touch" Heilman writes, but in one instance of the book, Dumbledore shows emotion over music.

I think both Heilman and Donalson agree that J.K. Rowlings books were at first male dominated, but they both point out that Herminone was more studious. Men are meant to show less emotion and are suppose to be tougher. I think they both would look at Mary Kay as a success before her time. I think they both would look at Mary Kay as as a Herminone who was smart and possessed the magic within herself.

Donaldson writes about Cedric being a form of workig class masculinity, and that men focus on their strength, enduranceand capicity to tolerate pain.I agree with that, but I believe Mary Kay had the same stamina and challenges Donaldsons statement.


 * Week 10 Entry 10 What would Inness say?**

Sherrie Inness writes about the stereotypical girl**/**boy. Girls should wear pink, Barbie has a pink corvette, and she has a pink dollhouse. Boys are muscle male characters. Inness would say that Mary Kay is a stereo-typical girl while promoting the girl typical pink color. Mary Kay's make-up come in pink containers, she has pnk cadilacs for vehicles, although you have to sell so much make-up to earn one.

Inness would say, that Mary Kay would be a good image of what girls and women are supposed to be like. Mary Kay would be appealing to the younger girls growig up, partly because Mary Kay is a symbol of women of independence. Like Barbie. Every thing in Mary Kays world is pink, and mothers would let their daughters buy her cosmetic because she is like Barbie, a strong independent women. Mary Kay does not promote all gender types, just female.

Mary Kay would be accepted by mothers because she protrays the correct gender role for women. Mary Kay challenges patriarchy and she would be a threat to most men. If Mary Kay was made into an action figure or barbie doll, Mary Kay would fit the criteria of the basic girl who loves to shop at the mall, and own pink cadilacs. She would b the typical stereo-typed girl that most young girls would want to protay. She makes hermoney buy selling cosmetics, she is not the typical girl who lives with her parents, and goes to the mall, Mary Kay would go to conventions for girls and sell makeup. Mary Kay would show women there is more to life, then just cleaning and cooking, and raising children. Mary Kay would be loved by many but the male genders would see her as a threat to the male population. She is strong and independent. Inness would see Mary Kay as the correct female stereo-type.