{"id":45892,"date":"2014-04-18T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=45892"},"modified":"2014-06-09T00:24:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T05:24:49","slug":"the-commodification-of-easter-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/04\/18\/the-commodification-of-easter-festivities\/","title":{"rendered":"The Commodification of Easter Festivities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n

The word commodification refers to the process by which something that is not bought and sold becomes something that is. \u00a0As capitalism has progressed, more and more parts of our lives have become commodified. \u00a0Restaurants are the commodification of preparing and cleaning up meals; day care and nannying is the commodification of child raising; nursing homes is the commodification of caring for elders.<\/p>\n

We sometimes post instances of commodification that tickle us. \u00a0Previously I posted about a company that will now put together and deliver a care package to your child at camp<\/a>. \u00a0A parent just goes to the site, chooses the items they want included, and charge their credit card. \u00a0As I wrote in that post: “The ‘care’ in ‘care package’ has been, well, outsourced.”<\/p>\n

I was equally tickled by a photograph, taken by sociologist Tristan Bridges<\/a>, of pre-dyed Easter eggs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a delicious example of commodification. \u00a0If you don’t have the time or inclination to dye eggs as part of your Easter celebration, the market will do it for you. \u00a0No matter that this is one of those things (e.g., a supposedly enjoyable holiday activity that promotes family togetherness) that is supposed to be immune to capitalist imperatives.<\/p>\n

While we might raise our eyebrows at this example, newly commodified goods and services often elicit this reaction. \u00a0We usually get used to the idea and, later, have a hard time imagining life any other way.<\/p>\n

For more on commodification, peruse\u00a0our tag by that name<\/a>. This post originally appeared in 2012.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday. The word commodification refers to the process by which something that is not bought and sold becomes something that is. \u00a0As capitalism has progressed, more and more parts of our lives have become commodified. \u00a0Restaurants are the commodification of preparing and cleaning up meals; day care and nannying is the commodification of child […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[227,2124,254,10514,272],"class_list":["post-45892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-commodification","tag-foodagriculture","tag-holidays","tag-leisure","tag-marriagefamily"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/1a5.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45892"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62848,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45892\/revisions\/62848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}