Self-Made Motormen
- Gire Calderon
- Oct 31, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 19, 2018
Andrew Bengry Howell is a Bath University lecturer in the psychology department andChristine Griffith is a prominent lecturer in Social Psychology at Nath Spa University. This paper is effortless to read and is written in a non-academic language.This paper studies the human male mentality. It explores the importance of car modificationand how it relates to the male identity.
The authors discover that thought out the motorcarcommunities most of his studied subjects are male. Thought history the authors explain howthe car has evolved. In the early years, the car showed economic power and masculinity. This later evolved when the family car arrived and after the 1960’s it shifted gender relations. Morewomen were driving, and the market started to become more gender-based. They began tomarket cars for women.
The authors explore what the social and cultural meaning of the car is. For example for a teenager, the authors express that the car is a ‘mean of escaping parental control and personal freedom’. And how the car is a rite of passage in the life of a young adult. They also state how a man values the opinion of others when it comes to his car.
They give an example of a young man that though his girlfriend friends heard he had a ‘chick’ car and that triggered him to modify his car and make it more manly. The fact of his car being label as a chick car or girly car made him question his masculinity. To resolve this, he changed his car identity and the parts that made his car ‘girly’ in an attempt to make it more aggressive.
The authors assert that the products young adults buy are influenced by symbolic productsand by their peers' opinion not merely what they need. They state that car modification is theworking case men pride. And the act of modifying is a combination of technology, skillful manipulation of tools and mechanic pleasure.
They mention that must of studied subject did this in their spare time while their paid job was to finance the car modification. Some of this modification car parts cost more than buying a brand new car, but these car modifiers found the satisfaction in doing the manual work.The authors found the most of the car modification happen with less common cars making their pride to achieve their customisation.
This reading reminds me of a program in MTV called ‘Pimp my ride’ where professional car workshops chose a person, and that person got a free makeover of their car. They always tried to match the person’s car with their personality through their car. It encompasses for me the male identity and how much they represent themselves socially though out their cars. In my opinion, men express themselves more than women thought out their cars.
In conclusion, The text explains how socially influenced we are nowadays and how it affects our decision-making process.
Questions:
Can cars really show our personality?
How social media affects the perception of car modification nowadays?
How cars collectors that preserve the original status of their car says about their identity?
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