I chose to people watch outside of Caspian’s Mediterranean Café, sitting in their outdoor seating area facing 13th Ave. Being near campus, I was bound to see a lot of students, but I also saw what I believed to be homeless people, as well as simple Eugene citizens. One citizen that specifically stood out was a woman who had her entire face tattooed and pierced. I did my best to glance at her tattoos, which appeared to be some sort of tribal marks, accompanied by multiple facial piercings. As far as students go, there was a large variety that passed by in the hour. Focusing on gender, many women altered their bodies in non-permanent ways, such as makeup, nice clothes, and hairstyles. Many females also had piercings; mostly ear but I saw a few nose rings as well. As far as the men went, they had a larger variety in hairstyles, both facial and head hair. Overall, the majority of men were dressed in casual pants and t-shirts, with a few who were dressed more business casual. In my opinion, the woman with facial tattoos and many piercings is insecure and self-conscious, and she covers herself up to hide it. I feel that because she did not carry herself well, she did not appear well off, nor emotionally stable. My judgments on this woman show that I am uncomfortable with making permanent adjustments to my face like she had. Due to the fact that I am uncomfortable with it, I assume that there is something wrong with her, something that caused her to do that. In reality, she may be the opposite of the conclusions I made about her, and I don’t know the real reason she altered her face in such a way.
After reading your post, I feel that there is a large difference in the way that men use adornment and accessories versus women. I feel that women have the need to want to stand out and appeal to not only themselves but also everyone else who may be looking so they go out of their way to get another piercing or get a tattoo or wear something different. For men, I feel that we mostly dress as we feel the need and that there is a very set fashion for men, so the way that most men use adornment is with facial hair or usually tattoos, because they are seen as more masculine things. One thing that is growing in popularity among men that I have noticed though is long hair that can be accessorized because we are seeing it more out of the famous attractive actors. In the first chapter of “Customizing the Body” by C.R. Sanders, he mentions, “Attractiveness has considerable impact on our social relationships. We think about attractive people more often” (Sanders 1). This is saying how we value attractiveness in today’s society and maybe explains why we accessorize ourselves in certain ways.
I was serious reading your watch discussion. And I was vary care baout the first people in your discussion that the woman with tattoo. But I think you should get more description for this woman without the tattoo. So that can help you to guess this woman’s character more better. In my mind, You can talk about these people more detail.