Author: Mike

Whatever business you run I am sure that you would prefer it to be debt free. Usually, when we start a new business, we incur start-up costs that we hope to pay off as we progress. This may be for the initial outfit, the stock and/or the marketing of the business. A new business, often requires a campaign to make a splash and let your potential customers know that you now exist. In the book business in retail sales this is no different. You spend money on signage, ads in local papers and niche magazines, you may do a letter drop in your area as well, perhaps offering an introductory special or frequent buyer’s club with discounts on sales.

Designing a Debt Free Bookstore

How do you design a debt free bookstore that can meet these start-up costs and then progress to sustained profitability in the long run? The actual design and fittings of your bookstore are very important to achieving this aim. Unfortunately, one of the major economic pitfalls in a bookshop can be theft, shoplifting of expensive titles by amateur and professional thieves. Books can be very pricey and the loss of considerable stock can adversely affect your bottom line.

Lines of sight, mirrors, security CCTV cameras and where exits are placed in the store can all help minimise the loss of stock through shoplifting. Don’t make it easy for these nefarious individuals to rip you off. The fact is, in a bookshop as a customer service representative, you are often involved in concentrated activities for customers. You might be researching the availability of a particular title via the computer, or gift wrapping a purchase, and, therefore, not scanning the premises for shoplifters at all times; and unless you can afford to pay staff to be on constant look out, you need the design of the shop to help reduce theft.

Another danger in retail are customer and staff accidents. Protecting premises against insurance claims is pretty important in the overall scheme of things. Unfortunately, sometimes you just have to think like a lawyer in life. Make sure that fittings are securely built and installed, check them regularly. Flooring is a major potential black hole for unforeseen accidents, make sure that rugs and carpets are secure and not invitations to trip up on. Stock on the shelves must be safely stacked to avoid books falling on customers. Check and recheck everything weekly, if not daily. It pays to be prepared, as the scouts say.

Icons have served causes and campaigns down through the ages, must notably those of a religious nature. Mother Mary statuettes and pictures, crucifixes dangling around necks on chains, saints with haloes and angels with wings have all graced the shelves and personal possessions of adherents. Hindus and Buddhists have had their own rich pantheon of spiritual representations vividly depicted in rich and bright colours. The computer age has seen collections of cute pictograms take iconography to a whole other level in service of the digital realm. Do feminists have icons of their own and have they promoted the matriarchal cause?

Marketing the Matriarchal

The burning bra, although powerfully symbolic in deed and text, was never pictorially well represented during the 1970s. Women depicted with clenched fists and biceps have been seen over the decades. Certain individuals like the Mexican artist Frida Khalo, have more recently become feminist icons. Previously the suffragettes like Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who led women out of the dark ages of inequality around the turn of the twentieth century, were grainy black and white pictorial symbols of early feminism. Madonna, the pop star, could even be considered a feminist icon of her time.

The original matriarchal icons are the earthy figurines of the goddess, like the Venus of Willendorf statue c. 25 000 BCE, which emphasised the life giving breasts and belly of the female form. Could we see a modern interpretation of this figure becoming a modern day cult icon? Perhaps, Pokémon could invest something into this ancient earth goddess symbol to refresh it in the digital age. The problem with this is that feminism has in many ways been heading in the opposite direction, away from the power of procreation. The birth control pill is more of a modern icon to women of the last few decades.

The idealised female body, is today, more akin to an asexual rendition of a slim young male. Breasts are best kept small and hips not too shapely or curved. The whole child bearing body is a thing of the past when considering female beauty in popular culture. Feminist promotional products could be the can of Mace or pepper spray to ward off potential attacks and domestic violence perpetuated by men. Or, it could be the dildo or vibrator, symbolic of the ability to self-pleasure without the help of the male member. Sex and gender still remain front and centre, even, in these LGBTIQ days and nights.

A good bookshop is more than, just, a retail outlet for books, it is a haven for book lovers. When building a better bookshop, you want to create an ambient space designed specifically for the readers who love the type of books your store sells. I was a very lucky youngster, as I grew up in a family bookstore. I was surrounded by codices full of wisdom, in aisle after aisle defined by beautiful wooden bookcases. How a bookshop looks and feels, its fittings and flooring, is as important as the books it carries.

Building a Better Bookshop

That statement may sound overly materialistic to some readers, who may consider that they would be happy reading their favourite books in an airport hangar if they had to. However, when you really consider what a bookshop should offer, it should provide readers with a comfortable space to engage intimately with the book that they are perusing. The red leather Chesterfield couch and chairs, which furnished my family’s bookstore fulfilled that remit. Readers would inhabit this part of the bookshop hungrily with open books on laps. In many ways the shop was like a library, with a deep plush carpet to absorb noise and signage encouraging shoppers to respect the natural quiet of the store.

Book shop furniture must reflect the peace and focus inherent within the act of reading itself. Immersing yourself in the words and sentences of a writer takes time and demands quiet, a good bookshop delivers those requirements for its shoppers. The deeper the content within a text, we are not talking about picture books here, although they too are best served by library like conditions, the more intimacy between reader and written words is required. Essays on wisdom and meaningful issues cry out for silence.

A book is unlike most other consumerables, its magic lies within lines of symbols or code, that must be deciphered by the focused reader. Concepts and big ideas are not communicated well in noisy and distracting settings. Detailed information is not transferred from the written page to the human mind optimally in the midst of chaos, chatter and traffic. Building a better bookshop is a service to knowledge and the sharing of that human wisdom. The serenity within a well-made timber chair, table and bookshelf emanates around a beautiful library or bookstore. Great art on the walls can inspire the desire to feel and know. Well-appointed bookstores contribute to the font of knowledge through their appropriately displayed titles and the ambience they create for their customers.

Jewellery has a chequered history when you really look into it. Baubles worn by men and women in the past, especially the ancient past, to signify wealth and position. Rings we all know, as they continue to be popular today, are signs of engagement and marriage. Certain clubs and secret societies have their members wear rings to identify one another. Exclusive clubs like the winners of National Basketball Association (NBA) championship are awarded rings to commemorate their victory. Jewellery is today very much associated with gender, as it is worn more prominently by women than men.

Alternatives to Jewellery: A Feminist Viewpoint

The recent popularity of body piercings has seen a proliferation of jewellery worn as studs on the face and other body parts. There has in many ways been a fashionable return to aesthetic ideas about our primitive past in terms of this kind of body art. Many feminists take issue with jewellery because of its long association with patriarchal power and trophy wives. Sparkling and shiny pieces of art adorning a woman’s body have signified ownership by their male husbands and fathers. Which leads me to ask what are the alternatives to wearing jewellery?

This question touches on the form versus function component inherent in the wearing of jewellery. In the pre-zipper and button ages, a clasp called a ‘fibula’ was worn to affix a cloak around a person’s body. These fibulae were gender specific in most cultures, with a woman’s fibula generally being bow shaped and a man’s might be in the shape of a weapon. They quickly became adorned with jewels or made out of precious metals. So, form and function are combined in the fibula. Rings, as we have seen have meanings, as do religious necklaces and chains with crucifixes and other religious iconography attached.

Looking at modern culture and technology, have the ubiquitous ear/head phones attached to today’s youth crossed over from mere functionality into body art? Similarly, mobile phones and their colourful cases accompany people everywhere, and are they now physical accoutrements? Apple watches and Google glasses are likewise placed to be considered as things that adorn individuals. Even, hearables for those people with hearing disabilities can be included in this rapidly expanding category driven by technology. Art has been defined as something that’s value has transcended its functionality. Its function may be obsolete, but it is now valued more for its form. Jewellery, in the main, fits into this definition.

What is the old adage, “if you can’t beat them, join them”? Women who have, apparently, been exploited by men in the pornography industry since it began, are now taking control of some porn businesses themselves. Not all women are the same, of course, you get women with many different views about things, including pornography. Not all women are against it per se. Some believe that a woman’s sexuality is her own to be used in whatever way she sees fit. Some women like to watch a bit of porn themselves.

Feminist Porn: Women In Porn Taking Their Bodies Back

Which leads me to so called ‘feminist porn’ and the women behind it. Women making porn for women, does not sound so bad. If we are to acknowledge that there is a market for pornography that appeals to women, then, it is best served by creative women making pornographic content films and clips for that market. Women owned escort agencies is another example of this. The thing about sex is that it is a fairly basic or primal urge. Having sex, often, takes us back to our animal roots, as we rut and thrust like four legged beasts. The fact that men have penises and women have vaginas influences how we go about having sex in the first place.

When images of animalistic coitus are projected onto screens for viewing audiences it can appear to be demeaning to the woman who is being fucked. This is because we live in a clothed world most of the time and behave politically correctly, which involves adhering to ideals of equality in race, gender and religion. When we retire to our bedrooms most of us do not make love with one eye on the PC factor. We become aroused and act like animals, and enjoy these liberating romps. This does not mean that we necessarily act in insensitive or violent and demeaning ways, but these definitions are somewhat laxer in the privacy of one’s own bedroom.

This is the important point to make, is pornography a private or public viewing experience? The freedom of access to pornography on the Internet has caused it to be judged according to public viewing standards. There is an adult market for pornography and that cannot be denied. Woman making porn for women is an important step in removing the demonization of pornography from a twentieth century world. The more you control and ban things, the more they go underground and transmute into things that can really hurt people. Liberty for sexual expression is vital to a healthy society.

Women like Anna Span, who has been directing pornos for some twelve years, and Belle Knox who is a porn star who works for female owned porn production companies, are starting to change this industry for the better. Porn has been traditionally a male dominated industry, in large part because it has often operated underground in association with organised crime. If the state pushes things like this underground through laws banning it, it will remain the domain of bad men; to put it somewhat naively.