Items specifically manufactured or marketed to be given as gifts, typically including decorative objects, novelties, and personal accessories. Commercial products designed for gift-giving occasions.
Modern compound word combining 'gift' and 'ware' (goods), emerging in mid-20th century retail terminology as mass production and consumer culture created distinct product categories for gifting.
The invention of 'giftware' as a category reveals how commercialization transformed gift-giving from personal, handmade tokens to mass-produced objects designed specifically to be unwrapped. It's a linguistic artifact of how capitalism colonized even our most intimate social rituals.
Giftware marketing and sales have historically been feminized labor (gift consultants, shop assistants, party planners), often lower-wage positions coded as 'women's work.' The category itself emerged in consumer culture alongside gendered assumptions about who gives/receives gifts and for what occasions.
Use as-is for product category. When discussing industry labor, name the gender composition of roles and wage gaps between giftware retail and other retail sectors.
Women entrepreneurs have built significant giftware businesses; credit women designers, retailers, and community builders in the gift economy.
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