Gender and Consumer Culture

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Marketers, industrialists and other beneficiaries of consumer culture are aware of the multifaceted nature of gender in a modern, western state. However, they opt to stereotype masculine and feminine characteristics in order to perpetuate insecurities that stimulate the purchase of more of their goods.

To understand how these stereotypes of gender came about, one must look at the rise of consumer culture. Consumer culture is a way of life that depends on the purchase of goods made from manufacturers in order to satisfy one’s needs.

Some scholars use the term in a negative way by presuming that participants in consumer cultures are obsessed by the acquisition of material things. In this regard, the term carries moralistic undertones that judge members of such societies. This essay will consider the first definition over the second one in order to maintain a neutral stance in the discussion.

Some scholars, such as Sassatelli (2007), claim that the consumption culture started as far back as the 17^th century. In this school of thought, consumer culture is not a radical revolution, but a gradual alteration of society’s attitude towards commodities. It was this shift in thinking that enabled mass production in the industrial revolution.

People who endorse this view usually sight merchandisers who made and sold their goods in bulk. The major problem with this belief is the lack of a mechanism to mass produce.

If consumer culture existed at a time when the economy was driven by specialists rather than industrialists, then it must have been quite difficult to meet customer demand. Supporters of this theory are at pains to find evidence for existence of this pattern before mass production.

Conversely, Ewen (1976) dates the rise of a consumer culture to the 1920s, during the industrial revolution. This theory represents the view of the majority concerning its commencement. These adherents believe that consumer culture was a by-product of the industrial revolution.

Henry Ford pioneered mass production in 1910 when he introduced line production. Workers could make thousands of vehicles in a matter of days; this was an inconceivable fact a few years ago. Ten years later, other manufacturers adopted Ford’s approach because they realized how advantageous the method was. Now that the industrialists had discovered a way of making numerous goods, they needed a mechanism for expanding their consumer base. More people needed to purchase their items or else the producers would run at a loss.

In the 1920s, resource owners decided to shorten working hours and increase average wages to give laborers more leisure time and finances to buy products. After an alteration of their working conditions, now employees could buy more than food, shelter or clothing. Resource owners needed to school them in this new mode of thinking.

At this point, intellectuals came up with the notion of advertising. They needed to move beyond the attributes of the products they sold and focus on the recipient of their message. Advertisers had to ignite desire in their consumers in order to facilitate this goal.

Furthermore, advertising was to offer consumers a chance of social prestige through the product. Consider the example of a beautiful woman’s photo in a newspaper; she admires a beautiful bracelet and wishes that she had it.

The advertisement’s recipient would put herself in the shoes of the beautiful woman and echo her sentiments. As such, the advertiser will have created an imaginary need. Although the views of Ewen (1976) are much older than Sassatelli (2007), more evidence exists to support Ewen’s assertions than Sassatelli’s.

Mass production necessitated a consumer culture because this would provide a ready market for the numerous goods that came out of the industrial revolution. It was imperative to focus on the recipient of the message rather than the good, and this was how the manipulation of gender began.

Before looking at the relationship between gender and consumer culture, one must understand the meaning of gender. Gender encompasses those features that make men and women different. It is an amalgamation of the biological, social and physical factors that define a person’s identity.

Feminists assert that socialization is more significant to the construction of gender identity than one’s biological predisposition. As a result, one’s cultural context ultimately predisposes one to a particular gender role.

Some individuals may choose to change conventional understandings of masculine or feminine behavior. In other words, they may adopt a mode of speech, items of clothing or work that belongs to the opposite gender. Therefore, male or female roles may be reconstructed and redefined; one’s sex may not necessarily determine one’s gender (Popova, 2010).

Members of all societies have cultural values that assist individuals in dealing with gender; when people fulfill certain social expectations on gender, then it becomes easier to interact with them. Gender roles affect how others perceive an individual and hence how they will regard them (Popova, 2010).

Schwalbe (2005) explains that communities work by embracing particular ideas; gender should represent these common ideas because it is presented in a distinct manner. However, not all experts agree on this matter, Lloyd (1999) claims that concepts of femininity and masculinity are diverse across cultures. Consequently, entities that try to stereotype these definitions are distorting the real meaning of gender.

When analyzing consumer culture, one ought to investigate whether marketers uphold the latter construction of gender or the former one. If they embrace a multidimensional view of gender, then they will have taken the time to understand the complexities of this phenomenon. On the other hand, if the marketers and capitalists ascribe to rigid definitions of gender, then they will have acted in a stereotypical manner.

The relationship between advertising and consumer can provide insights about how resource owners exploit gender. McAllister & Mazzarella (2000) explain that most advertisements are deceptive. They offer customers the promise of certain psychological or relational benefits. However, few of them rarely meet their end of the bargain. Advertisements were designed to perpetuate consumer culture, so they need to oversell product benefits in order to create this immense shift of opinion among targeted consumers.

In order to perpetuate a consumer culture, advertisements need to focus on the psychology of the recipient rather than the virtues of the product. Marketers have known this for a long time hence their tendency to promise class mobility. Individuals will purchase a product in the hope that this will take them a step up the social ladder.

However, it is evident that these desires are psychological games that advertisers understand quite well. As Barthel (1988) explains, the strength in advertising is its passivity. Messages inherent in advertisements are never abrasive or confrontational. Additionally, they always target a type of weakness or insecurity in the subject and then use it against him or her.

In the case of social mobility, marketers know that the working classes are highly insecure about their social status, so they exploit this insecurity to capture their attention. Through this subtle but effective method, advertisements cause individuals to keep purchasing their commodities, and this sustains consumer culture.

One can look at advertising from the audience’s point of view and think of it as a means of keeping consumer culture alive. Conversely, one may think of advertising as a means of redefining culture rather than perpetuating it. McAllister & Mazzarella (2000) explained that marketers judge each other on the basis of their creativity.

This means that most of them think of advertisements as modes of cultural production. They strive to push the limits of gender, class or other conventional standards of identity in society. Both these schools of thought can assist one in understanding why consumer culture still exists in the US despite its longevity. On the other hand, the second school of thought will assist one in analysis why some perceptions of gender, class, etc are often challenged through the media.

Barthel (1988) explains that advertising is gendered because it conveys information about feminine and masculine roles. This author believes that adverts convey masculinity by demonstrating a man’s power over other objects. For instance, an advertisement about a car will probably have a male model driving the car so as to convey the image of control over the car. On the other hand, femininity is never external; it is captured by a woman’s presence.

Her beauty or physical appearance will determine how desirable that object is. In fact, feminists argue that a woman’s relevance is often limited by her appearance. Because of this, society limits her to the role of a subordinate in a man’s world. Overemphasizing women’s physical appearances in advertising causes them to become objectified.

Advertisements may use attractive females either to capture men’s attention or to prove to women that they can get any man they want if they use their products to look attractive. According to feminists, everything tends to revolve around the male observer.

Other scholars claim that objectification is not exclusive to the female gender; men deal with it too, albeit at a subtler level. Advertisements still use this approach among men, but the extent of use is narrower among men than women.

Most messages centre on men’s ability to demonstrate power and authority. Through the right set of clothes, car, or gadgets, a man is objectified by linking his appearance to financial capability and social prestige (Lloyd, 1999).

In this regard, one can deduce that advertisements perpetuate consumer culture by ‘pointing out’ the flaws in the masculine or feminine features of audiences. These marketers often determine the imperfections relevant to their product line, and articulate them through societal norms. While advertisements can be deceptive, most of them mirror underlying assumptions about gender.

Marketers, writers, photographers and other stakeholders use hyper femininity and hyper masculinity to keep the consumer culture alive. Hyper femininity is the process of exaggerating feminine roles in the media. Usually, such associations are sexual in nature. In such settings, the creator will objectify women, and make it look like sexuality is the most plausible option to get women what they want.

In advertisements, one can observe hyper femininity through the gestures and communication patterns of a female model. She may speak in a soft and melodic voice; her clothes may be quite revealing and she may perform suggestive movements. The female model may be seen lying down or she may strike a pose that makes her appear subservient to a man. In this regard, hyper femininity reinforces her role as the inferior party (Matschiner & Murnen, 2006).

Some of these hyper feminine advertisements may also depict unrealistic body images of women. More often than not, advertisers will select models of less than average size. Female audiences respond by feeling insecure about their own bodies. Because of this, they are more vulnerable to the messages conveyed by the advertisers (Popova, 2010).

Female audiences will be more willing to buy a certain product if it can solve the biggest problem they have about their bodies. Hyper femininity works in the interests of marketers because it fuels women’s insecurities. These viewers are likely to keep buying their products even though they will never reach this unrealistic ideal of femininity. Through such as strategy, advertisements support the consumer culture

Hyper masculinity encapsulates a similar concept to hyper femininity, and is also exploited in consumer cultures. It exaggerates masculine roles by selling violence as desirable, exemplifying danger and promoting an insensitive attitude towards women. Furthermore, hyper masculinity often calls on men to be tough in order to display emotional strength. Dines and Humez (2003) argue that hyper masculinity creates a culture of violence among men.

When companies fill their advertisements with violence, they make it seem normal for men to fight even when this is not true. As a result, audiences may internalize these suggestions, and thus adopt those violent attitudes. In this argument, the authors believe that advertisements are platforms for cultural production. Although they perpetuate consumer culture, they can also serve as a platform for negotiating different gender identities.

Gays or lesbians often suffer the greatest casualties of advertisement language, as their perspective is rarely considered. In a world where male and female identities are narrowly defined through hyper femininity and hyper masculinity, there is very little room for those who fall outside these circles. Queers are people who have made the decision to live outside society’s dominant values and attitudes.

Advertisements do a very good job of reinforcing these gender stereotypes. When one curves out one’s path, then society may punish him or her by sidelining him. These stereotypical images in marketing campaigns enable the removal of homosexuality from public discourse because no one thinks of their perspective

Gays and lesbians epitomize the reproduction of gender by defiance of mass culture. Scholars in gender studies realize that masculinity or femininity is not one-dimensional; consequently, they will refer to these terms as masculinities or femininities. It should, therefore, not be surprising that gays and lesbians have redefined their place in society (Lloyd, 1999).

In conclusion, Gender is a concept that captures the intersection of consumer culture and advertising. Advertising can reinforce conceptions of masculinity and femininity, or it can form different perceptions of the same. Most advertisers manipulate social attitudes to benefit themselves. They make individuals respond to their messages by creating a desire for those qualities. Capitalists thus rely on advertisers’ construction of gender to sustain the consumer culture.

Advertising contributes to stereotypical images of gender and eventually narrows down society’s perception of the same. This idealizes the stereotypes and erases queers. Hyper feminine attributes as well as hyper masculine attributes rarely capture the complexity and multidimensionality of gender.

Instead, they cover the interests of industrialists as they prompt audiences to keep purchasing their goods in order to look better. Consumer culture is highly dependent on dissatisfaction with oneself or having the need to improve oneself; these sentiments explain why the culture persists almost a century later.

References

Barthel, D. (1988). Putting up appearances: Gender and advertising. Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Dines, G. & Humez, J. (2003). Gender, race, and class in media: A test reader. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.

Ewen, M. (1976). Captains of consciousness: advertising and the social roots of the consumer culture. MA: MIT Press.

Lloyd, M. (1999). Performativity, Parody, Politics. Rockhampton: Central Queensland UniversitY.

Matschiner, M. & Murnen, S. (2006). Hyper femininity and influence. Psychology of women quarterly, 23(3), 631-642.

McAllister, M & Mazzarella, S. (2000). Advertising and consumer culture. Mass Communication and Society, 3(4), 347-350.

Popova, D. (2010). Gender stereotypes in advertising. Retrieved from research.bfu.bg:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/104/1/BFU_2010_T_XXIII_Popova.pdf

Sassatelli, R. (2007). Consumer culture: History, theory and politics. London: Sage

Schwalbe, M. (2005). The Sociologically Examined Life: Pieces of the Conversation. London: Routledge.

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Gender and Consumer Culture

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