Marketing and Feminism

There exists a continuing discourse around feminism and its role within marketing and consumer research. In the 1990s a number of papers advocating feminist analyses of marketing and consumer phenomena appeared in the literature. Feminist contributions highlighted the masculinist ideology of marketing and consumer thought (Hirschman, 1993, Fischer and Bristor, 1994), how this might impact upon and contribute to consumer and marketing research in practice (Stern 1992, Bristor and Fischer, 1993, Penaloza, 1994, Woodruffe 1996, Catterall, Maclaran and Stevens, 1997, 1999, Woodruffe and Bettany 1999) and how feminist thought can contribute to, and critique the 'world of consumption' outside of, and influenced by, academia (Dobscha, 1993, Ozanne and Stern, 1993, Bristor and Fischer, 1995, McDonagh and Prothero, 1997, Schroeder and Borgerson, 1998).

In 1991, the series of Association of Consumer Research conferences on Gender and Consumer Behaviour was established (Costa, 1991) providing a regular outlet for debate and discussion of (among others) feminist issues in the field of consumer research. Following this, the new century heralded the publication of the (in our view, much needed and most welcome) book 'Marketing and Feminism: current issues and research' (Catterall, Maclaran and Stevens, 2000). This book presented contributions on the potential of feminism to inform and enrich marketing and consumer research on multicultural issues (Penaloza 2000), advertising (Stern 2000, O'Donohoe 2000), consumer research practice (Friend and Thompson 2000, Hogg, Bettany, and Long 2000), shopping and retail marketing (Eccles and Woodruffe Burton 2000), critical approaches to marketing practice (Fisher 2000, Costa 2000, Dobscha and Ozanne 2000) and the relation between marketing and feminism (Scott 2000, Brown 2000).

However, it seems that feminism in the marketing and consumer behaviour disciplines has slightly lost its way. For example, at ACR 2005, Catterall, Maclaren and Stevens noted that 'in recent years critical feminist voices have been scarcely audible' and that 'postmodern and post-feminist perspectives have diluted feminism's transformational potential, leading to a critical impasse in marketing and consumer research'. In addition, work has emerged from consumer research which is highly critical of the feminist stance on fashion and beauty, entering debates in the public sphere begun by Naomi Wolf (1991) and Susan Faludi (1991) (Scott 2005). Marketing faculty are finding outlets in other disciplines for their feminist inspired work (Borgerson 2001, 2005). Others are returning to past concerns to try and revitalize the original discussions and reinvigorate the feminist agenda (Catterall et al 2005, Bettany 2006, Bettany and Woodruffe-Burton 2006).

References and Further Reading

Bettany, S.M. (2006) Feminist epistemology meets the masculinity of marketing and consumer knowledge: a contemporary rendering of a decade-long debate Association for Consumer Research Conference on Gender, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Edinburgh June 2006 (Eds. Janet Borgerson and Lorna Stevens)

Bettany, S.M. and Woodruffe-Burton, H.R (2006) 'Progressing a taxonomy of possible reflexivities: guidelines for reflexive practice in consumer research' Forthcoming in Advances in Consumer Research XXXIV

Borgerson, J. (2001) "Feminist Ethical Ontology: Contesting the 'Bare Givenness of Intersubjectivity'", Feminist Theory 2(2) 173-189.

Borgerson,