Gender & Consumption

Gender

• "Idea that gender is not a naive category that merely reflects the social world. Gender is rather a cultural category that is underpinned by socially constructed and contested assumptions and norms about identify and sexuality" - Arel, Eraranta, Moisander 2015.

What is consumption?

• Consumption is shaped by tastes and by life cycle needs and not by the temporal pattern of life cycle labour income - Deation 1992. 

Tifferet & Herstein 2012

• Women shows a higher level of brand commitment (they use shop loyalty cards more than men), hedonic consumption (means that when women buy something they can improve their well being and improve satisfaction) and impulse buying (is related with hedonic consumption) than men.
• The way men consume is different from women because they know what they need to buy so do it as quickly as possible. Prefer to do other things than shop for leisure.
• Fashion industry understand women - know that is is important to make shopping a nice experience for them. 
• Women need a good shopping atmosphere, space and time to find the right thing (Women spend more time on Xmas presents than men/enjoy shopping more) 
• Shops have introduced relaxing areas where men can drink coffee/be on phone as do not enjoy shopping.

Sigmund Fraud 

• Described women as "mutilated & must learn to accept their lack of penis" - opposes modern idea that sexes are equal and shouldn't be discriminate.   (Lind, 2008) 

Firestone, 2015

• Fraudinism is missguided feminism - it is completely accurate apart from that where Fraud writes "penis", the word should be "Power" 

• 'Consumers no longer stand for outdated gender stereotypes - brands must move towards more progressive advertising'. 
• John lewis - removed gender labels accross own brand range - to move away from reinforced gendered stereotypes - childrenswear items now called 'Girls & Boys'
• No more association between blue & boys and Pink and Girls (Mintel) 

• Cochoy et al (2017) - digital is taking over consumer society. 
• Social media on every device and makes a big presence in smartphones as they are increasingly in people's lives. 
• Not only young people but elders are using social meida too (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013). 
• Latest research (7000 shoppers) - 3 out of 4 luxury purchases are influenced by what the consumer hears, sees and does on social media platforms. 
• Celebs can be influencers as they havea lot of followers on Social media i.ie Gigi Hadid & Kendal Jenner

"Because of the persuasive power of social media influencers, technologies have been developed to identify and track the influencers relevant to a brand or organisation" 

Ofcom 2017

• Boys aged 12-15 are more likely than girls to state a preference for watching YouTube videos rather than watching TV programmes on a TV set. 
• Girls are more likely to say music videos are their favourite kind of content to watch on YouTube. 
• Girls are more likely to choose vloggers. 
• Boys look for more game tutorials/'walk throughs' and sports/football clips or videos.