Consumerism and the American Woman

Women drive more purchasing power than men in America. Women have been in charge of most consumer purchases throughout American history, largely because of their responsibility in and to the home. During the American Revolution, women's political involvement was largely economic: boycotting tea, making and wearing homespun, and refusing to purchase English goods. The Daughters of Liberty was formed specifically to organize boycotts and facilitate economic resistance.

While middle- and upper-class men might have paid the majority of the bills in the 18th and 19th centuries, the purchasing decisions were made by the women. In the 19th century, the role of provider, reserved for men in middle-class and wealthy homes, conferred ultimate authority over decisions and the family without the burden of the day-to-day responsibility. Conversely, women were infantilized, given "allowances," made to justify their expenditures, and laden with the responsibility of transforming the money provided to them into the comforting materials of home life – and appropriate displays of their husbands' positions.

While it has been argued that modern American Consumer Culture emerged at the end of the 19th century (that consumerism after 1890 had a unique focus), by that point the role of the American woman as shopper had long since been naturalized. Kathy L. Peiss argues that as a new cultural infrastructure was being developed in the 1890s, one of the products " was an explicit conception of consumer identity, an identity that was simultaneously bound up in notions of the feminine. Born at the same time, the 'organization man' and 'Mrs. Consumer' in many ways reprised the older dichotomy of manly producers and domestic women."

With the explosion of advertising and marketing and its development into a national industry (John Barry claims that, in part because of media control and propaganda, during WWI "[a]dvertising was about to emerge as an industry; J. Walter Thompson—his advertising agency was already national, and his deputy became a senior Creel aide—was theorizing that it could engineer behavior; after the war the industry would claim the ability to 'sway the ideas of whole populations,' while Herbert Hoover said, 'The world lives by phrases' and called public relations 'an exact science.'" [Barry, 205].), women were being targeted as consumers like never before. Shopping was transformed into a "leisure activity." In that transformation, consumption became a benign and respectable pleasure. (However, women's pleasure is never entirely benign in this culture. Given the gendered conceptions of purchasing and the relation of money to power, it is hardly surprising that shopping and spending money was also represented as a way in which women used up—or consumed— the power and vitality of their men. Gold-diggers and spendthrifts—women who liked money and spending too much—were out-of-control. As such, they were vilified in the same terms as sexually irrepressible women.)

As shopping became something that women were supposed to enjoy doing, as well as something that made them feminine, any understanding of the labor of shopping was mitigated. The work of shopping and providing the material necessities for the home was masked by a guise of leisure and pleasure. Shopping was integrated into the American woman's identity, her notion of femininity.

At the same time, advertising reaffirmed her irrationality, her impulsiveness, and her vanity. "The woman consumer was considered emotional and impulsive, driven by "inarticulate longings" and "dormant desires." If men responded to the intrinsic qualities and function of a product, women dwelled on its social and psychological effects, its style and smartness." This has not significantly changed. Advertising directed at women as mother will speak to value and quality, but advertising directed at women-as-women (i.e. consumers) will encourage indulgence, desire, and frivolity. Purchasing presented as a way to develop identity and build self-esteem. And it works. "Based on a study of 2,000 Iowans, of whom 529 responded, women were far more likely to buy something without needing it (36 percent vs. 18 percent), buy something because it's on sale (24 percent vs. 5 percent), shop impulsively (36 percent to 18 percent) and shop to celebrate (31 percent vs. 19 percent)."

Women, unsurprisingly, still make more purchases than men. Women are responsible for 80% of purchasing decisions in the average American household. This has been endlessly exploited by advertisers and mass media because the consumer economy is dependent upon the woman as consumer.
"The world of advertising needs constant refueling to keep itself in business. To keep us buying new things, advertisers create symbolic obsolescence. This means that advertisers give us the message that old things are out of style and we must have new fashions.4 We are 'behind the times' unless we have the latest thing. This manufactures demand - it creates the need for certain products where there was no need before the ad told us so." While shopping, like so many other gendered activities, has never been counted as work in the formal economy, the economy is entirely dependent its shoppers.

Expectations of female consumerism in America serve to distract and subjugate the American woman. Already earning less than her male counterpart (an estimated 77 cents to the dollar), the single, working woman is also expected to spend more on the household, herself, and others than the single working man is. Her purchases represent her thoughtfulness, kindness, nurturing, and femininity. His lack of purchases represent his masculinity and his freedom – men cannot be expected to comfortably furnish their homes or kitchens or to buy gifts regularly as it wouldn't be manly. The single working woman is expected to spend exponentially more money on personal care and grooming than her male counterpart. Discrepant spending expectations have severe and long-term ramifications.

Women are 40% more likely to be poor than men. The 2000 US Census indicates that the homeownership rate for female heads of households is 54%. That is 14% below the national rate of 68%. The homeownership rate for women with families is even lower (49%). Women are more likely to be deep in debt than men (approx. 60% to 46%). Women are less likely to have saved for retirement than men—in fact 41% of women haven't saved for retirement at all. Women are more likely to have insufficient funds for retirement, the result of a combination of longer life-expectancy and smaller savings. The average credit card debt of senior women living on their own has increased by 48% between 1992 and 2001 to an average of $2,319. Women of color face even greater economic challenges—in no small part because they earn even less than white women.

Women's role as chief prop of the consumer culture is a contributing factor to these statistics. The "shop-'til-you-drop syndrome is more than a harmless female pastime; it also deprives woman of the opportunity to grow money through investing. In their 20s and 30s, when their male counterparts are buying homes and investing in mutual funds, many women are spending on clothes, cars and decorating the apartment."

Consumer culture and the advertising industry are significantly damaging the security and financial well-being of the majority of the American population. They contribute significantly to the increasing rates of depression and an increasingly fractured sense of self and personal deficiency. Women's role as consumer undermines her attempts at financial independence and encourages her dependency on men. "Purchaser" is not currently a position of power for women in America. It is an identity deftly manipulated by media and advertisers that is ultimately destructive.

"Consumer" is a serious role fraught with responsibility. Women have incredible purchasing power in America, but that power is ignored and neglected. It is a great deal of work to make conscious choices about purchases, ethical consumption is challenging—and several of its tenets can only be pursued of you're already well off. It will not be easy. But it's time for women to take back their identities from marketers and advertisers. It's time for women to communicate their political and social interests in their economic identities.

Our money is the most powerful voice most of us have.