Gender, Culture, and Consumer Behavior by Otnes Cele C.; Zayer Linda Tuncay;

Author:Otnes, Cele C.; Zayer, Linda Tuncay;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Rather than confirming the extremely negative associations with regard to narcissism, narcissistic-type gym consumption appears to be employed both constructively and positively as a coping mechanism, as illustrated by the experiences of the women who took part in this research. Thus, this study demonstrates support for previous research that shares this notion from a number of perspectives including the narcissistic literature (Lasch, 1979; Sennett, 1977), the sociology of sport literature (Blumenthal, Otoole, & Chang, 1984; Yates, Leehey, & Shisslak, 1983), and the addictive consumption literature (Eccles, 2002). In this instance, the ability to cope stems from a means of forming and presenting an “appropriate” identity that may facilitate an improvement in self-esteem. Accordingly, narcissistic-type gym consumption can be associated with greater positive connotations. It can be used effectively and productively by women to make sense of and control their lives in much the same way that shopping addiction (Eccles, 2002) and retail therapy (Woodruffe, 1997) are used. Indeed, with concern about rising levels of obesity in the United States and the UK in particular, gym “addiction” could be lauded as a positive endeavor and one to be encouraged.

While the continual project of identity construction in terms of the idealized feminine body is well established and prescribed both culturally and politically, it should be noted that there now exists an emerging stream of research into the effect on men of media representations of idealized (male) body images (Aubrey & Taylor, 2009; Pompper, Soto, & Lauren, 2007; Chapter 4 in this volume). Pompper et al. (2007) contend that, while there exists a developing theory of magazines as standard bearers for the ideal woman, this may be modified to suggest that magazines also set standards for the ideal man that their research suggests fuels males’ ambivalence toward their bodies.

Aubrey and Taylor’s work (2009) investigating the effects of “lad” magazines on male body self-consciousness and appearance anxiety would appear to support this contention. Body image and bodily objectification are held to be gender issues and examination of these emerging streams of research and theoretical developments and, in particular, of the differences (such as may exist) between men’s and women’s engagement with this mediated bodily discourse and its concomitant effects may well challenge prevailing cultural gender belief systems.

Within this chapter, the authors have argued for a model of consumer behavior in relation to body image that is posited on the understanding that consumers are themselves embodied (Falk, 1994; Turner, 1984) and that identity must occur through the body (Saren, 2007).

In order to research embodied consumers, it is necessary to accept the role of gender as both cultural identity (Butler, 1990; Craik, 1994) and cultural ideology (Thompson & Hirschman, 1995). It is acknowledged that “gender” and “body” are difficult to disentangle as gender theorizing rests to a large degree on social structures that do not account fully for the concept of body in terms of the embodied (and political) nature of gender with regard to women’s lived experience. Thus, there have been calls within the social sciences for a concept of the lived female body (Gattrell, 2007; Young, 2005).

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