Topic: Young Women and Consumer Culture
Schor defines the “new consumerism” as “an upscaling of lifestyle norms; the pervasiveness of conspicuous, status goods and of competition for acquiring them; and the growing disconnect between consumer desires and incomes” (1999 page 2).
McRobbie (2008) discusses how this new consumerism negatively affects girls and young women, a connection captured in the phenomenon of post-feminism.
The idea of post-feminism emerged in the late 20th century. It argues that equality and liberation for women have been achieved, and that the struggle to achieve these gains is largely over, so feminism is no longer necessary. Instead, post-feminist women, confident in their newfound equality and power, can indulge in retro forms of female identity (raunch culture in the style of the Girls Gone Wild or Rihanna videos, or alternatively, neo-traditional roles as man-crazy girlfriends as in The Bachelor) without giving up gains won by through feminist struggle
Consumer culture, McRobbie argues, uses the ideology and image of “post-feminism” as a means to encourage women to identify their empowerment with materialism and consumption, rather than attaching it to more transformative gains for women in political, economic and social life. In other words, the “new” consumerism presents young women with an ideology and an image of female social power stripped of its critical and life-changing potential. In embracing a consumer-friendly post-feminism, young women thus come to equate freedom and independence with their ability to spend money and consume things, rather than with changes in the conditions of their lives or the nature of the larger society. For McRobbie, the most popular and revealing post-feminist text is Sex and the City.
• How is post-feminism part of the problem that is the new consumerism?
• How might feminism be part of the solution to the new consumerism, if at all?
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