Consuming Behaviour

© John Desmond

First published, January, 2026

Grianan Publishing,

John’s Brae,

Shrove, ROI, F93E7R9

Cover design © John Desmond (with thanks to Alan Gillies)

Chapter Six: Social Theories

Introduction

The Saint, the student newspaper edited by students at St Andrews university, used to run a series where a student who was always a female, would describe the favourite items in her wardrobe. The list usually included a blouse, skirt, jeans, hosiery, hat, handbag and accessories. She would sometimes mention widely available global brands such as the ‘obligatory’ Vuitton handbag, although Fendi, Ferragmo and Hermes might also be mentioned. A special outfit would feature, perhaps a label by an exclusive designer known only to a few.

I mention this because one student described how one evening just after the piece she had featured in was published she found herself engaging in an increasingly heated discussion over this with her flatmates. While some were supportive, one suggested that whilst she might have considered herself free and empowered, the article showed that she was little more than a puppet manipulated to conform to the pre-ordained stereotype of femininity promoted by big brands. Another accused her of narcissism, as superficial and inauthentic, ignoring really important issues such as global warming. She retorted, “I’m an individual, you are just jealous, get a life!”

The above is about identity and the heat generated by the conversation indicates how, when touched on questions about identity seem to reach right into the depths of our being. Yet this chapter introduces the paradox that while identity feels very much as something that resides deep inside and is acutely personal it comes from outside the self. This argument which is discussed in this chapter is further elaborated in the two chapters that follow on psychoanalysis and the body. Historically, ‘identity’ referred to ‘sameness’. In thirteenth century, Europe, idem meant that the copy of an official document was identical to the original. Identity later came to refer to what is now called a passport, a document issued by the warlord of a territory which granted safe passage to the person mentioned in it. Without passports, travelers were regarded with suspicion if not outright hostility by locals in the areas they travelled through and were frequently subjected to violence and even death (Illich et al 1990).

Some may argue that the meaning of ‘identity’ is now radically changed having more to do with how we express “our” “selves”. We will discuss later how an identity might come “ours” and the difficulty that how we describe the “self” we call ours comes from the outside and not from deep within. On the other hand has identity really changed all that much? Consider for instance, the vast human tides that cross our planet each day by air and sea; those with passports and money are welcomed to visit wheresoever they wish; whilst on the other hand, millions of others who lack documents and are stateless, fleeing war, hunger and persecution, must entrust their lives to criminal gangs if they are to illegally gain refuge, and even if they do, they must constantly be on the lookout if they are not deported.

Another way of looking at identity is in day-to-day situations where we are expected remain identical, or faithful, to the image we are expected to project. This is most easily recognizable in the inter-individual context, where a change in hairstyle or clothing is often a major and sometimes, traumatic event for our nearest and dearest, by challenging their assumptions as to who we are. Apparent minutiae of appearance such as hairstyle, clothing, body-shape and tattoos communicate to others that we are the same familiar person we were yesterday. The authors discussed in this chapter take this a step further, to argue that culture determines our identity even to the core of our bodily dispositions. However before that it is necessary to know something about semiology, the science of signs and its links to structuralism.

Part I: Structuralism

Structuralists argue that we do not just fabricate an identity, but that this is constructed for us within the cultural setting provided a specific language community. Verba & Camden (1987) cite social theorist Michel de Certau, who,

refers to our bodies as units of discourse in a cultural system which transforms them into both the signifiers of rules and the ‘logos’ of the society made into flesh (Verba & Camden, 1987, 165).

This passage is dense with meaning and invites questions such as, “how can

my body be described as a “unit of discourse?” and “what is the logic of society that cuts into my flesh?” While these are discussed shortly, the passage describes clearly the fundamental assumptions of structuralism; that culture forms a grid which comprises a system of unconscious rules that act to organize our thoughts and expressions. In this view, language is not a neutral system that lives outside our body but rather, its signifiers cut into our bodies organizing them and our understandings of ourselves according to cultural convention. To westerners, body sculpture is most obvious when we observe distant cultures, such as the Surma and Mursi peoples of Ethiopia whose tradition dictates that they wear large lip-plates or the Ndebele trip of South-Africa whose women once stretched their necks using a series of copper rings. Structuralists assume the following;

A signifier is not identifiable by some essential property, but rather because it is different from other signifiers.

Differences between concepts and objects are not haphazard, but are regular, structured according to regular binary relations

Reality is not directly accessible to consciousness but is influenced by deep unconscious mental structures that are found in the culture system.

Identity and difference

What is language for? The common response to this question is that it operates as a means for us to communicate our ideas to other people. Part of the genius of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is that he reversed this; rather than thinking about what we do with language, what does language do to us? We think that language – and later it will become apparent that this is the language system - is a tool, but in a profound way language works through us, moulding us to fit its conventions. Seen this way the system of language we share with others in our culture forms a massive grid that pre-exists us. The language system (la langue as de Saussure calls it) is a technology that existed before we were born. We must use the words and descriptions provided by language to describe our hopes and fears, our aches and pains and indeed, who we are. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan noted that while language acts as a giant grid to mould us to the culture we live in and while we are restricted to using its terms, the words, or signifiers it provides never quite seem to convey the meaning we want them to so that there is always a gap between the word and what we wish to convey by it, something left unsaid, that cannot be spoken.

Structuralists argue that culture makes us distinctively human. This is an important point as the belief that the human capacity for language is unique persisted until very recently. As Jacques Derrida (2008) points out, by conveniently assuming that other species are incapable of language, when they knew better, philosophers over the centuries provided an alibi for the infliction of the most appalling cruelty and death on members of other species – which is still the case.

Meaning: Identity and Difference

Rather than words, De Saussure refers to signs which comprise two elements, a signifier and its signified. A signifier can be a sound or a picture; for example, if I say “tree” what concept pops into your head? The sound ‘tree’ is the signifier whilst the concept that forms in your mind is the signified. A sign such as ‘tree’ consists of a linkage between a signifier and its signified; I say ‘tree’, you think ‘tree’.

Another of De Saussure’s innovations, which challenged the conventional understanding of language at the time when he wrote, was his argument that signifiers do not have an intrinsic meaning but depend on their difference from other signifiers. The meaning of a sign is not intrinsic, but is governed by its position within la langue, the overall system or language code. What you would you do if you were walking down a street one day and someone shouted ‘Cave Canem! If you wouldn’t know what to do this is probably because the signifier ‘cave canem!’ is not joined in your mind to its signified, or concept. Consequently, you would be at risk of being bitten by the real thing, which is the referent! Your response might have been different if instead of ‘cave canem!’, which requires an understanding of the Latin language, the person had shouted, ‘Beware of the dog!’, which is the same warning expressed in the code of the English language.

De Saussure argued that there is nothing intrinsic about a signifier such as ‘d-o -g’, that insists this must be used to describe those quadrupeds that like to smell each other’s backsides and may bite us. As a signifier, ‘dog’ is just as arbitrary as canus, chien, hund, or gôu 狗, each of which signifies the same referent in its distinctive linguistic code. In the English language, dog gains its unique meaning simply because it is different to other signifiers such as log, bog, cog, fog, hog and so on, each of which also has a unique identity within the system of language. The meaning of any signifier is thus arbitrary, depending on its position within the linguistic code. The referent, which is the real thing that exists in the world which is referred to by the signifier. As such, the referent lies partly outside of the system of language.

The above raises an important point about identity. Although sameness and continuity are key to understanding the identity of any term, including our own identity, it is impossible to describe identity without taking difference into consideration. The structuralist argument is that the principle of difference is crucial to the understanding of the identity of a particular term. Jonathan Culler usefully illustrates this point by describing a simple thought experiment. Imagine that a Martian walks up to you and asks you to define the word ‘brown’. How would you go about this? Would you seek out all the ‘brown’ objects you could find; your ‘brown’ raincoat, a ‘brown’ bag, some ‘brown’ socks, perhaps a ‘brown’ shoes and display them to the Martian. You should not be surprised if the Martian is puzzled. This is because they will not be able to detect what is distinctive about the identity of the objects you have shown her. A more successful approach would be to contrast these brown objects with others of different colours. The crucial point to grasp here is that the Martian will never grasp the meaning of the word ‘brown’ until they have learned its distinction from other colours.

Reflecting on the three assumptions made by structuralists described at the beginning of this section, you should now understand why a signifier is not identifiable by some essential property, but rather in relation to its difference from other signifiers. Although we will discuss brand identity later, it is worth pointing out at this stage that the same principles apply to brands. Consider two famous logos, Shell and Esso (now Exxon). These signs are not entirely arbitrary, as the name Shell refers to the activity that the company was once engaged in, which involved the transportation of oil-rich shells and Esso is a form of shorthand for Standard Oil (SO). However these facts are not intrinsic to the meaning of the brand, as from the customer’s point of view, each gains its distinctive meaning by means of its difference from the other.

Stable binary oppositions

Structuralists argue that all human societies share the same basic structure of thought. When describing the food we eat, our clothes and our friends, all of these utterances reflect a structuring of the world according to binary oppositions. For instance think of how you would describe your best friend to a third party. You may describe them as being ‘open’, ‘warm’, ‘generous’ and ‘trusting’. This conveys important information about the constructs underlying the classificatory system you use to identify your friends from those you consider enemies. Every explicit statement implicitly contains its opposite. When you say, ‘He’s a good guy, you can trust him’, the converse is ‘There are a lot of people you can’t trust’. Your construct system is structured such as that below, with implicit meanings in brackets.

Open

vs.

(Closed)

Warm

vs.

(Cold)

Generous

vs.

(Mean)

Trusting

vs.

(Suspicious)

Our individual classifications merge in important ways with distinctions that operate as taken for granted as natural within our culture. Expressions are defined within limits set by binary oppositions, such as hot-cold, up-down, good-bad, raw-cooked, and so on. As is discussed below, this is not simply a matter of classifying the world but is arranged hierarchically.

Unconscious Mental Structures

Structuralists argue that the rules structuring our thought processes involving classificatory systems such as that illustrated above generally work automatically and unconsciously and cannot be discovered simply by listening to person’s speech. In this view the unconscious is active, following a logic that is different to intentional conscious behaviour.

Metaphor and Metonymy

Meaning in language is expressed by combining words in a particular order. Paradigmatic relations describe the choice of substitutes for any particular signifier in a sentence. A subset of signifiers can meaningfully be used as substitutes at one point in a sentence. In contrast syntagmatic rules prescribe the syntax, or combination of words that constructs meaning in a sentence. Only some combinations are acceptable. From Figure 6.1, ‘The ship hurtled through the rocky road’ does not make sense, whereas other combinations do. However, the use of such odd combinations may in some contexts be considered as creative and can open up new avenues for thought.

The meaning of the sentence (the syntagmatic relation) changes considerably depending on the paradigmatic alternatives which are chosen. Metaphor is linked to the paradigmatic relation. In the example illustrated in Figure 6.1, metaphors include ‘cutting’, ‘dancing’, ‘hurtling’ and ‘ploughing’. Can you think of alternative metaphors to replace the ‘rocky’ waves? Alternative metaphors might include the ‘mountainous’, ‘rough’, ‘stormy’ or perhaps ‘tempestuous’ waves. Each metaphor provides a different meaning on which to base our interpretation. We cannot refer to two metaphors at the same time as only one can occupy space in the paradigmatic slot available

￼A diagram of a relationship AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Structuralism: Culture as Language

Ferdinand de Saussure developed semiology, or the science of signs, in seeking to understand the formal operations of signifiers and signifieds in the language system and how this provides the hidden structure of rules enabling parole, which is our everyday speech. Those structuralist theorists who succeeded him greatly extended the scope of his theory of semiology or signs, by exploring the extent to which all forms of cultural expression, including consumption, conform to the rules of language. Some examples are discussed below.

Clothing

While de Saussure sought to understand how language functions as a system of signs,structuralists contend that cultural expressions such as clothing and food, operate according to linguistic rules. Roland Barthes argued that clothing operates as a language, where meaning changes as combinations are varied. Thinking of apparel for the head for example, just as in on the paradigmatic plane of language different metaphors can be substituted, so one can substitute different kinds of headwear. This tends to follow gendered conventions. Men can wear nothing, a beret, a bowler hat, a flat cap, a baseball hat, a skullcap and so on and the meaning conveyed changes dramatically given the reception context. Islamic women may wear a, niqab, a hijab a burqa, al-almira, or shayla.

There are similarly potential choices made as to what to wear in other zones of the body. One must use the word ‘choice’ advisedly; it is more a matter of what one is allowed to wear by others within a particular context. For instance, I bought a brightly patterned skullcap when on holiday in Egypt, which I occasionally wear because it is ideal for keeping the sun off the bald patch on top of my head. Over the years I have been amused and sometimes worried by the reaction of others, who seem to consider that this simple addition to my clothing marks me out as a potential fundamentalist terrorist! Roland Barthes argues that cultural convention governs the combinations of items of clothing and how these should be worn. The equivalent of speech, or parole, in this system comprises all of the individual ways in which a garment can come in different sizes, the manner in which it can be worn, and the combination of pieces, where each person’s style is like an individual sentence or statement. Clothes speak through us, by making a statement about our attitudes and behaviour to others, of which we are often largely unconscious. On the other hand, as consumers we consciously use clothes to express their unique identity so as to differentiate themselves from others. Self-expression was particularly a concern for 1960s youth culture. Given the almost universal rejection of formal clothing by youth at that time, it was paradoxical that denim became the clothing of choice. Anthropologist Daniel Miller decided to look at denim, precisely because it is so ordinary. Given its ordinariness, he wanted to know why most of the world’s population continues to wear denim? This is a good question and you can follow the link to follow his research.¹

Food

Formal meals are structured according to a syntax, with rules specifying the provision of appropriate courses at different points throughout. In Europe, the syntax for the simplest formal meal specifies that it consists of a starter, main course and dessert, although there are more complex formulations. The paradigmatic choices at each point refer to the metaphorical alternatives; will I have the soup or the fish starter? Where metaphor operates at one point, the syntactic combination of soup (starter), the roast beef (main course) and then apple-pie and custard (dessert) refer to metonymy.

Hidden Myth, the study by Varda Langholz Leymore (1975) is a good example of a rigorous application of structuralist principles to the food system, which illustrates how products gain their respective identities within an unconscious classificatory scheme. Leymore followed the structuralist method developed by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, to research the binary oppositions that form the deep structure of meaning created by butter and margarine advertisements. Because the language system changes over time, she focused on the system of advertising at one point in time in order to locate these rules. She based her analysis on advertisements contained in one hundred copies of two women’s magazines. In analyzing the advertisements Leymore listed the attributes mentioned in each advertisement (such as ‘comfort’ or ‘strength’). She next removed repetition from the set until the list was reduced to a non-competitive set of constituent units. Each attribute was then paired with its binary opposite. Finally she reduced the entire set to one simple rule, called an Exhaustive Common Denominator (ECD), the underlying unconscious structure that governs the advertising system. This process is described in more detail below.

Before analyzing the set of advertisements she had gathered, Leymore developed an a priori explanation based on a typology developed by Levi-Strauss. According to this, butter and margarine can clearly be distinguished on only one dimension, which is the level of transformation of the product, or how close it is to nature. Butter is closer to nature than margarine as it is produced from milk which comes from cows, whereas margarine is produced from vegetables and is subject to a much higher level of transformation through processing. Levi-Strauss’s typology would thus predict a priori that the transformation process involving the naturalness of butter would be the principal point of differentiation for advertisers; butter advertisements should focus more on the natural character of butter, while margarine should focus on positive aspects of the transformation process.

Leymore’s investigation of butter advertisements supported her hypothesis. Advertisements for butter associated butter with nature, cows, soil, land, green pastures and countryside. In butter advertisements, margarine was associated with change, science and vegetable oils. The identity conveyed by margarine ads also supported Levi-Strauss’s typology. Margarine is transformed further from the state of nature than butter. In contrast to butter, margarine advertisements conveyed the core message of a ‘scientific’ approach linked to health and wellbeing. Focusing on butter advertisements, Leymore found that its core meaning could be reduced to the following:

Concord

for the

Young

Content

for the

Old

Care

for the

Father

Love

for the

Children

Concord, content, care and love, appeared continuously in butter ads, as did the young, the old, the father and the children. The mother, who is missing in the list, is the implicit target of the advertising. Given that the underlying system of meaning is determined by binary oppositions, the meaning of what butter is not (margarine) is unstated and implicit in advertisements for butter. In order to make the meaning of margarine explicit one must name the opposites of the terms identified as being fundamental to the identity of butter. Margarine is in italics because its meaning is implicit.

Butter

vs.

(Margarine)

Concord

vs.

(Protest)

Content

vs.

(Discontent)

Love

vs.

(Hate)

ECD?

( )

vs.

( )

Finally, in order to come up with the Exhaustive Common Denominator (ECD), Leymore considered the term that described all of the elements on the left-hand side, which belonged to one type, against all the elements on the right-hand side. She concluded that the best word to describe concord/content/care/love is peace and that its opposite (protest/discontent/negligence/hate) is war. This distinction between peace and war is thus the most basic opposition used to determine the meaning and identity of butter and margarine. The ECD of butter advertising is that butter signifies peace, whilst margarine signifies war; peace is to war like butter is to margarine

Leymore admits that the advertisers who created the ads for butter were unaware of the deep associations they created to associate butter with peace and margarine with war. Unknowingly and collectively (she collected ads produced by more than one agency), they reproduced the same underlying message. Leymore argues that if they had consciously thought of this message, they could never have used it because of moral considerations; the Advertising Standards Agency simply would not have allowed it.

The implications of Leymore’s study are worrying, because from her analysis advertising bypasses rational consciousness by appealing directly to the unconscious. The unconscious message of butter advertising is that if women who are its target market do not buy butter, they are supporting war. Such a finding may appear astonishing and even ludicrous. If true, its implications are far-reaching, as women when confronted by such advertising might unconsciously bear a burden of guilt. In an even more extreme example, Leymore’s analysis of baby food advertisements revealed the exhaustive common denominator that if a mother bought baby food their children would live, but if they did not then they would die.

What about images?

Leymore focuses her analysis on advertising copy and not on the images used. But what if images communicate directly to us? Images can be more powerful than text because they seem to naturally and directly convey true, objective, reality. There is no doubting the power of images. For example, newscasters did not think it worthwhile to broadcast Michael Buerk’s report of the 1984 Ethiopian famine because it contained no pictures. This seemed justified as newspaper coverage in the British quality press that July took just over 150 column inches, with virtually no coverage in the popular press. By October, the story appeared to be dying, with just 125 column inches devoted to it. However, when Buerk’s second report featured the graphic images of starving children captured by Mohamed Amin was broadcast on BBC News on 23rd October 1984, newspaper coverage leapt to 2,400 column inches, spread more or less evenly across the quality and popular press.² The impact of this broadcast was enormous, sparking campaigns by pop and rockstars culminating in Band Aid, Sport Aid and the Live Aid concert, considered the biggest live rock event ever. Another example of the power of images relates how US President Donald Trump was initially indifferent to the news that Syrian children had been targeted in a 2017 chemical attack by the Assad regime. Indeed accounts suggest that Trump was more annoyed about having to think about it than the event itself, until his aides showed him vivid footage of the aftermath of the attack, prompting him to order an immediate strike on a Syrian government airfield.³ The power of the image is further discussed in chapter nine in relation to the promotion of unattainable images of beauty in advertising and in the realms of fashion, music.

Decoding Meaning in Advertisements

The title of this section is taken from Judith Williamson (1979), which although dated, remains as one of the most insightful texts on brand meaning. Williamson draws our attention to how to begin with, products have no meaning. Just as all cigarettes are functionally similar, delivering their lethal dose via a white cylindrical tube, so variants of durables such as washing-machines, cars and electronic products, are more or less functionally equivalent. This becomes clear when one visits a vast production facility where row upon row of identical unbranded products are stacked one about the other.

For a product to be raised above commodity status requires that they are provided with a persona which can lend them cultural meaning and brand value. Williamson argues that meaning comes from outside the product system. The brand persona is often initially created by association with the person who created the product. Famous and lasting brands such as Rolls-Royce, Chanel, Cadbury, Rowntree, Marks & Spencer, the Body Shop and Virgin, Microsoft and Apple connote values associated with their founders. A challenge occurs once the founder has died as to how to maintain the contemporary appeal of the brand for subsequent generations, for whom the original founder has no significance.

Referent Systems

Advertising raids stable cultural stores of meaning, which Williamson calls referent systems, for signifiers to associate with brands. She uses two perfumes, Chanel No. 5, and Babe to illustrate howChanel sought to re-invent No. 5 for a new generation of users by communicating brand values of chic sophistication.

Figure 6.1 Two Perfume Advertisements

Figure 6.1 Two Perfume Advertisements

Babe was a new perfume that marketers sought to identify with values of youthful, impetuousity and a ‘tomboy’ personality. To achieve this advertisers turned to a stable cultural system that the target audience (women) knew a lot about; celebrity models. At that time Margaux Hemingway, the daughter of the author Ernest Hemingway, was well known in her own right both as a model￼

Figure 6.2 The Referent System of Celebrity

Figure 6.2 The Referent System of Celebrity

and a bit of a tomboy. Catherine Deneuve, actress and model, was (and is) regarded as being chic, representing the pinnacle of sophistication. In structuralist terms, the meanings of Deneuve and Hemingway are not based on their intrinsic value of the real people, but purely in terms of the symbolic differences that exist between them within the overall referent system of models. This is shown in the Figure below.

Figure 6.3. Brand Generates Meaning

Figure 6.3. Brand Generates Meaning

Advertisements juxtapose each model with the product, as is shown in relation to Catherine Deneuve and Chanel, in Figure 6.3. It is important to recognize that the advertisement for Chanel No. 5, contains no text other than the brand name which is written on the bottle and at the bottom. As illustrated in Figure 6.4, despite the lack of written information, the reader of the advertisement transfers the meaning of chic sophistication associated with the image of Catherine Deneuve, to the product. In a similar way, the image of Margaux Hemingway transfers meaning onto Babe. In Williamson’s words,

The system of signs from which the product draws its image is a referent system in that the sign lifted out of it and placed in the ad (in this case Catherine Deneuve’s face) refers back to it. It is not enough simply to know who Catherine Deneuve is: this will not help you to understand the ad. Someone from another culture who knows that Catherine Deneuve was a model and film star would still not understand the significance of her image here, because they would not have access to the referent system as a whole. And it is only by referring back to this system as a system of differences that the sign can function’ (Williamson, 1979, 210).

Eventually, after long association, the brand appears to generate meaning independently. Once the correlate becomes fused with the product so that it appears that the link between them is natural, the product can then generate this meaning on its own to the extent that it comes to ‘be’ the feeling. Just as the woman who wears Chanel No. 5 is chic, the owner of the Mercedes is successful and the owner of a Mac, is creative. ￼

Figure 6.4. Meaning Transfer from Referent to Product System

Figure 6.4. Meaning Transfer from Referent to Product System

The Mercedes owner is considered successful, because the signified ‘sucessful’ has transferred from the car to the person, it rubs off on its owner. The Autotrader advertisement in Figure 6.5. cleverly constructs a correlate for this brand. In such instances the product presents itself as the actual referent for the sign. Advertising tells us that the product really can create the feelings that it represents (if we use Chanel No.5 we will be chic and when we own a Mercedes 600, we will be successful). The product can be connected to an emotional referent in two ways,

you can go out and buy a box of chocolates because you feel happy; or you can feel happy because you have bought a box of chocolates; and these are not the same thing. In the first case the chocolates do not pretend to be “more” than a sign; they mean something, but in terms of a feeling you had anyway. They are a sign for a feeling which is the referent. But if the product creates the feeling, it has become more than a sign: it enters the space of the referent, and becomes active in reality (Williamson, 1978: 36/7).

Williamson (ibid.) illustrates how consumers do not simply gauge the size and shape of models against their own body-image, but also interpret the meanings signified by models in more complex ways. Fabricated associations create meaning for brands, which are eventually come to be taken as a natural property of the brand. Brand images act as metaphors such that, Chanel is sophistication; Volkswagen is reliable; and Apple is creative. Referring to the similarity of this automatic, mindless process Williamson describes consumer adherence to fabricated advertising images as, ‘Pavlov dog syndrome’. She says this is troubling and dangerous, because the product begins to mould the need or the feeling. This argument is similar to that advanced by social theorist Jean Baudrillard (1988), who argued that the system of products is more coherent than that of consumer needs, which it moulds according to its interest. Bernard Stiegler argues that the attachment of meanings such as sophistication, success and love to brands, trivializes language. Real love involves commitment to a person, which involves staying with them through good times and bad. The attachment of images of love attached to brands such as in the Autotrader advertisement below, trivializes the meaning of love, leading to the idea that love can be bought.

￼

To what extent is it true to say that the image that is arbitrarily attached to a brand is impressed into the mind of the consumer? This is discussed more fully later as part of the general critique of structuralist explanations. However it is noteworthy that Williamson’s concerns are supported by consumer research, which has found that brand logos for Apple, IBM, Disney and E! Channel have been found to actively prime subjects to act in ways consistent with the meaning of the brand correlate, completely outside of the consumer context (Fitzimons et al., 2008). When primed with an Apple logo, subjects actually became more creative. When primed with a Disney Channel logo they behaved more honestly than when primed with an E! Channel logo. The authors express similar concerns to Judith Williamson, noting the moral issues – “If a person drives past a Fedex logo, will he drive faster? If he drinks from a can of Pepsi at a work meeting will he behave more youthfully? (ibid: 33).⁴

Bricolage

Bricolage derives its meaning from the work of the bricoleur, a person who does odd-jobs making and mends things, using bits and pieces that are ready to hand left over from previous jobs rather than using new materials. Levi-Strauss (1962) used bricolage to describe how tribal societies construct their understanding by superimposing nature onto their culture. For example, different tribes construct totems such that tribe X is ‘Bear’, while tribe Y is ‘Eagle’. By sharing a common totemic code each tribe constructs a unique identity using the material objects at hand.

Totemism refers to the human ability to anthropomorphize, treating animals and even inanimate objects such as cars, computers and brands such as Apple and Microsoft, as if they are people. Williamson (1978: 101) suggests that advertising agencies act as bricoleurs by borrowing bits and pieces from existing referent systems so as to create the meanings that help us treat brands as if they are people with unique histories and values. Although the British youth subcultures of the 1960s known as the Mods and Rockers came from similar social class backgrounds they differentiated each other strongly in terms of their material culture, with the Rockers favouring heavy British motorcycles, leather-clothing and heavy rock music, while in contrast the Mods preferred stylish Italian scooters, designer wear and bands such as The Who. In the 1970s the anti-corporate punk stylist Vivien Westwood created new fashions from the bricolage of punk streetwear, including tartan kilts, safety-pins and big hair. Bricolage can also be extended to members of supposed brand communities such as ‘Saabers’, who distinguish themselves from Volvo drivers (whom they disparaged as ‘tractor’ drivers); and Apple ‘warriors’ who distinguish themselves from the two great Satans of IBM and Microsoft (Belk & Tumbat, 2005).

From Product Myth to Brand Ideology

Williamson’s (1978) argument in relation to ideology is similar to the idea that the brand image acts as a fetish that focuses the consumer’s attention onto the fabricated brand image whilst simultaneously obscuring the reality that lies behind this. She draws on Mythologies by Roland Barthes (1972), to argue that modern brands construct myths to disguise their true origins by manipulating signs. The role of the mythologist is to expose the trickery of signs, to show that what appears natural and taken-for-granted has a history that is constructed by power. Barthes wrote about ordinary products that are consumed daily and considered part of a nation’s character. The French believe wine is naturally French and that tea is naturally British and nothing is more American than apple-pie. Myth is a sign of what Althusser (1971) called interpellation which is the extent to which we buy into an ideology, as we respond to it through our actions. The test is, if you are British and buy tea – do you buy British?

Wine is totemic for the French, acting as a national drink, and a leveler of social distinctions. Barthes argues that wine brings down to earth those who prefer ‘fancier’ assortments such as cocktails. Knowing one’s wine and how to drink it is an integrating sign of ‘Frenchness’. However, the myth that naturalizes wine as a key component of French culture masks the fact that much of this ‘natural’ French wine is grown in Algeria, a land which the French colonized, whose people they brutally oppressed. These relations of production are missing from the mythic idyll. Similarly, apples are not native to America but were imported from Europe and the 14,000 varieties found in the late nineteenth century America have been reduced to ninety or so today. Like most fruit, apple harvesting is conducted by exploited migrant labour.⁵

The story of ‘British’ tea is worse. Up until fairly recently, tea was the ‘totem’ drink of the UK population. During mid-morning and mid-afternoon, the ‘tea-break’ offered a mandatory rest period, when the upper-classes could savour their ‘afternoon tea’ in bone-china cups, whilst the working classes enjoyed their ‘cuppa’. Nothing could be more naturally ‘British’ than teas such as ‘Earl Grey’, ‘English Breakfast’ tea, or ‘Yorkshire’ tea. Yet the reverse is true. The eighteenth-century tea-trade with China was one of brutal exploitation, involving the knowing addiction of many thousands of Chinese to opium. Nowadays ‘British’ tea is produced in India and Nepal where workers are paid a pittance. Tea is specially blended to the British taste and then often combined with sugar, another product of the British colonies with a shameful history of slavery.

In this context Decoding Advertisements (Williamson, 1979) can be read as an illustration of the naturalization of the meaning of products that have no intrinsic meaning of their own through the process of branding where meaning comes from outside through the medium of referent systems. Williamson was heavily influenced by the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the philosopher Louis Althusser. Althusser (1971) had argued that ruling ideas are transmitted through Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) such as the family, school and university. Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) are political structures that appellate us, by calling us ining as subjects. successful advertising requires our attention. Each advertisement summons us to take notice so that by responding to its call we are complicit in our own subjugation.

Williamson extended Barthes’ work by illustrating the process of meaning transfer in myth in more detail. Brand mythologies are not static but are constantly recreated. Arthur’s Day was launched in Dublin on the 24th September 2012, to mark the 250th anniversary of Guinness. Up until then, apart from the national holidays of Christmas and Easter, the main commemorative day in Dublin was Bloom’s Day, held on June 16th, to recreate events from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Arthur’s Day received quite a bit of negative publicity when it was announced that this corporate event would be repeated in 2013, described by some as a work of ‘evil genius’, involving the cordoning off of a whole day for corporate exploitation. Arthur’s Day was cancelled in 2014.

Discussion of Structuralism

To sum up, the basic structuralist argument is that beliefs and behaviours in language communities are governed by unconscious classificatory systems which are structured as binary oppositions. Meanings are not intrinsic to any element in the system but are instead determined by the differences between elements. The system is assumed stable at any given point in time but dynamic through time. Structuralist arguments can be distinguished from Social Comparison Theory as they view mass communication as a form of writing that is structured according to the rules of language (Scott, 1994). However they have been critiqued from a number of perspectives, some of which are briefly discussed next.

De Saussure used the Geneva-to-Paris train as an example to illustrate how meaning is created in language. Every day, the ‘same’ Geneva-to-Paris train leaves promptly at 8.25 pm, even though it is composed of a different engine, coaches and personnel. The time and platform from which it leaves provide its unique identity, enabling it to be differentiated from trains that leave from different platforms and at different times, by different routes to different destinations. Meanings are determined in advance by the impersonal language system (langue). We can create relatively unique identities (parole) by engaging in bricolage through unique combinations of the commodities we consume but overall the meaning is fixed within the system of language (langue), just as that of the train is fixed by the timetable.

The above argument has been criticized by several authors. Jacques Lacan and Anthony Giddens each argued that it fails to account for context. While Lacan’s criticism is discussed in the next chapter, Giddens (1979) argued that de Saussure’s account is partial as it only takes the point of view of the traveler and the timetabling official. This ignores that the identity of the train is different when one shifts perspective to that of the train spotter or the railway repair engineer. By analogy, the meaning of a term in language cannot simply be taken for granted as issuing from differences within the language system but must be interpreted according to the point of view of the person who uses the term (who encodes it) or who listens to or reads the term (who decodes it).

Part II: The Reflexive Consumer

If structuralists look at how language determines the subject, then uses and gratifications theory and reader response theory which are discussed next turn this around to explore what subjects do with language.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Uses and Gratifications theory reverses the idea that language exists as a pre-given and fixed structure prior to its realization in speech. Theorists from this perspective argue that consumers pick and choose from media content as and when it suits them. O’Donohoe (1994) focused on how 18 to 24-year-olds used advertising to create meaning and identity. Her informants were encouraged to describe advertisements they liked and a typical set included advertisements for alcohol, coffee, soft-drinks, confectionery and jeans. She found that advertisements served a variety of uses, for instance by acting as repositories for ‘cool’ images which could then be integrated into a person’s self-concept or identity, by buying and using the product. Men described the celebrity Rutger Hauer, who had at that time featured in ads for Guinness, with some claiming that they drank Guinness to be cool, like him. Men and women used the advertisements they liked as posters to check on what the celebrities who appeared in them were using. Advertisements were valued for all sorts of reasons, from mild sexual stimulation (women said they liked watching ads with ‘nice’ men in them, like the Levi’s ad), peer bonding, entertainment, escapism, play and signaling quality.

Reader Response Theory

Elliott & Elliott (2005) used Reader Response Theory (Scott, 1994) as a lens to focus on the meaning that audiences bring to the interpretation of the advert as text.⁶ From this they argue that an advertisement is not just an image but is coded in the same way as language and thus can be read as a text. Contrary to structuralists they argue that it is important to recognize the knowledge, motives, expectations and emotions that readers bring to advertising texts and which influence how the text is decoded. They conducted focus groups with young men from a British university to study their responses to the depiction of men in advertising.

The groups responded negatively to an advertisement for Patrick Cox shoes, as too effeminate or ‘gay’. They identified body-consciousness and vanity as signifying female traits and also said that consumption did not play much of a role in their lives. Most group members recognized the use of sex as a marketing tool, arguing that this was a legitimate marketing trick and regarded the use of phallic signifiers as obvious. Most of their informants indicated that they were reasonably happy with their looks and dissociated themselves with the idealized models used in advertising, because they “knew that they could never look like that” (ibid: 13). Albeit based on a small-scale study, informants subscribed to an ideal of masculinity close to that portrayed by the Marlboro Man, signifying dominance, independence, self-confidence, assertiveness, strength and ambition’ and rejected images that did not accord with these traits. Overall, the authors refer to a circular process where cultural meaning moves from culture to its inscription in advertising messages which are then interpreted by consumers who then feed these back into culture (Elliott & Elliott, 2005, 15).

The studies by O’Donohoe (1994) and Elliott and Elliott (2005) counter claims that mass-mediated images are somehow injected into passive consumers as if by a hypodermic syringe and lend support to findings that most women are highly critical of the use of ‘skinny’ models in magazines and on film (Grogan et al., 1999). There is now general agreement that people are knowledgeable and will often pick and choose which pieces of information to attend to and what to ignore. On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, structuralists present the opposite view that advertising imagery has a profound effect on body image. Schroeder & Borgerson (2005) note arguments about advertising literacy and fluency, but reject these in favour of an explanation from Social Comparison Theory, that foregrounds the ideological role of advertising. They argue that photographs are convincing precisely because they are naturalized as mere visual records of reality (ibid. 582). Furthermore, they suggest that marketing representations encourage us to rely on stereotypes, having, ‘the power to make us believe that we know something we have no experience of.” (ibid. 584).

One should not be surprised to learn that academics from different theoretical orientations (structuralism/ Social Comparison Theory/ Uses and Gratifications/ Reader Response Theory), look for different things in privileging structure over agency and vice versa and devise appropriate methods to find these (experiments versus focus groups). Perhaps they are each correct in their own terms, and advertising images, which we actively interpret and consciously pick and choose from in fashioning our identities, also unconsciously affect our body perception? If this is so, then it invites theorists to accept that human subjectivity is complex, consisting of different layers. This question is explored in more detail in chapters seven and eight.

In light of the above it should be mentioned that Williamson’s (1978) account of brand meaning was written many years ago since when a considerable literature has developed on brand meaning. One argument is that brands identify with cultural tensions against prevailing ideologies (Holt, 2005); another that brands are often associated with the underdog (Paharia,et al., 2008) and a third, with nostalgia (Holak, 1998). Another argument which has attracted considerable attention from marketing academics in recent years, is that consumers ‘co-create’ brands, by using and interpreting brands differently to the ways envisaged by managers (Allen et al. 2008).

Part III: Post-Structuralism

What unites Gilles Deleuze,  Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigary and Helene Cixious, who were the principle theorists of Post-Structuralism?  Most obviously because they were French, they were influenced by the works of their compatriot seniors such as Jacques Lacan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Louis Althusser and Roland Barthes, as well as by Frederic Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.  In developing their respective theories they occasionally rubbed shoulders with each other, whilst studiously refraining from citing their works, and with contemporaries such as the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and the literary critic Rene Girard.  They also shared in common the perspective of the outsider in being antipathetic to French imperialism, some directly, such as Cixious and Derrida, who were both born in Algeria, whilst Bourdieu spent time in the army there and Foucault had spent some years in Tunisia.

From the above, an ethical concern with the marginalized other is reiterated as a constant theme across their work, recalled for instance, in Barthes’ (1958) discussion of Algerian wine in Mythologies, in Foucault’s general exploration of the, “unthought or excluded element that the edifice of history leaves aside”.  Concern with the the other is evident in Foucault’s discussion of the history of England, where he points out that the canonical account was written from the perspective of the victor. This is also apparent in his bringing to light the eighteenth century sequestration of those deemed mad, or bad, in asylums and prisons and the emergence of a complex apparatus of power through the development of a scientific discourse of sex and concomitantly of a regime of discipline and control over the human body.

The “post” in post-structuralism points to the development of theories after structuralism. To get a flavour of the transition it is worthwhile reading the works of Roland Barthes who progressively changed from a structural to a post-structural orientation. The most famous post-structuralists are Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Julia Kristeva and Gille Deleuze. One can spend years reading and trying to understand the works of any one of them and a further difficulty is that one often needs to have implicit knowledge of the sources of their inspiration if one is to make sense of their work. For instance, Jacques Lacan, whose theory is very briefly introduced in the next chapter is referenced in one way or another by almost all of them. Below I first outline the theory Pierre Bourdieu and then move on to briefly introduce the work of Jacques Derrida and others.

Pierre Bourdieu

Although Pierre Bourdieu whose work is considered next might not be considered a post-structuralist by some, nonetheless his ideas around ‘structural-constructivism’ represent a development of structuralist thought. Bourdieu was first encountered in chapter two where I used a chart developed from his early work with the Kabyle to illustrate the organization of traditional societies through circular time. The seventeenth-century English household was also ordered according to the rhythm of the weekly cycle, ‘wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, bake on Wednesday, brew on Thursday, Churn on Friday, mend on Saturday, Go to meeting on Sunday’, elements of which persisted in Britain and Ireland until the 1970s. In light of this a pertinent question is to what extent can Bourdieu be considered a post-structuralist? This becomes more apparent when one turns to his later work such as his study of the expression of taste in France published as Distinction (Bourdieu, 1984).

Bourdieu’s (1989) theory of structure which he enigmatically refers to structural constructivism, or constructivist structuralism is very different to that envisaged by Saussure and Levi-Strauss. By constructivism,

I mean that there is a twofold social genesis, on the one hand of the schemes of perception, thought, and action which are constitutive of what I call habitus, and on the other hand of social structures, and particularly of what I call fields and of groups, notably those we ordinarily call social classes (Bourdieu, 1989, 14).

While Bourdieu’s theory of practice developed from his critique of structuralism, this is not immediately obvious. He maintains that objective structures exist in the world that are not just symbolic systems but exist independently of the will of agents and acting to contain and to guide their practices. While this might be read as a structuralist argument, Bourdieu insists that his overriding intention is to overcome the divide between objectivism and subjectivism or structure and agency (Bourdieu, 1984, 15). In his view, as illustrated by the above quote, the subjective and objective exist in a dialectical relation such that objective structures form the basis for the subjective representations of agents, which in turn form the basis for the struggles of agents to modify these structures. Although they are objective, social structures are not entirely deterministic but are reproduced and changed by the individuals whose actions and understandings they constrain. The term ‘constructivist structuralism thus contains a dynamic tension, between the constructive individual and constraining social structures.

Bourdieu argues that most agents usually go along with the status quo and reproduce the structures that facilitate their actions and understandings. In the Kabyle society this was explicitly encouraged, as anyone who acted out of place was singled out as amkalef, (from khalef, “to stand out”) and judged to be a diabolical threat to the functioning of the group (Bourdieu, 1994: 158). However, he rejected crude Marxist arguments, that in a society such as France one can simply read off a person’s taste in clothing, home décor, fine art or food, from their level of wealth economic capital. Although economic wealth is a very important factor, cultural capital is also important, as is one’s gender, ethnicity and the spatial arrangement of one’s upbringing, whether this is in a city, or in a rural area. Thus, two people can be equally wealthy, but differences in their possession of cultural capital can hugely affect the expression of their taste. Cultural capital is embodied, objective and institutionalized, stemming from one’s education and is closely related the social capital that comprises one’s social network. Taken together, these forms of capital feed into the habitus.

Habitus

The concept of habitus was first encountered in chapter one in relation to its definition by Norbert Elias who likened it to an individual style that grows out of a cultural script. Bourdieu’s definition of the habitus as a; ‘system of lasting transposable disposition that functions at every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 83) is rather abstract. The habitus is lasting because it consists of the mental structures we formed during infancy, internalized from our daily observations and personal experiences of divisions based on class, gender, ethnicity and age. While these observations and experiences condition how we interpret the world and act on it, the habitus is embodied. Our body is socialised from the very beginning as we come to see it and to judge it through the eyes of others and are trained in rituals such as eating and drinking and how to comport ourselves. The body thus literally incorporates the “immanent structures…of a particular sector of the world” (Bourdieu, 1998: 81). Traditionally the body and overall demeanour of the elite is considered refined and light, whilst the body of the worker is heavy and crude, to reflect their respective occupations and position in the social order.

The habitus conditions practices and enduring dispositions so that individuals with similar positions in society will share a similar habitus. The primary habitus develops as the result of our earliest experiences in the home when as infants we imitate the habits of our caregivers and those others who surround us. This provides the framework which enables us to make sense of the behaviours of those with whom we identify. For instance, a girl child raised by the Kabyle would have been regarded as the property of her village and not of her parents and would have learned early to attend to daily chores, eat the same food in the same way as other girls, and to walk with a measured pace. She would have quickly learned that men and women live separate lives, that the home and its environs are the domain of women while that of men lies in the fields beyond. She would know to take care when asked to collect water during the wet season when the men remained much closer to the environs of the village, as it was considered improper to venture out if the men were close by. The ordering of her daily life would have enabled her to orient her behavior according to the unspoken binary relation that associates maleness with the outside, summer and dryness and femaleness, with their opposites. This in turn would have enabled her to make judgements of a moral and aesthetic kind, by differentiating behaviour considered proper from that judged as vulgar or improper. Her habitus thus forms the basis for the binary oppositions that comprise the mental spectacles she uses to perceive the world, which she accepts as doxa, the common sense she uses to classify and to judge her own behaviour and that of others (Bourdieu, 1984: 471). These form the basis for her practical knowledge of the world and are not just enshrined in language but in her embodied dispositions and gestures.

The habitus produces practices that instantly enable others to classify us (Ward, 2004: 6). Our primary habitus is not rigid but serves as scaffolding for a secondary habitus gained from formal education, which evolves as one engages in different fields of activity. In England, boxing, soccer, rugby-league and coarse fishing are traditionally the preserve of the male working-class, whilst rugby union, cricket and golf are associated with the middle-classes and polo and fly-fishing with the upper-class.

Social Capital

The wealthiest were and continue to be the most well-connected and best educated, enjoying disproportionate access to private schools and elite universities. Such access is facilitated by a cosmopolitan habitus which cultivates an embodied, polished ease, fluency of expression and confidence that takes years to accomplish and is lacking in those lower down the social scale. Social capital refers to who you know as opposed to what you know and enables the elite to draw on an extensive network of contacts to secure opportunities denied to those lower down. Given that in England golf remains a middle-class preserve, membership of one of the top clubs serves as a sign of one’s middle-class credentials and a crucial point of access to an important social network for those who have not had the benefit of a private education.

Golf can be a stepping-stone for those with high economic capital but low cultural capital, especially if one is accepted as a member of a prestigious golf-club. This presents a considerable challenge because those with high cultural capital may have learned golf in their primary habitus as children so that skill is ingrained in their bodily dispositions. Although the walls of privilege are (very) slowly coming down, the world of golf is no longer exclusive to men, although many clubs have found subtle ways in which to maintain male privilege. If a man with high economic and low cultural capital wishes to join a prestigious club then following vetting by members as to his “suitability” he may be allowed to pay the joining fee of somewhere between £30,000 and £250,000. If admitted it is unlikely that he will be able to conceal from his middle class associates the working-class habits he developed as a child, such as his accent, gait, comportment and eating habits, never mind the vast amount of cultural capital which he lacks that they take for granted.

Amor Fati: The Choice of Necessity

The working class individual who steps out of line by emulating members of the elite class can be doubly marginalised, on the one hand being subject to ridicule from members of the elite class they aspire to join, while on the other, they are regarded as a traitor to their own class. Moreover If that person applies to join a golf-club, they open themselves up to the claim that they are a social climber. On the other hand amor fati, or “the love of one’s fate” refelects the opposite tendency where individuals with low social and economic capital actively maintain their lowly position by refusing what they are refused (Bourdieu, 1984: 471). For instance, traditionally the English working class man regards golf as pretentious, effeminate and pointless. Although many of those raised in humble circumstances may subsequently attain considerable wealth, they can find it immensely difficult to cast off their humble upbringing, deriving as much satisfaction from calculating how much they have saved by doing without a commodity or by doing something themselves rather than paying others; “Having a million does not in itself make one able to live like a millionaire” (Bourdieu, 1978: 374). Additionally, Bourdieu found that the habitus of the working poor led them to celebrate those goods which they must buy out of necessity, preferring offal, which was sneered at by the bourgeoisie. For their part working men sneered at the ‘nouvelle cuisine” enjoyed by middle-class men whom they considered pretentious and effeminate.

As with golf, the sporting habitus of the martial arts devotee is a tertiary formation that is mediated by their primary habitus and by the secondary habitus formed by their education. Similarly, a person’s relation to boxing will be influenced by perceptions as to whether this is regarded as a legitimate sport by those in the home, at school and in the wider neighbourhood, who will ask, “is this the kind of activity sanctioned by “people like us”? This will in turn influence the desirability of investing one’s life energy into the sport. By comparison to golf, in the UK and USA, boxing has traditionally been considered a sport suitable for those with low economic and cultural capital. As with golf, the proprioceptive capacities and sensorimotor skills developed during infancy play an important role in forming the background for development of proficiency in the sport (Wacquant, 2014: 8). By starting to train as a boxer the newcomer incorporates new practices and principles and so modifies their habitus. They come to understand the schemata that judge competence in boxing. Taken together these constitute, ‘the ‘set of actually usable resources and powers” at an individual’s disposal (Bourdieu, 1984: 114).

From the above, while there is a broad equivalence between the possession of economic capital and the distribution of consumption practice there is no crude relation between them as they are mediated by the habitus. Bourdieu describes the folly of those middle-class Russian revolutionaries who thought they could put themselves in the position of the working-class just by aping their class position, as they crucially lacked a working-class habitus.

Fields

Bourdieu argued that the social world is split up into distinct fields of practice which are strategic games that are imbued with power relations. Fields are areas of practice, such as religion, medicine, education, sport, art and consumption which are relatively autonomous but can overlap, as for example, when religious orders are involved in education. Fields can also be differentiated in relation to economic and cultural capital. For instance, in sport, English working-class men are traditionally associated with boxing, soccer, rugby-league and coarse-fishing; middle-class men with rugby-union, cricket, golf, tennis and skiing; and upper-class men with polo and fly-fishing. Cultural capital acquired from the investment of resources into a particular field such as snooker, golf, or learning to skipper a yacht, requires the expenditure of a good deal of energy in developing the requisite knowledge and skills that comprise embodied cultural capital. This is undoubtedly made easier for those whose habitus enables access from infancy, whose effortless skill is the envy of those others who must laboriously learn these skills as adults. Such proficiency can in turn convert to symbolic capital, involving prestige and respect, social capital, by means of the creation of networking opportunities, which overall increase a person’s economic standing.

For Bourdieu, fields are areas where those at the top exploit the field to keep others in dependency. For instance, in the academic field the heads who control access to the field have the power to control access to the field by maintain their doctoral students in a state of dependency by manipulating their time.

Critiquing Bourdieu: The Cultural Omnivore

From the above, the habitus describes a coherent and embodied way of acting and perceiving the world which is instilled in our earliest years, which we share with others who occupy a similar class position. It operates as a means of classifying the world from a certain position and of positioning oneself in the class system, where economic class shapes all other forms of distinction. Bourdieu (1984) argued that class differences are marked out most clearly by distastes, where working-class taste operates as a foil or negative reference point for the elite (ibid.: 57). However, from their study of American taste in music Petersen & Simkus (1992) argue against the idea that high status individuals are snobs who shun and disparage common culture. They differentiate the snob as someone who is exclusively attached to classical music and opera and who does not participate in any lowbrow activity, from the cultural omnivore, who appreciates all forms of music. They cite evidence conducted from surveys in the USA from the 1960s onwards, which indicated that even then it was rare to find cultural snobs. In a later study they found that identified just ten snobs in a national sample of 11,321 respondents (Petersen & Simkus, 1996). From this they argued that omnivorousness has largely replaced snobbishness amongst highbrow citizens of the USA However, they noted too that omnivores “did not embrace” country music, although, “they appreciate and critique it in the light of some knowledge of the genre” (ibid.: 904).

Since then other cultural fields have been studied to see if there is evidence for the omnivore hypothesis. Holbrook et al., (2002) discuss this as one of three effects. A second effect is a boundary-effacement effect whereby members of different classes share similar tastes, for instance, in relation to family photographs. A third orientation describes a distinction effect where higher-status individual engage in certain cultural habits such as attending theatres, museums and concerts in order to differentiate themselves from those of lower status. While others argue that omniviourness or one of the other effects can dominate, Holbrook et al argue that all three can happily co-exist.

British sociologists Bennett et al. (2008) conducted one of largest-scale replications of Bourdieu’s study. They found that despite widespread claims about the fragmentation of taste communities and individualization of taste, there remain clear structural differences, many of which would have probably been found in previous decades. Although the middle-class now appear more open, there are still ‘subtle boundaries” that perpetuate the cultural dominance of the middle-class (Bennett et al., 2008: 193). The authors found little support for the cultural omnivore described by Peterson and his colleagues. There were still clear differences in taste for music with only limited crossover between those who like classical music and rock music. There was more evidence for omnivorous taste in reading but the authors suggested that this was largely because reading is itself a minority taste!

Bourdieusian Approaches to Consumer Research

Consumer research in this area generally consists of small-scale interpretive studies that tend to restrict their focus to study the effects of capital and field. In Distinction Bourdieu (1984) describes how those possessing low cultural and economic capital evaluate art objects and consumer goods pragmatically in relation to their material function, while those with higher levels of cultural capital will describe these same items in aesthetic terms. For instance, when asked to evaluate a photograph of a pair of hands, those with high cultural capital commented on the aesthetic quality of the work whereas those with low cultural capital wondered if the “owner” of the hands they had a hard life (ibid.: 45).

In the field of consumer research Douglas Holt seems to have cornered the market when it comes to Bourdieu. In his first study Holt (1998) conducted qualitative research to find out if a similar pattern of distinction existed in the USA He was particularly interested to discover whether or not social class makes a difference in relation to perceptions of material culture and cultural texts such as artworks. His study was more modest than that conducted by Bourdieu, consisting of a purposive sample of just ten individuals selected from the upper quintile of the population (labelled as HCC – Higher Cultural Capital) and ten from the lower quintile (labelled as LCC – Lower Cultural Capital). Overall, Holt confirmed Bourdieu’s (1984) hypotheses. Of particular interest were the differing meanings attached by members of HCC and LCC groups to the signifier ‘functional’ in relation to their consumption. LCCs used ‘functional’ to describe goods that are durable, comfortable and reasonably priced. For instance, Heather likes to be ‘comfortable’ in her clothes and is happy shopping at stores such as KMart and WalMart. She finds it difficult to spend $30 on a shirt or $60 on a skirt when she can buy the material and make this herself. HCCs on the other hand tended to use objects as vehicles for self-expression. When they expressed admiration for ‘functional’ clothing, this had a very different meaning from that described by LCCs, by representing the meaning of ’functional’ in relation to a particular aesthetic value based on parsimonious design and utilitarian construction similar to the functionalism of ‘high’ modern architecture and design. For instance, when asked what kind of clothes he likes John (HCC) replies; 

Today I’m buying practical clothes. That is to say they’re mostly cotton. They’re all washable. Mostly they don’t require ironing because I get tired of ironing . . . I look for – now when I’m buying clothing – I really don’t care about the current style anymore. You know it has good design. It will always be in style. And I tend to look for things which probably are more expensive but which I know will be more durable.

Interviewer: ‘Are there any particular clothing styles that you like?’

John: ‘Yeah. I guess the best way to say it would be styles that are functional and designed worn by human bodies as they are; as opposed to designed and worn only standing up at cocktail parties or the races or, you know, as soon as you sit down you know it was a mistake. (ibid.: 9).

There were also consistent differences between LCCs and HCCs interpretations of cultural artefacts, their views on what makes the “good life” and on how to spend leisure time. Similar to Bourdieu (1984), Holt found that LCCs viewed works of art, films and music as more or less realistic depictions of the world, which formed the basis for comparison to their own lives. They were attracted to “real” programmes and movies and to music that spoke directly to their life situation. In contrast, HCCs were unconcerned with the real-world relevance of artworks but rather valued them as entertainment or for their potential for edification.

From the above, although small-scale, Holt’s (1998) study provides support for the relevance of some of Bourdieu’s concepts in the context of the USA. The major study conducted in the UK by Bennett et al., (2008) was on a different scale, consisting of a random sample of 1754 respondents, representative of gender, social class and ethnicity in addition to 25 focus groups and 44 personal interviews. The research focused on the homologies and differences in seven fields including music, reading, visual arts, television, sport, eating out. Television and films did not divide but music did, where there was still a big divide between classical and popular music. In line with Bourdieu’s argument working class people did not feel they were excluded from high culture, such as classical music, but simply did not engage with it. Overall the evidence confirmed the continuing usefulness of Bourdieusian concepts, but with some interesting twists. One factor that Bourdieu had not enquired into and which clearly stood out, was age. The older well-educated middle class enjoyed classical music and reading biographies and modern literature, whilst the younger educated middle-class liked rock, heavy metal and electronic music. The less well educated older working classes liked country and western music whilst younger, poorly educated members of the working class were indifferent to or disliked all the genres they were asked about. Gender was also important in identifying rock and heavy metal as especially liked by middle class men, whereas middle-class women preferred self-help and modern literature and working-class women preferred romantic fiction.

Researching Dispossession

Satcioglu, Bige & Ozanne (2013) conducted an interesting study into those left behind on the fringes of the consumer society through their exploration of the moral habitus of the inhabitants of Lakeside Park, a US trailer park of 150 trailers, housing 350-450 people. These people are routinely stigmatized by mainstream media, described as indolent, ignorant, and lacking in control. In contrast, the authors discovered a diverse moral habitus comprised of five distinct groupings including, Nesters, Reluctant Emigrants, Community Builders, Homesteaders, and Outcasts. The moral habitus of Nesters was almost the opposite of the media stereotype as these individuals described themselves on an upward trajectory from a deprived and troubled past. They saw themselves as good people with steady jobs, who lead good lives and able to afford some of the good things in life. They were often linked to church organizations and leveraged the cultural capital gained from this. Nesters supported and value the Park rules and strongly differentiated their embodied cultural capital manifested in their good manners, from others who they argued lived up to the name of “Trailer Trash” whom they described as being disorderly, dirty, and lacking in self-control.

Where Nesters portrayed themselves on an upward trajectory, Reluctant Emigrants were on a downward trajectory having once owned a fixed home and fallen on hard times. These people viewed new surroundings in Lakeside Park with anxious misgiving, as a dangerous place to live and clung to their primary socialization as middle class and are hardworking and disciplined. They valued self-control and independence and were the most ethically vocal group. By comparison, Homesteaders such as Wanda who had low literacy and was disabled, were severely lacking in economic and cultural capital adopting a resigned attitude to life in Lakeside Park. Finally, outcasts had often come from a secure background that valued hard work and discipline but were amoral enjoying relating tales of binge drinking, drug abuse, earning income from deviant means (e.g., strip dancing, dealing drugs), and breaking laws (e.g., identity theft, driving with a suspended license, assault on a police officer). For the Outcasts, the trailer was just a physical shelter with little symbolic meaning or personal attachment. The authors describe that the outcasts field-dependent capital primarily involved them to cultivate an emotionally flat, indifferent attitude to themselves and the world around them.

Western vs. Indigenous Consumption.

Üstüner and Holt (2010) sought to discover if Bourdieu’s theory could be applied to understand the influence of globalization, specifically in relation to the voracious appetite of elites in newly industrialized countries for Western goods as status markers. The methodology followed in this relatively modest qualitative study was broadly similar to that employed by Holt (1998), but focused solely on Turkey’s “upper-middle” economic class of new consumers, involving 36 individuals in all, 15 of whom scored low and 21 high in cultural capital. The authors found broad differences between these two groups in relation to their orientation, with HCCs oriented towards the consumption style of the West and LCCs towards that of the indigenous elite.

LCCs tended to track and follow the lifestyle practices of Istanbul high society and valued the deferential attention accorded to them by staff in the luxury shops and hotels they frequented. Their store of choice is Ismet Mobile, the most expensive furniture store in Ankara and they use the expensive goods they buy there and elsewhere in order to clearly signal their distance from poorer middle-class consumers. For instance, the authors describe how Aliye closely follows changes in elite tastes of Istanbul society from clothing to holidays, the home and its furnishings. Aliye initially decorated her home in the classical Turkish style and regularly attended auctions because art collecting was regarded as fashionable, amassing a collection of six hundred paintings. Two years later she disposed of the entire collection and the classical furniture, moving to a minimalist apartment that fitted the changed taste of the Turkish elite. Although LCCs like Aliye have the same economic status as HCCs, they rarely socialize with them. Similar to “amor fati’, they disparage the HCC adulation of “the Western Lifestyle Myth” as phony, by trying to be someone they are not.

The authors describe that although both HCCs and LCCs lived in gated communities only four of the several hundred alternatives fitted the HCC requirement of “the American way of living”. For example, HCCs Seray and her husband valued the aesthetic of their “orderly, planned, organized, clean” gated community compared to what she described as the “chaotic, disorderly, mixed up, dirty” neighbourhoods of the city’(ibid.: 47). HCCs lavished attention on their lawns which they preferred over traditional gardens and chose matching Italian or American style furniture. Ferda and her husband moved to an HCC neighbourhood from an equally well-off one because they could no longer bear living with people they described as peasants who left their shoes by the front door, talked loudly in the corridor, shouted at their children and carried “smelly food in the lifts. (ibid.: 259). Most HCCs travelled to the West in order to stock up on brands that fitted the lifestyle myth and for holidays enjoyed ski trips to the Alps.

From their study Üstüner and Holt (2010) developed the concept of deterretorialized capital to explain the need for HCCs to learn Western cultural codes, which they liken to learning a particularly cryptic and complex foreign language. Despite the HCCs' best efforts, because the Western lifestyle is not part of the HCC habitus, it stubbornly remains as borrowed culture, an add-on aspect of their identity projects. Turkish HCCs can feel like posers trying to imitate otbers. They are forced to consider the differences between their deterritorialized cultural capital and the embedded form prevalent among HCCs in the West.

Shattered Identity Projects

In an earlier work Üstüner and Holt (2007) studied young Turkish women whose families had been displaced from their villages, who now resided in squatter camps in a metropolitan setting. There was a marked contrast between the traditional Islamic habitus of village life and the consumerist Baltici lifestyle of modern city dwellers. While their mothers went into overdrive by knitting and spinning in seeking to bolster their traditional identity, the younger women scorned tradition and yearned instead to achieve a Baltici lifestyle. However, this could only ever be a dream for them because they did not possess the social, economic and cultural capital necessary to make the transformation. The tragedy for these young women was that even when they understood that they could not achieve their aspired identity one of them returned to the squatter camp where they could re-employ their field-dependent capital.

Jacques Derrida

While Bourdieu’s writing style can be described as verbose and at times opaque, nevertheless, his vivid descriptions often shine through the verbiage. On the other hand, Derrida, who is regarded as perhaps the pre-eminent post-structuralist philosopher, made few concessions to the reader, and one realises that the learning curve is going to be steep when one learns that much of his argument was developed from his de-construction of the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose work is briefly described in the next chapter.

Derrida was first and foremost a moral philosopher who is best known for developing the related concepts of différance and deconstruction as a means to reveal the problems inherent in all centres and binary systems. He radicalised de Saussure by arguing that Identity arises out of difference. it is not the Word, or the thing, that has priority, but rather difference and relationally. Things achieve the contours of an identity but carry a trace of what they are not. As the trace of the other, is not a thing, Derrida argues that his is not an ontology of identity, but what he calls a hauntology, as identity is haunted and thus problematised by otherness.

The system of binary oppositions that generate cultural categories is not neutral but hierarchical, acting to reinforce a regime of power. Decentring through deconstruction has a moral basis as through its practices it reveals how power insinuates itself through language to legitimise the privilege of some to control others and to cause them harm. In so doing it reveals how linguistic labels effectively form corridors in the mind to close off from consideration those who are labelled unworthy of moral consideration and concern.

One reason why Derrida’s work can seem forbidding is because of his tendency to use portmanteau terms such as logocentrism, phallogocentrism and carnophallogocentrism. Logocentrism refers to the longstanding tendency by philosophers and indeed by most of us who assume that thinking comes before writing, as we first think of something and then write it down. His point is not easy to grasp if like me you have taken it for granted that our internal thoughts come first and are then expressed in speech or in writing. Expressed in semiological terms, logocentrism assumes that the signified, or the concept, comes first, and is thus prior to its inscription as a signifier in speech and in writing. From Lacan, Derrida argued the conversely that our thoughts and actions are fundamentally shaped by our culture which has pre-existed our individual selves by tens of thousands of years. Where de Saussure had argued that thought and speech come before writing, Lacan and Derrida thus argued the need to recognise the force of culture in organising our thoughts, actions and identities.

Phallogocentrism is the rather clumsy term Derrida uses to describe the pervasive privileging of the male over the female in discourse. This combines two mistaken assumptions; logo-centrism, which privileges thought (logos) over writing, or in semiotic terms, signified over the signifier, and phallocentrism, that only males can have the phallus. Carnophallogocentrism, which Derrida discusses in his last works, refers to the pervasive privileging of the human over the variety of species that humans call “animals”.

Derrida illustrated how systems of binary oppositions are not neutral but are ordered hierarchically such that one term is privileged over the other. For example, logocentricism privileges thought and speech over writing. He argued that this elevation of one term over another is not natural but is socially constructed and arbitrary. This is because the idea that the primary function of language is to communicate our thoughts is misplaced, as our thoughts are themselves already shaped by writing. This seems obvious when we take a step back to acknowledge that writing has existed for thousands of years so that inevitably our thoughts are shaped by the system of language.

As discussed further in chapter eight in the section on Lacan, Derrida develops this further to coin the neologism différance to describe how we seek a fullness of meaning that cannot be achieved. This is because meaning is endlessly deferred by metaphorical substitution and metonymic displacement that are constantly operative in language. From this Derrida argues that all knowledge is a form of bricolage or making do with what is ready to hand. If there can be no fullness of meaning, then to act as if there can be involves relations of power and violence.

For example, there is violence involved in lumping unique individuals together by means of a collective signifier or label such as “woman”, or “animal” which marks them out as inferior to another group (“men”, “human”) on the basis of a presumed, but unsubstantiated, lack in the ability for reasoned thought. Consider the longstanding traditional presumption that ‘men’ are superior to ‘women’ on the basis that ‘men’ are rational and ‘women’ are emotional. It seems obvious that if this belief were widely subscribed to then men would be educated to get all the ‘thinking’ jobs, while all the ‘caring’ jobs would be considered fitting for women. This obviously had real world consequences in Europe where, until the twentieth century women were largely denied access to education, because of prejudice that presumed they lacked the capacity for rational thought. Today females make up sixty percent of the student population of St Andrews University where I used to work, and it was also one of the first universities in Scotland to admit women, the first of whom graduated in 1892, five hundred years after the University was founded.⁷

Derrida was especially concerned about the routine violence done to those species we group under the signifier “animal”. In a similar fashion to that of ‘woman’, those classified as “animals” have been assigned this identity on the basis that they lack the ability to reason. Moreover, because they are lacking in reason, it has also also been presumed that along with human infants, ‘animals’ lack the capacity to experience pain, as this capacity is supposedly linked to the higher faculties.

The above raises the question as to how to investigate the lack of fullness of meaning of the privileged signifier in a binary scheme, or alternatively, the presence of the trace of this in the signifier that is subjugated and cast down. Deconstruction proceeds by identifying the trace of the other in the signifier. Take phallocentrism. For Derrida, no identity can ever be full because it relies on the trace of its opposite to provide definition so that masculinity bears a trace of the femininity that gives it shape. Generally the sexes are characterized by overlap and not division. Although the fastest man in the world can run 100 metres almost one second faster than the fastest woman, what is mistaken is the attempt to totalise this to argue that ‘men are faster than women’, given that the fastest woman can still outrun 99% of men.⁸ Similarly, lumping all life that dwells on land under the label “animals” ignores a vast amount of difference. It is known today that humans cannot confidently assert that animals lack language or intelligence and indeed comparison with animals highlights human limitations. Humans lack the sonar abilities of bats and dolphins and cannot see in the infra-red, while dogs have a much better sense of smell.⁹

From the above Derrida can be considered as an anti-identitarian alongside Daoist philosophers and social theorists such as Rene Girard and Michel Foucault.¹⁰ He argued the need for an impossible ethics that is attuned to difference, warning against the violence that can result from the totalising aspect of identity. Why is this an impossible ethics? Imagine, not only that this demands that we must try to ensure that we treat every human being we encounter with the utmost respect for their singular being, but also that we extend this to all of the singular beings we encounter that we condemn to anonymity by classifying them under labels, for instance, as “animals” or “fish”. Every day we deal with a range of these beings, from the one who shoves in front to get of us and onto a crowded bus, to the one lying on the plate we are about to eat for dinner. Such an ethics goes well beyond the Christian ethic of giving thanks to the Lord by saying grace. In this view the assertion of identity or worse, by vicariously experiencing the slights of others by taking up the cudgels on their behalf is a refusal of différance.

Part Four: The Vexed Question of Gender

Gender is nowadays a vexed question for academics given the controversial “debate” which has arisen between ‘gender-critical’ feminists and ‘trans’ activists over this issue leading to the silencing of some voices. That the exchange of views on this issue became heated and has at times descended into name-calling and worse is perhaps because it has descended from a topic for reasoned discussion and debate to arguments about claims for identity in a zero-sum game of prestige where whoever shouts the loudest is presumed to be the winner. In discussing this vexed question it is first useful to have some idea as to how things got to this stage. Deborah Cameron’s distinction between modern and postmodern understandings of sex and gender is a useful place from which to start.

Table 6.1. Contrasting Modern and Postmodern Understandings of Sex and Gender

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Source: Adapted from Cameron (2005: 484)

Modern Approaches to Gender

Modernists such as first and second-wave feminists assume that gender is constructed on top of an essential sexual difference.¹¹ This assumes that our sex is given, as we are born either male or female, and we are then acculturated as gendered, as a man or a woman. This argument is expressed in two forms. A hard (from “hardwired”) sexual difference approach assumes that gender is welded to sex. For instance, evolutionary theories of gender discussed in chapter five argue that men and women have necessarily evolved differently to fulfil different functions. Sociobiologists such as Buss (1995) suggest that behavioural differences between men and women stem from different sexual and reproductive strategies that have evolved to ensure that each sex can efficiently reproduce and effectively pass on their genes. From a consumer research perspective, Dahl, Sengupta and Vohs (2009) studied the responses of men and women to the gratuitous use of sexual imagery in advertising. They found that, ‘women, but not men, have an aversion to the gratuitous use of sex in advertising’ and they ‘identified ways in which women’s dislike of sexual advertising may be assuaged’ (Dahl et al., 2009: 227). Another study explored differences in what men and women look at in advertisements. When shown pictures of heterosexual couples, heterosexual men looked mostly at the woman, while heterosexual women looked equally at both the man and the woman (Lykins et al., 2008). Likewise, heterosexual men looked more at female than male swimsuit models, while women looked more equally at both (Lippa et al., 2010).

Others focus on the relation between gender and the material context of consumption. For instance, strawberry shortcake has an important place in American food culture. The Strawberry Shortcake doll launched in 1979, was a rag doll with red curls and a strawberry printed hat. Varney (1996) argued that these dolls played an important role in socializing young girls creating the expectation, “that women are similarly, ‘attractive, appetizing and consumable’. Cockburn (1997) found that male engineers charged with developing new products shunned housework technology, which they considered simple and uninteresting, preferring leisure and entertainment technology which was regarded as more challenging and state-of-the-art.

A softer stream of research into sexual difference that shares much in common with second wave feminism allowed scope for culture in the formation of gender identity. Gender is in this context understood as something that a person “has”, which is different from their biological sex as it is socially constructed, developing from an early age. Bem’s (1981) gender schema theory was influential in developing this understanding by positing that children are socialized early by interpersonal interaction and the mass-media to categorize others into male and female groups. One strand for consumer research enquired into media representations of gender relating to the reproduction of gender stereotypes. A second strand focused on the construction of gender identity. The next section briefly discusses the role played by the media in the construction of gender.

Media Representations of Gender

Ideology plays a role in formulating expectations and policing ‘appropriate’ behaviour within a given culture. The difficulty is that we are blind to our immersion in ideology, precisely because this comprises our taken-for-granted view of the world. It is thus much easier to recognize the operation of ideology in hindsight. For instance, looking back at Laura Brown, whose life in the USA of the 1950s is discussed in chapter one, it was then taken for granted that a woman should marry and defer to her husband on matters of importance because it was assumed that men are cleverer than women and that a woman’s proper place is in the home and not at work. Laura, alongside millions of American women who bought a television for the first time in the 1950s, was targeted by advertising which told her that she would be a better and more efficient housewife if she abandoned the traditional frugal ways of her mother and turned instead to the huge array of new commercial products available for home consumption. Ideology theorists argue that such assumptions reinforce patriarchy, or male power. They argue that women like Laura were indoctrinated to hold the false belief that their submissive status to men is natural and therefore right and proper. Consequently, Laura considered that her unhappiness must be solely her fault and nothing to do with the logic of how society was organized against them.

The ideological role of advertising formed an important topic for social critics of marketing until the 1990s. Critics argued that advertising imagery made gender roles appear as if they are natural and transparent, rather than cultural creations. At this time there was as much, if not more, debate amongst critics as to the meaning of ideology, as there was in applying this concept to advertising. For instance, the “crude” Marxist interpretation of ideology held that advertising pacifies the working-class by transmitting ideas compatible with the ruling capitalist class, for example by depicting a narrow range of social and occupational roles for women, thus serving the ‘need’ for low-cost (therefore exploited) labour. On the other hand Stuart Ewen (1976) argued that the reality was more complex, because advertising in the early twentieth century empowered women, recognising their worth as the main provisioner of the household and thereby increasing their power relative to men. However, Erving Goffman in Gender Advertisements (1979) demonstrated that advertising repeatedly reproduces gender stereotypes by depicting women in submissive postures relative to men. Schroeder and Borgerson (2005) developed Goffman’s argument by presenting a typology of how mass media produces very different images of gender through processes of faceism, idealization, exoticization and exclusion. Face-ism refers to how mass-media systematically show men with more prominent faces than women, who are negatively affected by this. Exclusion refers to the lack of representation and marginalization of minorities such as native Americans in advertising.

The ideological power of advertising has been contested. The claim that consumers, usually described as women, are simply exploited by advertising, can be thought sexist by presuming that they are dumb and open to manipulation. From the 1970s, theoretical discussion began to shift towards conceptions that allow for active interpretation by consumers. Thus Judith Williamson (1978) employed the Althusserian term “interpellation” to argue that consumers are hailed or summoned to actively participate in the meaning of advertising messages. Stuart Hall (1980) argued for the need to attend to the reception context within which individuals decode the meanings of communications such as advertisements. Robert Goldman (1992) also allowed a more active role for the consumer, developing the idea of the mortise and the frame to illustrate how advertisers seek to maximize the chances that the audience will base their reading of the advertisement on the reading preferred by the advertiser. Additionally as described earlier Stephanie O’Donohoe (1994) employed uses and gratifications theory to highlight the active interpretive role played by the consumer.

The critique of the ideological power of advertising is supported by research evidence that when their opinion has been sought, women are critical of their portrayal by advertisers. This was especially so when women felt that they were being objectified as sex-objects. For instance, none of the female participants in one study liked being portrayed as a ‘sex-object’ and instead preferred portrayed in a “family” role in advertisements for food and large appliances (Wortzel & Frisbie, 1974). Subsequent studies in Europe and the USA found that throughout the years women have continued to object to their portrayal in advertising as sex objects or homemakers, rather than as career women.

However, much of the research on the reproduction of gender stereotypes in advertising is dated. Additionally, advertising literacy has been aided by the airing of critical historical programmes such as Washes Whiter and Small Objects of Desire, the forerunners of a genre that reveals the ideological positioning of women and men in advertising.¹² Even so women continued to be portrayed by UK advertising in domestic roles and settings more often than men and featured particularly as targets for body-care and household cleaning products.¹³ The continuance of these practices led the UK regulator the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to announce that from June 2019 advertising that produced specific harms relating to the portrayal of gender identity would be banned. The guidance fell short of banning stereotypes outright but issued guidance such as the following as unacceptable; “An ad that depicts a man or a woman failing to achieve a task specifically because of their gender e.g. a man’s inability to change nappies; a woman’s inability to park a car”.¹⁴ While at time of writing there have not been many subsequent studies, the authors of one paper suggest that the new rules, “represent a missed opportunity to take bolder steps against ads that objectify or in appropriately sexualise individuals. The authors also criticized advertisers for not sufficiently recognizing the, “multi-faceted nature and fluidity of modern gender identities.”¹⁵ The mention of fluidity reflects the relatively recent change in the conception of gender from a modern to a postmodern perspective (Cameron, 2005). While ideology theorists focused on how individuals are socialised into gender roles, they nonetheless preserved the idea of essential categories comprising “women” and “men”.

The Gaze

The gaze, a concept drawn from psychoanalysis, shifts attention from media representations of the gendered body to the audience, to enquire whose enjoyment is the image for? Calling this behaviour “the gaze” is problematic and can lead to misunderstanding of the psychoanalytic perspective. Freud (1905) referred to scopophilia, or the narcissistic sexual pleasure derived by infants and adult perverts from voyeuristic looking at an object (“The Peeping Tom”), or alternatively its reverse by being looked at , through exhibiting one’s privates to others (Exhibitionism). It follows that the look is a more appropriate term to describe this behaviour. Indeed Lacan differentiates the controlling look of the narcissistic subject from the gaze of the Other, which is an uncanny presence that disconcerts the voyeuristic pleasure of the look (see Reyes et al., 2015). Consider for instance, the disconcertion of the Peeping Tom who feels that someone is looking at them from behind as they look on at someone undressing through a peephole.

From the above, when theorists such as Christian Metz and Laura Mulvey describe “the gaze” in relation to the narcissistic enjoyment gained from looking at an individual as a sexual object, rather than unsettling feeling experienced by the voyeur, when sensing that their actions are being scrutinised by the Big Other, can lead to misunderstanding. Please bear this in mind when reading accounts below by Laura Oswald amongst others. Mulvey argued that the depiction of women in advertising is phallocentric as their images are rendered according to the controlling fantasy of the white male. She develops from a psychoanalytic perspective the argument that there is a problem in showing the female body, given that female castration threatens male enjoyment. There are two routes to escape this problem; one is to highlight female castration by devaluing and degrading the woman’s image, while the other is to turn this into a fetish object by building up its physical beauty and transforming this into something satisfying in itself. Advertising effectively achieves both aims (Mulvey, 1988).

Post-Feminism and its Discontents

By the millennium it seemed that much had changed since the 1970s, when sexism, racism and homophobia were largely unquestioned. Discrimination in the workplace was then routine and it was still widely accepted that a woman’s natural place was in the home. Great strides had since been made towards achieving the goals of second-wave feminism regarding economic and political equality and sexual liberation. Such developments led prominent feminists and theorists such as Natasha Walter and Angela McRobbie to suggest that sexism might disappear as society became more equal.¹⁶ An emergent group known as post-feminists began to argue that the key goals of second wave feminism had now been achieved.

Neither McRobbie nor Walter paid much attention to the development of new hyper-sexualised female identities linked to the rise of the brash “porno chic” or the “pornographication of the mainstream” culture that was occurring around them (McNair, 1996). This had long existed on the fringe through offerings such as the Rocky Horror Show, which opened in 1973 featured fetish objects, inspiring the fantasy of ‘Goth’ culture, subsequently popularized in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess. The image of the dominatrix presented leather-clad Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in the 1960s series The Avengers reappeared in The L Word (2004) and Lip Service (2010). Sexualised imagery was widely promoted through a diverse range of media including, “lads”, pop-videos, “gangsta rap” and television programmes such as Ally McBeal, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, and Big Brother, whilst associated products were made available for purchase in high-street street stores such as Ann Summers, or online.

Feminists were clearly caught offguard by the massive rise in consumption of internet pornography posted on sites such as Youporn (2006) and Pornhub (2007) that catered almost exclusively to the demands of the “male gaze”, portraying young women in degrading positions.¹⁷ By the 1990s, British advertisers had developed sophisticated arguments to defend themselves against accusations of sexism. Irony was a particularly vehicle employed by advertisers to escape sanction from regulators. Irn Bru was one of several brands to use this strategy. The strapline for one advertisement, ‘I Love Irn-Bru and so do my Bitches’ was accompanied by a large visual depicting an old man sitting by a fire with two Labradors at his feet. The cheeky ironic response occurs as the viewer makes the passage from the “innocent” denotative reading to advertisement’s wider connotation, which, as the target audience comprising young males well knows, is that “bitches” is street slang for young women. To grasp the connotative reading consider if in place of the dogs there were two women on all fours by the man’s feet. However, to defuse accusations of sexism the advertisers can simply point to the ad’s “innocent” denotative meaning. Another advertisement showed an image of a young chicken, with the caption, ‘There’s nothing better than an Irn-Bru When You’ve Just Been Laid’. Irony is again used to defuse claims of sexism, as the advertiser can point to the actual image to argue that it shows no such thing. The typical response to complaints that such images demean women is, ‘Go get a life, can’t you see it’s just a joke!’ The Irn Bru ads were deliberately positioned to stoke controversy thus increasing media coverage and improve the positioning of this small “edgy” brand against its giant competitors Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Co.¹⁸ The deliberate aim to stoke controversy formed the model for subsequent development by social media platforms such as Facebook. In a foretaste of what was to come, the blurb for a marketing conference convened in the late 1990s warned that marketers would have to devise raunchy campaigns to keep up with the new emancipated sexually assertive single woman. Displayed on twelve-metre street billboards the Dress to Kill (Wallis), Hello Boys and FCUK campaigns were designed to shock.

What did feminists make of these developments? Janice Winship (2000) discussed a rising tension between traditional feminists who thought this degrading to women and post-feminists for whom young women’s increasing preoccupation with their sexuality is empowering. Post-feminists employed Hilary Radner’s (1999: 15) concept of “technologies of sexiness” to describe the perceived need of the Millennial Single Girl to excerpt strict discipline over her bodily presentation using makeup, exercise and plastic surgery. Attwood (2005) enthused about the “self-made” woman’s narcissistic preoccupation with beauty, fitness, consumerism and sexual skill as allowing her to fashion herself according to her own image without the presence of a male gaze. While acknowledging that pornographic portrayals of women might be interpreted as promoting a “tired old image of female passivity”, she considered them powerful and autonomous.

Rosalind Gill (2007) was ambivalent, describing post-feminism as a re-articulation of power relations that invoked a new technology of sexiness where sexual skill is central. She related post-feminism to neoliberalism, involving choice and empowerment derived from the recognition of women as active subjects, which on the other hand required rigorous self-monitoring and discipline to ensure one’s figure is sleek, controlled and toned. While acknowledging that advertising now depicted women as independent, active and sexually powerful, it also re-configured the ideal of female subjectivity in line with neoliberal and postfeminist ideals, such that it was now compulsory for a young woman beautiful, sexually adept and “always up for it” (Gill, 2008; Harvey & Gill, 2011: 57). A young woman wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the message, “Unbelievable Knockers” can hardly be regarded as an expression of female power.

Gill also singled out “Brazilian waxes” for criticism which were presented through a ‘pleasing yourself’ discourse as a personal choice (Gill 2007a: 260). Rather than empowering women, these practices exemplified the opposite, as the male gaze which had once been external had seemingly now been internalized to form part of the woman’s subjectivity. Contributors to the edited volume by Gill et al. (2017) observed that the pressures were by now greater than ever. Many spend hours in the daily ritual of packaging the product that is themselves and posting the results onto social media. They are told that to be sexy they must look good and feel good. To achieve the former, they must subject themselves to constant surveillance and take remedial action against defects to ensure their faces are images of perfection, that their body is slim, toned and shaved. The same voices tell them with no hint of contradiction to “be themselves” and confident in their self-presentation (Wood, 2017). In particular, Gill worries about the overt sexualisation of children arguing that the commercially driven nature of this sexualisation can be seen in the way that clothing companies target girls as young as five with thongs (G strings), belly tops, and T-shirts bearing sexually provocative slogans.

Angela McRobbie (2008) decided that she had made a mistake when she had decided to adopt a neutral stance when it came to questions of consumer culture and post-feminism. Drawing from Rosalind Gill, she confessed that she had been wrong because commodity producers had appropriated the language of feminism and combined this with the promotion of hyper-sexualised commodity identities. She now decided that it was necessary to criticize post-feminism, or “the cultural studies mantra that is now in need of revision” (McRobbie, 2008: 545). McRobbie repeated Gill’s concerns about the targeting of children by advertisers for products such as thongs and low rider jeans that not long before had been regarded as risqué for adults (McRobbie, 2008). She argued that this is a matter of power, where the power that matters is institutional power, not girl power. As the core institutions that craft the subjectivities of girls such as the family, education, medicine and law have been eroded, so their place has been taken by commercial institutions. She argued that these new forms of power need to be better understood by drawing on the social theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler (ibid.: 532).

Evans et al., (2010) seemed to answer McRobbie’s call by seeking to blend Radner’s technologies of sexiness with Judith Butler’s concept of performativity.¹⁹ They took from Hilary Radner the argument that the subject is an active agent who is nevertheless always caught up in relations of power, who must assemble an identity from the materials provided by whatever discourses are available. From Butler, they argued that power and resistance work in concert in a dialectical process of subjectivation through repeated productions or iterations of gender. From this, the female identities produced through consumption are frequently contradictory; for example pole-dancing, which developed initially in male bars and which placed women onstage as objects for the male gaze was then recuperated by women who found that their experience of the classes they took in male-free zones energizing and liberating. They also discuss “Porn-Star’ T-shirts such as the “Unbelievable Knockers” T-shirt described by Gill (2003) to argue that subjects are brought into being through available discourses but can change the constitution of these. In their view the discourse authorizes and is reproduced by those who are young, slim and heterosexual who wear the T-shirt and similar products but it can also be parodied and subverted by the aberrant iterations of those who do not fit normative standards of beauty.

Foucault was much less circumspect when commenting on such issues, stating that while the individual involved might feel that they are gaining more freedom by casting off sexual inhibitions, they are at the same time in thrall to an image that has been constructed for them, involving an, “economic…exploitation of eroticisation from sun-tan products to pornographic films. Responding precisely to the revolt of the body, we find a new mode of investment which presents itself no longer in the form of control by repression but that of control by stimulation. ‘Get undressed – but be slim, be good-looking, tanned!’ (Foucault 1980: 57).

The New Feminism, by Natasha Walter²⁰ (2010) was based on her observation of children and young women in a number of contexts and on personal interviews. In this wide-ranging book she outlined her case against what she calls the new sexism ingrained in a hypersexual culture that has co-opted the language of choice and liberation. Her book opens with her description of a, Babes on the Bed competition organised by Nuts magazine that takes place in a pub, where young local women dressed in Playboy outfits are encouraged to strip nude and romp together on a large bed placed on a stage in front of a baying mob of young men in the hope of winning a ‘modelling’ contract.

For all the talk of female empowerment, the differential treatment of women in the public sphere persists. In the 2008 U.S. Presidential Primaries 29% of articles on Hillary Clinton mentioned her appearance (Sanghvi, 2014: 2). While much of the commentary criticized her as “unfeminine”, Clinton’s display of a tiny amount of cleavage was extensively discussed in the media (ibid.: 126/127). This was also the case for coverage of Meghan Markle and Ivana Trump, whose appearance attracts widespread interest. In one study female politicians described how they were framed by the stereotype of the woman as homemaker and were locked out of access to “the old boys’ network”, which operated in exclusively male spaces of the golf course, exclusive country club, football game or college fraternity where the real business continues done.²¹ Additionally, although women have a much greater presence and acceptance in the workplace, they still have not achieved equal pay and are under-represented at senior levels. This suggests that while the rhetoric may have changed, the reality of women’s subordination remains largely intact, an argument that seemed to be vindicated when Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed ‘groper in chief’ was first elected to the White House,²² who shortly after his second term issued Executive Orders revoking Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Federal institutions.

One might also argue that there has been little change in the ‘coathanger’ models used to market products that are targeted towards women. Verba & Camden, (1987) argued that thinness is an unnatural signifier of meanings that have positive value for women, with connotations of being in control, not eating much, health, wellness, desirability and esteem. In this context, ‘fat’ signifies being out-of-control, unhealthy, disease and ugly. When I first started to teach the course that led to this book thirty years ago, I distributed questionnaires on body-image and body modification to my students. Although these showed quite a bit of body dissatisfaction, hardly any students stated that they would go so far as paying for plastic surgery to remedy the perceived fault. Nowadays, I suspect the response might be different.

Selling Diversity

The above discussion illustrates how for many years, the representation of women in advertising was a dominant theme for researchers. Discussion of female subordination under the prurient eye of the male gaze (I would rather call it the look) can seem one-sided and out-dated, at least in countries where rights for same-sex civil partnerships and gay marriage are lawful. To make such an assumption would be to ignore that these represent the latest fruits of a long and bitter process of campaigning for gender equality and gay rights, reflecting a temporal context where at least superficially, social attitudes have changed dramatically (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). The story was quite different in 1970s Britain. Consumption was generally regarded as the unique preserve of women and was regarded with suspicion by men who shunned anything not associated with traditional images of masculinity such as motor cars, alcohol and tobacco. At that time marketers sought to defuse male anxieties by attaching a hyper-masculine image to products they might otherwise have been considered effeminate. Rowntree developed the Yorkie bar as a chunkier alternative to Dairy Milk featuring male lorry-drivers in advertising with the macho strapline, It’s Not for Girls!”. Advertising for Brut deodorant developed by Gillette featured “men’s men”, the boxer Henry Cooper and footballer Kevin Keegan.

Advertisements such as those described above provided reassurance that even the hardest man could safely use deodorant and retain their masculinity. However alternative trends in segments of youth culture worked actively to subvert the dominant image of masculinity. For instance, David Bowie created mass appeal for a younger audience through the androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona, although the openly gay Jobriath Boone was not so successful. Additionally, fetishism was popularised in the Rocky Horror Show.²³ By the mid-1970s marketers had identified gays as a lucrative segment. Given its social stigma they could not openly advertise to the gay market without alienating the mainstream market (Stabiner, 1982).²⁴ Gay window advertising, a term coined by the sociologist Laud Humphreys, describes how advertisers targeted the lucrative gay segment without alerting conservative heterosexuals. Subtle codes were employed, for instance, Calvin Klein portrayed a shirtless young man lying on his back or side. Other ads showed physical contact amongst same-sex groupings that could be decoded in several ways, ensuring for instance that the models used were well known in gay contexts, or perhaps by displaying a handkerchief, or glove hanging from the back pocket of a pair of jeans (see Branchick, 2007).

The market then expanded to encompass the range of identities encompassed by the ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transvestite, Queer’ (LGBTQ), acronym and has expanded further, as these in turn fragmented. LGBTQ+ themes in advertising aimed at the general public had earlier been used for comic effect but now appeared in more realistic, less stereotypical settings. Absolut vodka seems to have been the first to target this market when in 1979 they placed an advertisement in a gay magazine called Advocate (Schroeder & Borgerson, 2003). More conservative brands made extensive use of narrowcasting by marketing directly to their target. In 1994 AT&T mailed a letter about the corporation’s lesbian and gay-friendly policies alongside a rainbow-coloured phone-cord in a lavender envelope to a bespoke list. Pênaloza (1996) reflects on the good and the bad in all of this.

Today, sexual variation and gender-bending themes are linked to a chic lifestyle with explicit references appearing in haute couture magazines. The big brands waited until the late 1990s before venturing onto the fetish scene. Absolut were in the vanguard, possibly because of their earlier commitment to the LGBTQ market. Schroeder & Borgerson’s analysis of two fetish ads for Absolut shows how they operate as gay window advertising, deploying coded signals to attract gay consumers through the use of the colour lavender and by ensuring the sex of the characters in the ads indeterminate.²⁵ Fetishism now regularly featuring in advertising brands as diverse as Irn Bru, Elle and Agent Provacateur.

Media Representations of Masculinity

It is worth remembering that, in common with most of research discussed here the majority of studies of gender have been conducted in the USA or Europe, which together account for just 15% of the world’s population.²⁶ Consequently, the questions and issues presented for discussion are specific to the historically constituted cultural context in which the research was conducted. For example, “rugged individualism” has deep resonance for whites in the USA, referring back to the heroics of pioneers such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. American consumer researchers relate this to the celebration of hunting, guns and cars (Hirschman, 1990); the “rags to riches” myth of Horatio Alger (Hirschman, 2003: 35); the Mountain-Man myth (Belk & Costa, 1998); hard-core bikers (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995; 49); and the Man-of-Action Hero (Holt & Thompson, 2004).

While from the above, much discussion in consumer research journals is mainly relevant to American men, one identity that appears to transcend national boundaries is the “new man” who first appeared in the 1980s just before gays finally came out of the closet. This character differed from traditional images of masculinity, as he was soft on the inside and unafraid to display his emotions, but hard on the outside, highly concerned with developing and grooming a body that is strong and hard (Patterson & Elliott, 2002). Traditional masculinity was partly differentiated from femininity by its location in the workplace, shed or garage rather than the home where fatherly love was demonstrated by providing resources and not by demonstrations of emotion. In contrast, the new man was not afraid to express his emotions or to share childcare with his partner. The new man has been of interest to consumer researchers for several reasons. One line of research addresses the compatibility of advertising representations with this role and the extent to which it is supported by wider marketing processes, whilst another avenue explores how these men who embrace this identity use consumption practices to maintain their masculinity.

Research conducted in the USA based on analysis of advertisements in the male magazine Esquire showed that advertising portrayed the same stereotypical images of masculinity in the 1980s as it had in the 1930s (Kervin, 1990). A study by Gentry and Harrison (2010) of US television advertisements shown during sports programming found scant evidence to support the new man. Men were shown shopping for beer or auto-parts and eating out, rather than cooking in the home. Of almost 1400 advertisements shown in the context of sports coverage only one showed a man engaged in a domestic role. Men were depicted as rugged individuals or as a “horse’s ass”. Representations of the former showed a hard-working career man who when at home worked in the garage, on the lawn or on cars and took little responsibility for his children with whom he was emotionally distant. The “horse’s ass” by comparison was immature, incompetent and accident prone - and everyone knews it!. The authors concluded that the difficulty of men who make the transition ing parents is exacerbated by the lack of representations of fatherhood in commercials which reproduce gender norms (Gentry & Harrison, 2007; 2010).

Research, again mostly conducted in the USA, indicated that whilst representations of men had not changed much, male identifications had. In particular, the field of consumption, which was once anathema to men was now embraced as the source of consumer identities that offered men freedom and autonomy from the breadwinner role. For American men participation in identities associated with rugged individualism, such as a “Mountain-man”, or “Harley-rider” were portrayed as imaginary compensation for the quotidian travails of domesticity by offering alluring images of a life free from the emasculating restrictions of family and work. Holt and Thompson (2004) dissented from the view that men are trapped between the constraints of the breadwinner role and the imaginary autonomy offered by consumer identities. Instead they posited the Man-of-Action Hero as transcending the breadwinner and consumer identity models, synthesizing the best of each, while minimising the negatives. They describe a character whose rebelliousness preserves his autonomy which is harnessed to work for the wider good, although this is a fine line to tread (Holt & Thompson, 2004: 429). For instance, they describe Robert (ibid.:430-433) as highly competitive as someone who goes to great lengths to maintain his status by avoiding sports such as golf and tennis where he might lose. Instead, he races cars with like-minded men who, like him, go 9/10ths of the way there rather than the 10/10ths the young hellraisers do. Robert invokes his breadwinner identity to counterbalance the dangerous excess that might result from complete identification with the rebel racer identity. Donny (ibid.: 432-436) on the other hand fits the image of the new man by lionizing men in caring roles such as Buddy Holly, Sydney Poitier and Tom Hanks. Donny is in touch with his emotions, comfortable in female company and enjoys cooking and sewing, although he ensures to reiterate that he is not gay. He secures his masculine identity by linking sewing to his role as a commercial artist, using clothing to signify his rebellious side.

Researchers have since explored the self-help literature available to fathers (Eraranta & Moisander, 2011) and the experiences of fathers who had been breadwinners and who now care for their children fulltime. The authors of one study found that stay-at-home fathers who were once breadwinners used consumption to legitimate their marginalised status by fashioning a distinctive identity that was neither that of the breadwinner nor carer but a mixture of each (Cocksunner Balli & Thompson, 2013). One study investigated new technological aids to child-care such as the under mattress alarm the DreammoverTM babyrocker and the BabyjoggerTM. While these technologies offered the “techtopian” promise of escape and control for the father and care and nurturance for the infant, the result was equivocal. For instance, they describe the case of Paul, who was a keen runner and did not want the arrival of his child to upset his routine so he bought a BabyjoggerTM. However his partner questioned the safety and appropriateness of this product and soon after their child was born Paul admitted that he now went running on his own (ibid.: 1549).

Inverting the Gaze

From the above, research mainly from the US confirms that most advertising still follows a traditional line that marginalizes men who take up caring roles, but that this is not the full story. Whilst men who watch sports comprise a sizeable segment, advertising messages take on a different hue when addressed to other segments of the male market. One reason given for the appearance in the 1990s of “lads” magazines such as Maxim, Men’s Health and Gear was as a reaction to the success of feminism, resulting in their hyper-macho representation of male stereotypes fixated on “babes, brawn and beer” (Patterson & Elliott, 2002: 241). The authors also drew attention to, “the increasing feminization of masculinities, as men are encouraged to partake in the carnival of consumption, come concerned about their appearance, to get in touch with their emotions, and as male bodies become objects of display subject to the male gaze” (ibid.:, 241). Patterson and Elliott argue that the increasing focus by men on their appearance has led to an inversion of the male gaze.

Against the above it is argued that appearance has always been important to certain segments of the male population and so rather than describing an inversion of the male gaze it is more appropriate to argue that the gaze has expanded beyond these segments to incorporate other class fractions (Schroeder & Zwick, 2004). Others dismiss the claim that the focus on male appearance is recent to remind the reader that in the eighteenth century the emerging bourgeois class modelled the male body on the ancient Greek ideal of beauty they represented artworks and cultivated in gymnasia (Desmond, 2002). Drill and discipline of the body were key features of the “clockwork army” raised by Frederick the Great of Prussia and Jacques-Louis David’s portrait of Napoleon is an exemplar of the depiction of the heroic male in neoclassical art, shown in an action setting, in full uniform with a cocked hat, mounted on a rearing steed and signalling the way forward over the mountains against the backdrop of a roiling sky (Mosse, 1996).²⁷

A pertinent question is the extent to which, if it ever did, the male gaze (look) continues to reflect on itself today. This was the topic for Schroeder & Zwick (2004), who analysed three advertisements to ask how, given that consumption is considered a feminised activity, are men depicted in advertising in ways that do not diminish their power? An advertisement for Coloma Liquor de Café depicts a young heterosexual couple seated together by a table with full tumblers in front of them. The woman reaches over to clutch his right arm in her right hand and is staring obliquely and coquettishly, not at him, but at the image displayed in an adjacent mirror. The man is staring directly at the mirror image, which is identical to him in every respect, down to the handkerchief in his blazer pocket, save for the face. The man’s actual face is asymmetrical with a pointed nose, lank hair and weak jawline, wearing spectacles and grinning rather foolishly, whereas the face depicted in the mirror is symmetrical with a regular nose, coiffed hair and strong jaw, un-spectacled and displaying a confident smile. The prominently displayed strapline states, “She was impressed that he ordered their mudslides with Coloma, which did wonders for his self-confidence”. The Coloma logo is prominently displayed at bottom right of the advertisement.

Perhaps the most obvious reading of the advertisement is that Coloma has the magical power to transform this ugly frog into the prince in the mirror, as the only one he and his beau have eyes for. Schroeder & Zwick suggest that this advertisement is an illustration of the re-ordering of the male gaze, representing an inversion or perhaps expansion (ibid.: 38), whereby the man is solely concerned with himself as an object of regard. However, some aspects of their argument are rather obscure as when they explain that ‘(t)he male gaze turns toward the female as well as the mirror to reassure himself of his confidence, attractiveness and confidence” (37). Rather, the advertisement shows both the man and woman depicted as being equally entranced by the image.

Laura Oswald was drawn to explore the risqué, overtly sexualized, hermaphroditic and homosexual images of men portrayed in advertisements for luxury brands such as Dolce and Gabbana. Oswald (2010) develops her argument from Metz and Mulvey that such advertising represents inversion or turning back of the male gaze onto the erotized male body. This, she argues represents a twisting or perversion of the traditional dialectic of male/female and subject/object of the gaze, which introduces alternative sexualities into luxury ads. She points to the appeal held by the acclaimed Vogue photographer Steven Meisel for the sophisticated and often jaded consumer segment that can afford to purchase such products. She asks pertinently how were the advertisers allowed to display these images when similar images had been banned as pornographic? Her answer is by framing these images in an advertising context helped resolve the ambiguities they presented in playing with desire/reason, homosexuality/heterosexuality and radicalism/ conservativism. Her suggestion is thus that when the viewer flicking through Vogue sees an image of a man with his zip undone staring at another man lying naked and spreadeagled on the floor, they notice the Dolce and Gabbana logo and recognize that this is just an ad (Oswald, 2010: 125). As I see it this does not really answer her question, which is how the advertisers got away with displaying these images, as to find out would necessarily have involved an investigation of the regulatory process, or lack of it.

Postmodern Explanations

Deborah Cameron (2005) describes the “postmodern turn” as a move away from the study of gender difference to that of gender diversity. In a gender difference framework the overall question is, “how are women different from men?”, while in contrast, postmodern theorists see sex and gender as determined by cultural convention and not by nature. Research in this mode assumes a spectrum of different gender positions that are then related to other forms of social identity.

Post-structuralism opens up gaps and enables those captured in-between binary oppositions, such as hermaphrodites, or those who believe that they captured in the wrong body, a means to express themselves. A common assumption is that our sex as male or female is determined by biology while our gender is constructed by culture on top of that. Judith Butler argues we are effectively prisoners of language and cannot step outside of it to experience the rawness of reality. In this view language and culture permeate our being in the world so that there is nothing that is outside of cultural formation, even the idea of biological sex. This opens up a space for expression of hitherto inexpressible identities which present challenges for the reordering of expression.

The third-wave of feminism that developed in the 1990s took a different direction from its predecessors, as taken-for-granted assumptions came under increasing scrutiny and were subjected to challenge. One influence for change was the widespread publicity given to hermaphrodite identities by celebrity pop-idols such as Jobriath Boone and David Bowie. Post-structuralist and postmodernist ideas began to circulate widely throughout liberal arts and social science faculties at Yale and elsewhere in the academy, mounting a challenge to commonplace assumptions about the fixity of identity enshrined in binary oppositions.²⁸ Third-wave feminists continued to pursue goals of political and economic equality but focused increasingly on how patriarchal power is reproduced in language through the perpetuation of stereotypes in everyday conversation, for instance, when referring to the person who officiates at a meeting as chairman. The associated movement towards what came to be disparaged by those on the right as “political correctness” argued that the everyday use of such terms reproduces gender inequality on a daily basis. The assumed homogeneity of the category of “woman” itself came under question when when it was pointed out that, although they are both women, the experience of a working-class black woman may be entirely different from that of a white woman. Young women calling themselves grrls subverted traditional gender norms of beauty and deference by portraying an image of femininity that was strong and empowered.

The focus on difference manifested in the acronym LGBT was stretched to encompass LGBTQ+ identities. The lobby group Stonewall, originally formed to lobby for gay and lesbian rights widened its remit to lobby for the rights of individuals identifying as ‘trans’.²⁹ The promotion of non-binary identities through vehicles such as The Drag Queen Story Hour, which began life in San Fransisco in 2015, and RuPaul’s Drag Race, which first aired in 2009, were also successful in the UK where they received public funding.³⁰ In the realm of politics, governments in the USA and in Europe began to espouse tolerance towards difference and pursued policies in support of globalisation and multiculturalism. Additionally, the rapid growth of the internet and social media created spaces for individuality through the expression of a multiplicity of identities.

Theoretical Perspectives

For all the complexity and breadth of his work, Derrida described himself primarily as a moral philosopher. He used de-construction as a means to illustrate his argument that the linguistic categories we use to organise the world which we often take for granted, provide the pretext for us to do a great deal of harm. Through linguistic categories we label others and assign them a rank in an infernal hierarchy based on their supposed capacity for rational thought. The consequences for those so labelled were, and are, stark; for example, women have for centuries been thought irrational as it was supposed that they are overly swayed by the emotions; enslaved individuals were treated as little more than brutes; and it went without saying that reason could not be imputed to human infants, to humans deemed mentally defective, or especially, to anything labelled as an ‘animal’.

Derrida argued that labelling others as incapable of reason is itself unreasonable, as the judgement is not based on reasoned argument. Rather it is based on identification and provides an alibi for those in power to maintain it. Given that the fixity of identity is the problem, it cannot serve as a solution and so as described above, he argued the need to develop a new ethics of responsibility towards others which strives towards the ideal of an impossible ethics by attending fully to the singularity of each other we encounter. From this, Derrida cannot be regarded as providing sustenance to those who profess a politics of identity. However Judith Butler took a step in this direction by arguing that the personal is political.

Judith Butler

Judith Butler drew on post-structuralist logic developed by Derrida to undermine the basis of his argument. In short, in her view his argument is totalising because it reduces the variform totality of life to the private realm of ethics. In her view ethics cannot be separated from, but is interwoven with the public realms of politics and law. While like Derrida, Butler steered clear of discussion of the fields of business and marketing (see Borgerson, 2005 for an accessible introduction), Loizodou (2007) offers the example of a woman who is violently rebuffed by her son whom she offers to take to McDonalds for a burger. While many young men might regard this as a treat, it is possible to think that he reacted as he did for an ethical reason, perhaps because of their treatment of animals as food. Reading this from Butler’s perspective, one cannot separate the ethical from the political context, as the son’s refusal contests institutional power and resists politically normative assumptions about the good life.

Butler’s argument is also open to critique by allowing identity, which Derrida sought to eliminate, entry through the back door. Like Derrida, Butler was a scholar of Lacan, and so is well aware of the danger presented by the dual/duel nature of the imaginary realm of self-identity, which privileges self-coherence and rivalry with the other over reasoned argument. This has since become apparent in the explosion of ‘identity-politics’, where those who once campaigned for recognition as equals now demand recognition of their ‘essential” difference, which has been met by counter-responses, leading to wagon-circling and name-calling on both sides.

Butler does not only question the privilege accorded to the male over the female in discourse but also the distinction, traditionally regarded as fundamental, between gender and sex. She argues that culture is all-enveloping and that humans are fundamentally cultured beings and so sex too is cultural. We cannot but use language to explore every facet of our world, including sex, which is always filtered through social conceptions of gender. The body is central to Butler’s account as its actions articulate or join performativity to iteration, repetition and ritual. Thus, “gender is the repeated stylization of a series of acts within a highly regulated from that congeals over time to give the appearance of substance, of a “natural” kind of being (Butler, 1990: 32).

Butler was not the first theorist to notice the performative aspect of gender involving repetition and ritual. In Gender Advertisements Erving Goffman (1979) demonstrated how advertising repeatedly iterates ‘the ritual of subordination’ of women by men. The concept of “performativity” was originally developed by the linguist J.L. Austin who used it to describe utterances that enact what they proclaim. Thus to say, “I apologize”, not only states its meaning, but actually enacts this utterance.³¹ Although Goffman (1979) simply drew attention to the framing of gender roles in the context of advertising, Butler went further to argue that gender cannot be considered as an essential property that one “has” but is rather a performance that is enacted through repetition and ritual as an, “ongoing accomplishment produced by repeated actions” (Cameron, 2005: 486). The psychoanalyst Joan Riviere³² came up with the idea that gender is a form of masquerade on witnessing a female academic who first delivered a a highly competent lecture but who later when in the company of male colleagues transformed her self-presentation into simpering, submissiveness. While some might argue that this was an instance of role-switching, Butler argued that gender identify emerges from such practices, from what we do, rather than what we “are”, or rather that we are what we do. In this view gender emerges from a community of practice (CoP) that is constructed in a particular context using specific practices. Women and men in a particular community engage in different communities of practice. This represents a movement beyond binary relations of masculinity and femininity to consider the “tapestry” of gender relations.

Consider for instance, the earlier discussion of Bourdieu, where he describes the various ways in which the construction of gender is woven through language (male = outside, female = inside) and practice. In Britain more men than women belong to competitive sports teams and more women in slimming clubs and reading groups. Given that the habitual style of discourse in a community of practice linked to the topics, goals and social relations of its joint enterprise, differentiated communities of practice may lead to different discursive repertoires. For instance, the discourse in a football dressing room will be different to that pertaining in a Weight Watchers group. Even when individuals belong to a similar community of practice individuals are likely positioned differentially within it (Cameron, 2005).

The radical implication of Butler’s argument, which is disputed, is that sex is not given by nature but is a cultural accomplishment. Rather than assuming categories of male and female as given by nature, adherents of this view maintain that there are many different expressions of these, as in, what kind of male or female do you mean? They contend that masculinities and femininities come in different varieties, where experiences and practices intersect with ethnicity, age and social class. One may be oriented less to distinguish oneself from the other gender than to contrast oneself with members of the same gender,

In a gender difference framework, the fundamental question is how are women different from men. In a diversity framework the question will immediately be met with another question; ‘which women and which men do you mean?’ (Cameron, 2005: 487).

The turn to identity politics was given heft through the concept of intersectionality which developed out of the second-wave feminist standpoint (Crenshaw, 1989). This discourse focuses on how power insinuates itself into relations between gender, class and ethnicity, acting for instance to marginalize working-class women of colour. Standpoint theorists such as Nancy Harstock and Hilary Rose, argued that only members of marginalised groups could truly understand the reality of their unique experience which compared to others gave them a superior knowledge of their situation that lends them a unique insight into power.³³ Daniel Miller (2020) argues that today this idea is deployed as a weapon by those who argue that it is only those whose have experienced a particular situation of exploitation who are entitled to speak about it, and by those who reserve it as a particularly useful trump card to play when they want to silence someone who has a differing point of view. As a consequence,

Representatives of racial and gender categories imagined as having suffered most from Western history and culture are thus elevated, and their counterparts downgraded, irrespective of their personal circumstances or individual merits (Miller, 2020).

From the above, it seems that ‘identity politics’ consists of several strands, of which amongst others intersectionality has been interwoven into Butler’s argument that communities of practice can offer a means to understand the construction of localized masculinities and femininities.

Post-Structuralist Consumer Research on Gender

Pênaloza (1994) made an early contribution to the field of consumer research in this area by drawing attention to the need for market researchers to change their practice of recording gender as at the time she wrote, their protocols had no categories to record individuals who are betwixt and between female/feminine and male/masculine identities, who were thus rendered invisible. Consumer researchers have since applied post-structuralist theories to investigate behaviours that transgress boundaries between male/masculine and female/feminine, for instance by studying where binary distinctions break down in gender-bending activities such as drag, and gender-blending practices of androgyny.

Schroeder & Borgerson (2013) draw on Judith Butler’s argument that identity is iterated to argue that advertisers constrain the field of possibility for gender realisation by continuously repeating particular gender stereotypes. They contend that advertising does not simply provide material for the consumer to construct an identity, but rather repeatedly performs iterative gestures that construct idealised identities to represent the straight, gay, male or female consumer. Meaning is constructed through tacit, automatic processes within the advertisement, with each iteration creating the illusion of a natural gender identity. The gestural performance of identity must be continuous if it is to maintain the illusion of a natural category. They illustrate their argument by describing an advertisement for Seagram’s Coolers. The strapline states that, “Men and Women Want Different Things”. There is an image of two wedding cakes, where the cake on the right has a classic image of a newly married couple stuck into its top, while that on the left has a young woman in a bikini with her arms outstretched. While acknowledging that the advertisement can be read in different ways the authors argue that the advertisement iterates stereotypes of essential gender differences, “that encompass everything from human relationships to alcoholic beverages, reinforcing sexist notions of what men and women “like”.” (Schroeder & Borgerson, 2013).

Thompson and Üstüner (2015) explored communities of practice in the field of roller derby, a sport that started in 2004. The sample included fourteen competitors who self-identified as Derby grrrls and thirteen fans. Observation showed that in their performance, Derby grrrls crossed the conventional gender divide by playing hard with open displays of aggression against competitors. They argue that the grrls did not just copy a masculine code but modified a feminine code. The communities in the small towns where these women lived and competed valued decorum. The grrls use of locker room language and crude gestures was minimal when they played in front of their home crowd but was a common feature of away-games, particularly those held in the city,

Postmodernist accounts of gender formed part of the special issue edited by Arsel, Eräranta & Moisander (2015) which has since been capitalized into a book (Arsel, Eräranta & Moisander 2018). In their contribution to this issue Klasson and Ulver (2015) report on the study they conducted into the forms of masculinity practiced by young men in Sweden, which they describe as having an “ideology” of egalitarianism. They explored what happens when young men cross the gender boundary to enter the feminine domain by purchasing, preparing and cooking food. The authors found that the men employed a variety of means to masculinise their relation to food.

Discussion

One of the key aims of the book is to help make complex arguments more understandable to the reader without entirely sacrificing the subtlety of the original and so is worthwhile reiterating the caution that this is an overview and that it is always best to read the original work, rather than at second-hand.

The four sections that make up this chapter were designed as a journey from structuralism to the reflexive consumer, then to post-structuralism and ending with a discussion of gender. Like everything I write this chapter is too long and yet too short. In this concluding section I want to make a few points.

Firstly, structuralism tends to focus on the abstract structure of language and how identity emerges out of difference. Structuralists focused on the importance of the meaning of objects over and above their utility for us. As analysed by Varda Leymore the meanings assigned by advertisers to mundane products such as butter and margarine can be deeply troublesome, not only for the images of violence they convey, but also because the advertisers themselves are not conscious of them. This argument crops up again in chapter seven where Alistair McIntosh argued that the creatives involved in constructing the advertisements for Silk Cut cigarettes had no idea that they had encoded death-laden imagery into them. However, although Leymore’s study was undoubtedly rigorous, there is no evidence that the promotion of this imagery had any negative bearing on consumers. That today we understand more about the darker stories that lurk behind our consumption of well-known products we consume without a thought, is largely due to the work of Roland Barthes who first described this in relation to products such as tea and wine almost seventy years ago! Writing before Grant McCracken (1989) developed the well-known meaning transfer model, Judith Williamson (1978) provides us with an understanding of how meaning is transferred from the system of culture to that of brands and from brands to consumers. Perhaps more importantly she draws attention to Althusser’s (1971) argument that the identity of the consuming subject is produced by responding to being called or interpolated, by brand meanings.

The second section offers something of an antidote to structuralism by focusing on what advertisements and products mean to those who consume them and what they do with those meanings. This also points up the inflexibility in Williamson’s (1978) method which by focusing on a limited set of advertisements conveys the impression of a rather static scene. For example, if one were to look at other advertisements for Babe, then one might have come up with a different set of signifiers to those she describes. Additionally although she recognises that the consumer is active, she does not consider that consumers are motivated by different life experiences and points of view which shape their reading of the ads. On the other hand, uses and gratifications theory and reader response theory tend to downplay the role of ideology. For example, although the relations are no doubt complex, there is evidence that young consumers whose access to news comes mainly from social media outlets such as X tend to reproduce Russian narratives on the Ukraine war.³⁴

In the third section I provide a very basic introduction to the most theoretically challenging topic of post-structuralism. My aim here has been to provide a flavour of complex arguments and I recognise the danger that the overall effect has been to grossly oversimplify them. To even begin to do justice to these theories and to relate them to consumption demands a book-length treatment. However I wanted to do something to provide something of a background to current controversies and in particular to differentiate arguments by Derrida from those of Butler and others, no matter how crudely.

That key aspects of our identity such as gender are constructed seems, at time of writing, to be beyond doubt and simply a matter of fact, having displaced the alternative argument that this is biologically given. Thus one can select some arguments from evolutionary theorists, such as that which suggests that boys are naturally attracted to the colour blue and that girls are naturally attracted to pink (Hulbert & Ling, 2007) as risible. On the other hand Stephen Pinker argues that the vast majority of social theorists are cultural determinists who mistakenly believe that humans are blank slates written on by culture. In his view it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that humans are not born as blank slates but are genetically pre-prepared to cope with some of the principal challenges they will encounter in life. In relation to gender the noted primatologist Frans de Waal (2022) argues that there is consistent evidence that in relation to toys, boys prefer cars and girls prefer dolls, and moreover that male primates are disinterested in dolls and will rip them up while females are attracted to them.³⁵ While some might argue that this is evidence of a shared instinct between humans and other primates, Jesse Prinz (2013, 231) argues that it would be preposterous to propose that vervet monkeys have an innate interest in trucks or in pans or that females like a human doll because of a “mothering instinct”. Referring to the experiment in question he notes that no difference was found between males and female reactions to a stuffed dog, which he argued ought to be more similar to a vervet baby than is a human doll. I’m not so sure but then we can’t ask the monkeys! Prinz proposed an alternative explanation that the observed difference might actually have been driven by colour preferences. Given the obvious point that vervet monkeys cannot speak, one can only presume that debate research on this matter will continue for some time. De Waal’s (2002) point is that to frame the question as nature over nurture or vice versa is misplaced as it oversimplifies the complex reality that this is a form of interaction involving an interplay between genes and environment.

Despite their cogency, culturalist arguments such as those made by Judith Butler and others whilst persuasive offer potential explanations that are not holy writ. From an evolutionary perspective it is argued that social theorists deny the patently obvious fact of their own animality, that we humans are an evolved species who despite all the euphemisms we contrive to mask the bare facts, piss, shit, vomit and die, just like all other animals. In this view by ignoring our evolutionary heritage it can be argued that cultural determinists not only sideline the knowledge that humans are an evolved species, but effectively erase the complex history of human evolution, where homo sapiens formed just one variant amongst many. Finally, although Jacques Derrida (2008), who could never be accused of being an apologist for evolutionary theory, drew attention to what he described at the end of his life as the most important issue of all, which is the continued persistence of philosophers and scientists to repeatedly ignore and deny their own animality despite evidence to the contrary, which no doubt provided a convenient excuse for them to shrug off their treatment of animals as commodities.

Social theorists tend to narrow their focus onto a person’s verbalisation of their conscious feelings regarding their body or their views of media representations of the body, which they assume is merely an effect of discourse (see for example, Schroeder & Zwick, 2004). They thus preclude consideration of the massive role played by tacit, preverbal, sub-personal processes that evade conscious reflection, which are discussed further in chapter eight on the body where the phenomenological theory of the body developed by Sean Gallagher and the neuropsychoanalytic theory developed by Mark Solms, Jaak Panksepp and Karl Friston, each emphasizes the role played by preverbal, sub-personal processes in human decision making that elude conscious reflection. Psychoanalysts argue that social researchers do not just ignore the role played by the descriptive unconscious but also the dynamic interplay that occurs between consciousness and the unconscious. On the one hand social theorists argue that the consumer actively decodes marketing imagery, yet on the other they quote evidence that women rather than men are differentially affected by body weight, with women reacting much more unhappily than men to digitally widened images of themselves (Sigman, 2010).

Amongst the various arguments, few take a step back to acknowledge that questions pertaining to identity are complex and there is still a huge amount that remains unknown. The reflexive and combative nature of science focuses obviously on what is known, or rather that which is open to dispute. As is made clear in chapter eight ,which takes the body as its subject, there are still major disagreements between authors regarding the nature of consciousness, the emotions and the very constitution of the self.

One of the most pressing challenges is that research is becoming ever more specialised with the consequence that academics rarely discuss matters outside of a tiny community within which theories are not just questions of fact but are tied to the identities and indeed the life purposes of those involved where they form vital stakes in the academic game.

Case Study: Charlie Hebdo

In June 2019 French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, displayed on its front cover a close-up of a naked torso with splayed legs and a football positioned at the top of prominent vagina accompanied with the strapline, “En va en Buffet pendant un mois!” (“We’re going to eat it all up this month”). Just in case the viewer didn’t understand the context of the message, another strapline positioned on the right leg stated “Coup du Monde Feminine”, referred to the Women’s Football World Cup that was ongoing in Paris at the time.

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⁴ Priming studies are discussed at more length in chapter seven.

⁵ Rory Carroll (2016) Fruits of labor: sunny California is no paradise for farm workers.15th August. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/15/california-farms-pick-your-own-fruit-vegetables-working-conditions-jobs

⁶ While the target for this paper is Social Comparison Theory, it can equally be used to critique structuralist arguments.

⁷ St Andrews seems to have been ahead of Cambridge university as although women could attend women-only colleges from 1869, they could not receive degrees until 1948, almost eighty years later (Jones, E. (2022). An Eighty-Year Wait to Graduate: Women at Cambridge. Uncomfortable Oxford, 20th October.

⁸ Rohrer, (2024).

⁹ For a good introduction to Derrida and others on the question of the animal see Calarco, (2008).

¹⁰ For instance, although Foucault is sometimes described as the inspiration for inter-sectional politics (see Miller, 2020 for an interesting riposte), he argued against the assertion of identity, for instance when stating, ‘If identity is only a game, if it is only a procedure to have relations, social and sexual – pleasure relationships that create new friendships, it is useful. But if identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if people think that they have to “uncover” their “own identity,” and that their own identity has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial question they ask is “Does this thing conform to my identity?” then, I think, they will turn back to a kind of ethics very close to the old heterosexual virility. If we are asked to relate to the question of identity, it must be an identity to our unique selves. But the relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity, rather, they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation. To be the same is really boring’ (Foucault, 2000, 166).

¹¹ Following a long and hard campaign female suffrage was granted in Britain in 1918, but only for women aged over twenty-five. This “first wave” of feminism was followed by a second wave following the translation into English of The Second Sex (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir and of The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Freidan. The case of Laura Brown described in chapter tries to paint a picture of the plight of many women at that time. The message of the second wave was that the personal is political and its key aim was to break gender stereotypes that defined the woman purely as a homemaker and the man as breadwinner.

¹² See History of Advertising Trust. https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/cec92d37-501e-4240-9c21-0abbbfaecdb8/

¹³ Nassif & Gunter, (2008).

¹⁴ Source: Advertising Standards Authority, Harmful gender stereotypes in advertising banned. https://www.asa.org.uk/news/harmful-gender-stereotypes-in-ads-to-be-banned.html

¹⁵ Antoniou & Akrivos, (2020).

¹⁶ See McRobbie (2008) and Walter (2010: 33).

¹⁷ The majority of these “tube” sites are effectively a monopoly. In 2014 Pornhub alone had 78 billion views (Forrester, 2016). Katrina Forrester (2016) Making sense of Modern Pornography. The New Yorker, September 26th.

¹⁸ For examples of television executions see Alex Watson (2018) A brief history of Irn Bru’s most controversial advertisements. The Scotsman, 22nd February. https://www.scotsman.com/read-this/a-brief-history-of-irn-brus-most-controversial-adverts/ Acessed Jul7 2019

¹⁹ – Butler is discussed later with respect to postmodern explanations.

²⁰ See also Lukes, (2021, 126-127).

²¹ Goldsmith, B. (2017). Violence, "old boys' clubs" put women off life in politics but at what cost? Reuters, 23rd October.

²² Kirchgaessner, S. & L. Osborne, (2024). Donald Trump groped me in what felt like a ‘twisted game’ with Jeffrey Epstein, former model alleges. The Guardian, 23rd October.

²³ Open portrayal of homosexuality was risky for marketers. The critically acclaimed film, Sunday Bloody Sunday, which featured gay desire theme flopped at the boxoffice. Billie Jean King lost several sponsorship deals in 1981 when details of her lesbian affair were revealed.

²⁴ Gay window advertising is attributed to Karen Stabiner. See footnote 6 for reference in, Clark, Danae (1991) Commodity Lesbianism. http://cameraobscura.dukejournals.org/content/9/1-2_25-26/181.full.pdf. Accessed May 2012.

²⁵ Schroeder & Borgerson, (2003).

²⁶ Source: Statista, Distribution of the global population by continent. https://www.statista.com/statistics/237584/distribution-of-the-world-population-by-continent/ Accessed August 2021.

27 Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800-1801)

²⁸ Where Derrida was predominantly a moral philosopher and used deconstruction to address weighty moral questions, in the hands of Paul de Mann and others at Yale University deconstruction drifted away from this and was reduced to pure technique as a form of literary criticism.

²⁹ See, Hunt, R. & and A. Manj, (2015). Trans People and Stonewall:Campaigning together for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans equality. London, Stonewall. Stonewall successfully persuaded government agencies, local authorities and many large corporations to participate in its Workplace Equality Index and to join its Diversity Champions programme. Controversially, Stonewall also runs courses, provides planning templates and conducts consultancy for subscribing organisations so that they can improve their scores on the index which measures DEI. Critics point out that this unelected lobby group amassed the power to determine what policy should be, to assess progress and to sell support.

³⁰ McCormic, E. (2017). ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’. Drag queen story hour rankles the right but delights kids. The Guardian, 13th June.

BBC News, (2019). Taunton Library drag queen children's story event sparks outrage, 3rd January.

³¹ On the other hand even a cursory study of “apologies” from adults and even small children shows that many are not apologies at all. This is evident in instances when the “apology” is muttered, or when the individual refuses to engage in eye contact,or rolls their eyes when saying it. However Austin argues that these are examples of failed performances. For a performance successful it mucst be executed by all parties correctly and competently (Austin, Lecture II, 1962: 14-15).

³² Riviere, (1929)

³³ See for example, Harstock, (1983) and the edited collection complied by Sandra Harding, (2004). I mention something of the context in Desmond (1987).

³⁴ Yanchenko, (2025).

³⁵ The original study is by Alexander & Hines, 2002