Gender

Gender has become a fundamental perspective of analysis and research within the social sciences and humanities. This article briefly surveys the development of the notion of gender and concentrates on its relevance within sociological works on consumption and consumer culture. After discussing the weight of gender in the study of the historical genesis of Western consumer culture, the articles thematizes important areas of study such as the home, media, body and fashion, shopping, and material culture as to their relation to practices and cultures of consumption. Many of the studies on gender and consumption have come to show that we cannot fully understand their interlockings without referring to the complex intersecting of gender with other dimensions of social inequalities. Intersectionality – and in particular the interplay between gender, class and ethnicity - is becoming a feature of much recent literature on gender and consumption. Fashion choices of both men and women have been shown to be largely coded by their class belonging, ethnicity greatly influences how boys and girls are socialized to shopping and consumption, ideals of respectable comfort and refined practical gentility which stood at the root of modern home-making were not only implicated in the construction of gender identities, but were also important features of the emerging middle-class cultural identity. All in all, the study of gender as an underlying, master identity and an ongoing doing which is realized in consumption calls for a greater awareness of intersectionality, ambivalence and power.