In 2006, the United Nations launched the Women's Friendly Cities joint programme to support and encourage women's equal participation with men in all areas of urban life. However, it was not until 2021 that Changsha, Hunan Province, launched the goal of building a "women-friendly city" from the perspective of building a new consumption pattern, that the concept officially landed in China.
Although women-friendly cities are a new concept in China, women's rights are increasingly affected
More attention. The Paper has planned the "Ten Questions about Women's Friendly Cities" theme, which explores the ten aspects of building a women-friendly city, explores what a city can do for women, tries to find its Chinese definition and practice sample, and expects more people to pay attention to women's friendly cities.
This interview focuses on the increasingly close relationship between women and consumption, and asks how gender norms in consumption empower and constrain women's lives.
"How consumption is both the devil of the woman and her liberator, providing her with a place of action, access to the public sphere and power," Lefebvre said. Can consumption really empower women? How does the ubiquitous gender perspective in products discipline everyone's life? Will feminist advertising create new environments of empowerment?
Zhou Peiqin, associate professor of the Department of Sociology at Nanjing University, pointed out that when we want to achieve gender equality through consumption, we are also disciplined by capital to some extent, and we have become consumerists and victims of consumerism.
Cartography The Paper Wang Luyao
The Paper: What kind of relationship do you think is between women and consumption?
Zhou Peiqin:
The first wave of feminist movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women's right to vote, education, and work, which meant that women could obtain economic income and even economic independence. Among the more authoritative global indicators of gender equality, the labor force participation rate is an important indicator, that is, how many women are engaged in paid labor in the labor market. All this illustrates the importance of the economy for women's independence. The most direct embodiment of economic independence is consumption, to buy what women want, including the independent life that women want. So spending power is part of women's power.
At the same time, however, it should be noted that although women enter the labour market and earn income, there is a gender income gap in the labour market, and the average income of women is much lower than that of men. Statistics released by the OECD in 2021 show that the highest gender gap in labor income among the 39 OECD member countries is South Korea, with a wage gap of 31.1%, followed by Israel at 24.3% and Japan at 22.1%. According to a 2021 report by a Chinese industry body, wages for urban employed women were on average 25% lower than men's in 2020. So although women's increasing spending power is a positive aspect, the gender inequality behind it still exists and needs to be eliminated.
In addition, it should be pointed out that the data of shopping festivals such as Double 11 are showing that women are higher than men's consumption power, women place more orders, and the total amount is high, many people will think that this reflects that women have decision-making power or dominance in family consumption, and it is a manifestation of the rising status of women's families. But I think this kind of consumption can also be seen as a kind of housework undertaken by women, and the housework formed by online shopping can be very laborious. I also have a family with children and also have a lot of things to buy. Shopping is a very time-consuming thing for me, even if you shop online, you have to compare, select, finally place an order, wait for the receipt, the whole process has a lot of labor in it.
Therefore, behind the rise in women's consumption data is the transfer of the gender division of traditional housework to the online world, and women play the role of consumer agents. I'm not that optimistic.
The Paper: There was a joke on a talk show last year about women's skirts and pants being designed without pockets, which made it inconvenient for women to travel. Have you noticed that in women's products, especially clothing, convenience seems to give way to aesthetics?
Zhou Peiqin:
As a detail of clothing, pockets are so resonant that they must be universal, indicating that in clothing design, men's clothing pays more attention to practicality and comfort, and women's clothing pays more attention to presenting women's bodies to be stared at by others. In terms of clothing consumption, women are indeed subject to greater social pressure. Because society requires women to dress appropriately and show respect for the occasion, but men are relatively tolerant of what they dress, and even praise and admiration for their unconventional dress, such as Zuckerberg and Jobs, who rarely wear formal clothes on formal occasions, are very casual casual clothes, but society not only accepts their image, but also considers it to be a manifestation of personality and confidence.
And society has many norms for women's dress and body. I have a student who studies plus-size women's clothing, and "plus-size" means what we call "abnormal bodies" in our sociology. But in fact, in the field of clothing consumption, some large sizes are actually not big enough. But many consumers will think that the average size of clothing reflects the average of our figure. So if she can't buy clothes all the time, she will feel that she is an un"standard" person. Starting from Foucault's theory, we will be disciplined by the market, because most people want to be socially accepted and conformist. In addition, most of the current clothing consumer market is aimed at young women, so women of other ages are ignored, but their bodies are different, for example, women who have had children may accumulate fat with childbirth, then these women may have anxiety about size and figure.
Overall,
The aesthetic requirements of society for women have made women subject to a series of disciplines in clothing and food consumption. In this respect, even if we have economic power, but ultimately have to follow the gender norms of society, women's consumption control becomes a paradox.
So is it feasible for women to put aside society's aesthetic discipline and vote with their feet as consumers to promote the universalization of women-friendly products? First of all, I think that if women consciously use their economic power to buy their preferred gender-friendly goods, although the impact is very small at first, the power will definitely increase with the number and number of times, so it can change some of the status quo to a certain extent. For example, in recent years, there have been significantly fewer women wearing high heels than before, and its market has shrunk a lot.
So we can consciously empower our own behavior, such as not buying clothes that are inconvenient for you without pockets, not buying shoes that are harmful to the body and restricting movement, not catering to some perverted aesthetic standards, and the products currently on the market provide this diversified choice.
But the paradox is that when we want to achieve gender equality through consumption, we are also disciplined by capital to some extent, and we become consumerists
, also became a victim of consumerism.
The girl in the lens. Photo by surging reporter Zhou Pinglang
The Paper: You wrote about gender stereotypes in Lego toys in 2014. In 2021, Lego said that it will no longer label products as suitable for girls or boys, have you paid attention to this matter, and what do you think of Lego's statement?
Zhou Peiqin:
Although Lego made this statement in 2021, I recently went to the LEGO flagship store on Taobao to take a look and found that the gender distinction of its products is still obvious, for example, it classifies the products as "The Heroic Dream of the Little Prince" and "The Little Princess's Girly Heart". So although companies have expressed their social responsibility, their actions may lag behind.
In 2014, I did this research because I saw that my daughter's toy choices were very limited. She likes to play with blocks, but many of Lego's products have obvious gender distinctions, and gender-neutral toys are few, such as toys for boys are very large vehicles, emphasizing speed, strength, confrontation, such as ambulances, trains, or police stations, fire stations, and toys for girls are cafes, dessert shops or campgrounds, gender segregation is very obvious.
My research at the time found that among the few brick worlds that LEGO introduced for girls, women's space was biased towards private consumption, women's body images were stereotyped, and women were more often given traditional gender roles. This gender segregation is also a constraint on boys, who are even more stressful in this regard, and playing with girls' toys may make them labeled as "girl cannons".
Therefore, I hope that the toy world can gradually dissolve sexism and launch more gender-neutral toy products, such as building block toys can have more bookstores, schools and other scenes, so that boys and girls are interested and willing to play.
However, in this regard, merchants sometimes feel very aggrieved. Barbie has been criticized very much, because from the perspective of body index coefficients, Barbie's body structure is sick, the body is too sexy and incomparably fascinated by fashion, which is not suitable for the healthy growth of children. Under the pressure of strong public opinion, Barbie dolls have also launched dolls with a relatively normal body shape, but its market is not good, which shows that this is a problem between supply and demand. At present, parenting is still mainly borne by mothers, so mothers as consumers must have this awareness, and when buying toys, they must consciously weaken traditional gender stereotypes and let children see more diverse worlds.
The Paper: In addition to the gender stereotypes of the product itself, gender discrimination in product advertising and marketing is more obvious, and in recent years, many genderist advertisements have been punished by regulatory authorities, such as Gynecology Jie in 2022 on the advertising page "wash out 'girl powder'" "black! Dark and black, rejected by partners" and a large number of vulgar, vulgar, kitsch terms, degrading women's personal dignity and causing bad social impact, why are there so many sexist advertisements, is there a way to curb such phenomena?
Zhou Peiqin:
Gender stereotypes in advertising are a global phenomenon. Because we can't deny that it reflects the gender norms of a real society. Many of the current advertisements, if we look at it with a strict concept of gender equality, are indeed full of sexism. For example, many outdoor advertisements are objectifying women's bodies; Many advertisements aimed at men, products have nothing to do with women, but will be accompanied by a beautiful face on the screen, or very sexy body women, is to combine products and sexual desire through the objectification of women; Most beauty and cosmetic advertisements convey age and appearance anxiety. Similarly, for men, the values embodied in many advertisements are also harmful to men's growth. It is to promote what R.W. Cornell calls "toxic masculinity", which has been implying that being a man means having control, being at the top of the power structure, and having money.
The problem is that advertising is everywhere, such as posters in the community, advertising screens in elevators, not to mention advertisements on the Internet and TV. Imagine that girls and boys grow up with this suggestion, and it becomes a cycle of gender norms, especially if the message released by the advertisement is objectifying women, which is very bad for the entire female living environment.
And the popularity of the media has caused the "disappearance of childhood", in fact, children have seen a lot of things in the adult world in advance, there is no threshold.
Then we note that in 2021, Shenzhen issued the "Shenzhen Advertising Gender Equality Review Guide", which is the first gender equality guide at the advertising level in China, which is very valuable. But what needs to be seen is that it is called a guide, and if it is not called a legal regulation, it has not risen to the level of laws and regulations. Of course, what is more important is how such guiding requirements should be standardized.
With regard to changing the sexist approach in advertising, in addition to raising gender awareness in society, the actions of government regulators and civil society organizations will have a role to play. For example, Sweden's advertising regulator banned gender stereotypes, so Top Toy, Sweden's largest toy chain, broke down gender segregation in its Christmas toy catalogue released in late 2012, showing a girl holding a toy pistol and a boy holding a doll. But at the same time, the company's advertising in Denmark followed traditional gender stereotypes. Other studies have found that it is important to have the voices and promotion of civil society groups to dissolve gender segregation in the toy world, and in 2012, the British social organization Let Toys be Toys prompted British retailers to cancel gender to display toys.
January 30, 2018 (the specific shooting time is unknown), in the 50s of last century, people generally regarded family tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children as a woman's natural duty, and it was also a standard to measure whether a woman was conscientious. Visual China infographic
The Paper: There's a word called Femvertising, which is a combination of Feminism and Advertising, called feminist advertising. What do you think of this type of advertising, and is it somehow a way of empowering women?
Zhou Peiqin:
This is very similar to the concept of greenwashing "greenwashing" that I have studied before, which is marketed with environmentalism, for example, the hotel industry is generally willing to tell consumers to change sheets less frequently in order to be environmentally friendly, and Femvertising uses feminism. To this phenomenon,
The first thing to see is that marketing with feminism, if combined with consumerism, gives you the illusion that through continuous consumption, you can empower yourself, in fact, you fall into the trap of capital.
Empowering through consumption, especially overconsumption, is a naïve idea. In addition, such advertisements may promote some gender perspectives and can be beneficial in improving gender perspectives. For example, some brands consciously use models of different body types and skin colors in advertising, especially models with busty bodies, to counter the criteria for women's bodies based on thinness and beauty. It's just that this feminist-based marketing strategy may also aim not at gender equality but at maximizing profits. For example, in the twenties and thirties of the last century, there were businesses in order to market cigarettes and told women that smoking is a manifestation of independence, cigarettes were once described as "free fire", in fact, women's independence and consumption of cigarettes are there any inevitable connection? Not to mention that we now know that smoking is harmful to health.
In short, Femvertising eventually settled on advertising advertising, and the marketing attributes of advertising have determined its market orientation, so we should not easily regard advertising as a feminist reading.
Girl smoking. Photo by surging news reporter Zhou Pinglang
The Paper: Some news mentioned that some cars have added the design of on-board cameras and added a camera to the rear seat, so that mothers do not have to look back at their children's actions frequently when driving with their children, and can also reduce the occurrence of safety accidents. Do you think it's an inevitable trend to include a female perspective in your products?
Zhou Peiqin:
If it clearly says that it is convenient for mothers to take care of children without looking back, in fact, it solidifies gender roles again, because dads can also drive children, right?
This problem may be present with many female-friendly products that advertise themselves as serving women, but further entrench women in these gender roles. This is something we need to think about and avoid.
As far as this advertisement is concerned, it will be more suitable to change to a product that will be convenient for parents.
Of course, what we're talking about now is how we can increase the perspective of women in our products and better serve women. That's what we just talked about, voting with your feet. Because the market also has to follow the consumer, it cannot be completely above the consumer, so women as consumers, can work more consciously in this direction and use consumption power to guide the market.
So in increasing the female perspective in the product, I want to use China's largest consumer goods house to illustrate, does the design of the house reflect the female perspective? Taiwanese sociologist Wu Zhengzhong's monograph "Dance in the Kitchen" discusses this issue, which originated with the death of his mother from lung cancer, the leading cause of death among women in Taiwan. After conducting a series of analyses of various factors, including second-hand smoke, eating habits, and long-term hard work, Wu finally proposed that the small apartment kitchen was a deadly "family gas chamber", in which the mother had been grilling and cooking food for a long time, and was forced to be exposed to a harsh environment full of oil smoke, which should be an important cause of lung cancer.
"Kitchen Dance" shows that the current apartment kitchen is a typical "male environment" dominated by patriarchal ideology and produced by bureaucracy, market and technology. The kitchen is not only the narrowest space in the apartment, but also the worst position in the entire apartment, either in the corner, in the backlight, or in the aberrant space, which is a very marginal and closed space.
Wu solemnly pointed out,
This kitchen design exacerbates gender inequality in housework. On the one hand, kitchens that are too small to accommodate a second person naturally continue to be a separate household burden for women. On the other hand, isolated and enclosed spaces allow housework to be neglected not only in the public sphere, but also in the private sphere of the family with little attention from other family members.
Based on my own experience of buying a house, I find it really difficult to find a slightly larger kitchen, even a three-bedroom house kitchen area is often seven or eight square meters, some smaller than the main bathroom, not to mention that the bathroom of a three-bedroom house generally has two. Therefore, if from the perspective of gender, this space has gender blind spots, and women's needs are not valued and met. Designing women-friendly products requires research like Kitchen Dance to understand the needs of female consumers, recognize the impact that products may have on gender relations, and respond positively. Of course, this work needs to be carried out jointly by combining the power and wisdom of the government, the market and consumers.
Cartography The Paper Wang Luyao