Women, Consumption and Paradox

Timothy de Waal Malefyt is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University, New York. A trained anthropologist, he has over 15 years of business experience working in advertising firms. Maryann McCabe is a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester, New York. She is Founder and Principal of Cultural Connections LLC, with over 20 years of consumer research experience.

Introduction: Women, paradox and consumption; Part I: Gender engagements, consumption interactions and marketplace ambiguities; 1. Women and chocolate: identity narratives of sensory and sensual enjoyment; 2. ‘Shapewear or nothing to wear’: The ambiguity of shapewear in the plus-size fashion market; 3. Creating interactional alignment in call center customer care; 4. Financial technology and the gender gap: designing and delivering services for women; 5. Being connected: mobile phones in the lives of domestic workers in Mexico City; 6. Untangling women’s braided relationships with music; Part II: Histories of gender imageries and practices in flux; 7. Women under control: advertising and the business of female health, 1890-1950; 8. Company uniforms and gender dynamics in the Japanese workplace; 9. Women’s consumption of cosmetic products in China: between logistics, conflict and symbolism; 10. Shifts and paradoxes of gender over the course of a career; 11. Little luxuries: decency, deservingness, and delight