Re: Have Feminists Been Used To Exploit Women For Corporate Profit?
I agree with what you have said here with two exceptions. I don't think feminists have a goal to tear apart the family, neither do I think that the destruction of the family is a corporate dream. Having said that, feminists, in order to achieve their goal of independence for women, have been used by corporations such that women, instead of becoming independent, have merely substituted one type of dependency for another. And that has led to the erosion of the family. Not only that but they have been mislead by corporations into believing that the consumption of corporate commodities is itself is empowering and liberating when in fact, the opposite is true. With regards to corporations, they don't care about anything except making money. And if the destruction of the family is a by product of that, they don't care. As far as they are concerned that's just tough, it's life, too bad.
While I think you're touching on a good point I think you're also skewing it out of proportion.
The Feminists did not foster the idea of marketing to women - the COMPANY fostered the idea. They covered the cost of advertisement and contacted women who were willing to pose as models in ads.
For one: women are not unifiably reliant on any one product these days because it 'makes us dependent'. I think you can throw out that belief because it's false. Are men unifiably reliant on a product to 'make them manly'? No.
Makeup has been around for thousands of years and, if anything, it's less popular. Many women don't and never will wear it (I don't). So some things come and go like fashions - and the overall reliance on them is nil. Some things are sort of a necessity and each gender is equally marketed to: shaving cream, for example. Oddly, my favorite shaving cream that's sort of expensive is never advertised (Aveeno).
Makeup, Cigarettes, Shaving Cream, and Lawn Mowers have not altered the family dynamic in any way, shape or form. Things have not altered or destroyed the family dynamic.
Products do not do that.
Social values and other things do that.
Beliefs and Morals are what do that.
This thread began by discussing Cigarettes. Marketing an unhealthy product to what was seen as a new demographic. Business common sense: try to branch out into as many facets of society as possible and gender is just one facet. (Quitters are another - fashion smokers are another . . . thus we have a variety of nocotein free or reduced cigarettes and fashionable cigarette items, gender geared or gender neutral. Marketing to a niche interest. Oddly enough: marketing to a niche interest that's pushing against traditional cigarette forms).
A non-cigarette, non-gender but equally disturbing trend can be seen when you look at companies like Proctor Gamble which produces Crest toothpaste. There's at least one tube of toothpaste in almost every home in the United States. Toothpaste is good business because it's seen as a necessity. So when they looked around a while back and saw that they had pretty much encouraged the need or sale of the product for every man or women in the United States they decided to branch out.
Of course, that required them to find a place that had a huge demographic to tap into - and then they had to make it happen. Where'd they go? Well Japan and China, of course. The Orient. The Orient, you see, doesn't rely on the use of manufactured toothpaste. They rely on things like Green Tea to swish with.
So they then analyzed the culture - hired cultural anthropologists to go over there, explore the state of dental hygiene in the Orient, and then worked with marketers to create a necessity for toothpaste.
How is the international marketing campaign for dental hygiene to sell toothpaste and related products going? Proctor and Gamble has that covered:
Global Toothpaste Market to Reach US$12.6 Billion by 2015, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Marketing basics:
1: Identify your demographic and market to their interests.
2: If there is not a demographic with an interest then create an interest.
If you do this well you're King of the Mountain.
All major brands (General Motors, Ford, Proctor and Gamble, Kenmore (which was a woman-owned company from its start, btw), McDonald's, Walmart) - all of these big companies are BIG success stories because they mastered the art of demographic appeals.