Who Needs It?
In most cultures, shopping is a traditionally female activity. In the developed world, advertising targets women as providers of their family's daily needs and at the same time, portrays materialism as empowerment. Adds which tell women they are "worth it" suggest that purchasing beauty products equals independence or liberation.
Retailers use advertisements to convince women consumers to buy products they don't really need or that, like cigarettes and diet pills, may actually jeopardize their health. Many of these ads portray women as sex objects whose only source of power is buying the clothing, beauty, and weight loss regimes necessary to be "attractive." These ads contain dangerous messages about what an ideal woman should look like--thin, white, passive, and sexually alluring. By suggesting that women can gain power only through buying things, these ads create tremendous profits for retailers. For example, cosmetics are a $20 billion industry worldwide.
Yet when viewed from a global perspective, First World materialism
is exposed as the overconsumption
of a majority of the world's resources by a minority of its population.
Currently, 20% of the world's population--including the United States--consumes
70% of the world's resources. In the U.S. and other developed countries,
a "more mentality" equates status or happiness with material
possessions, while in developing countries, many people lack access to
basic needs such as water, food, shelter, or health care. This unequal
distribution of the world's resources escalates to grim proportions as
the world's population increases daily.
The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing in this country as well, and poor women and their children bear the brunt of this restructuring. In fact, the welfare debate in the U.S. parallels structural adjustment policies in developing nations that demand export production over basic needs. By attempting to "balance the budget" (a euphemism for paying off debts due to excessive military spending, corporate tax breaks, environmental cleanup, and the savings and loan scandal) or pay off debts to intergovernmental agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, governments place greater demands on women by cutting health, education, and social services while exploiting women's labor. Why Shop? Week asks consumers to consider the meaning of "need" from a global perspective.