Marketing and the self

This chapter explores how young men negotiate the matriarchal domain of fashion consumption and self-presentation, observing techniques adopted to navigate this “feminine” world and construct their own masculine identities. The research adopts poststructuralist, postmodern thought to consider the sociology of men,

placing emphasis on how men’s sense of identity is “validated through dominant discursive practices of self, and how this identity work connects with (gender) power and resistance” (Whitehead and Barrett 2001: 15). In particular, the works of social theorist Michel Foucault are drawn upon to consider the discursive subject of masculinity and self-identity.