ABSTRACT
The key implication is that the discussion invites present and future marketing managers to take a more macro and reflective view of gendered representations. In traditional marketing, consumer culture exists “out there” and is more or less seen as a pre-existing structure in which the company finds itself operating. The traditional privileging of the mind over the body was gradually being challenged, however. The so-called “turn to the body” is usually associated with postmodernism. Postmodernism is attributed with changing the focus of the consumer as a rational, knowing subject to a communicative subject indulging in subjective experiences. The main narrative used in advertising depicts women as “consummate consumers” who are ruled by their bodies’ appetites and are unable to resist the lure of carnal pleasures. The triad of male/producer/mind versus female/consumer/body has broken down and become fragmented, and the old dichotomy of the marketplace has also been challenged; some might say it has been turned upside down.
