Women as a target for capitalism

[cath]

I just shaved my legs with coconut oil. I have gradually replaced a number of bathroom products with coconut oil after becoming so frustrated with the way beauty products are marketed towards women. Women are manipulated into buying hundreds, thousands of products that only serve to feed into the damaging images projected by social media and the advertising world in general. This is not a post promoting coconut oil; I am still discovering how far into the anti consumer rabbit hole I am willing to descend. This feeling is similar to the one I felt when I discovered the Diva Cup and wondered why I saw no ads on tv or in mainstream magazines. It was as though the world was conspiring against me to limit the choices I could make about my body. Is this overly sensitive? does anyone else have thoughts about this?

[Sam W]

I've definitely felt like women are very heavily marketed to. The beauty industry is huge and lucrative for a reason, and it throws a lot of money at making people feel as though there body is not ____ enough and that they need this product to make it better. I think there's also an increase in how much men are being marketed beauty products (generally under the guise of it being "manly"). And so much of that marketing is aimed at things with a short shelf life that products that do last awhile get obscured.

[Carmen]

Yes I totally agree. I was just reading an article about the plethora of made up problems that consumerism creates in order to sell us more products. The example they used was underwear lines - who decided that underwear lines were a problem?? Whoever did sure created a HUGE market for new kinds of underwear. Similarly, I never use shampoo because once a hair dresser told me I didn't need it and what do you know, I started loving my hair a lot more after I stopped using it and that was one less product to buy!
To add to what Sam mentioned about "manly" products too, it is incredible how personal hygiene products create and solidify stark gender differences and stereotypes. Not only just leaving room for just two gender identities, but limited roles and spaces within them. It is almost as horrifically comical as "his and her" pens...