“Gender as a Critical Perspective in Marketing Practice” by Susan Dobscha (Bentley University) and Gry Hongsmark-Knudsen (University of Southern Denmark) in the Oxford Handbook on Consumption, edited by Frederick F. Wherry and Ian Woodward.
Abstract: This chapter argues that marketing naively adopts gender theories from other fields that perpetuate outdated stereotypes. This is demonstrated by means of an existing example that shows how Jung’s archetypes leads to sexist advertising practices. The authors argue that a similar process will happen within consumption studies’ borrowing of evolutionary psychology. To counter this process, the authors suggest that researchers and educators need to interrupt the inertia of the wheel of marketing knowledge by applying more critical perspectives; adopting theories from other fields including the critical perspectives from these fields; publishing more studies on gender in marketing; learning from practitioners when they attempt to promote new perspectives on gender; and finally updating gender perspectives in textbooks to better educate future marketers and avoid propagation of outdated and negative stereotypes of gender.