Urban Women. Feminist Perspective Brand Consumer Behavior Research

This research thesis aims at exploring and analyzing problems of female brand consumption through feminism and Bardrillard's theory of symbolic consumption.Analysis data and research materials depend on recent research achievement, my personal practice and actual investigation. And this thesis includes seven parts as following: The first chapter is the introduction part of the whole thesis. It introduces the selection process of my thesis, roundup of related research materials and definitions of related conceptions.The second part concerns with the research objects and research methods. Urban female consumers are my research objects (especially those in Harbin city). The main research method is the use of questionnaire and the subsidiary methods are interviews and documents.The third chapter is the investigation on female brand consumption behaviors. This investigation focuses on consumed environment, products producing area and commercials which influenced female consumers. At the same time this research illustrates the functional differences between brand products and ordinary ones, especially the positive function of brand consumption, comparing and analyzing the discrepancies between generations and social strata.The fourth portion of this thesis focuses on economic element, social element, cultural element and psychological element which impacted on urban female brand consumption behaviors.The economic element consists of macro-economic element and micro-economic element. The macro one indicates the achievements of China's reform and opening-up policy and the perfecting system of market economy. The macro-economic element is the environmental and institutional base of consumption culture expansion. The micro-economic element means gradually improved domestic income and women's income which enable women (urban women) to practice brand consumption.The cultural element includes gender culture and mass media influences.The social strata element means women's social strata and domestic ranks. Women acquire more and more decision rights so that they pay more and more attention to commercials and mass media.The psychological element is divided into two aspects. One is the urban women's self-identifications; the other is the women's ways of entertainment.The above four elements (economic, social, cultural and psychological elements) work together and influence urban female brand consumption behaviors.Part five is the analysis of female brand consumption behaviors. It concentrates on the losses of women's identities, changes of aethestic standard (due to labor division) and alienations of women.The last part is the conclusion and discussion of this research thesis. It explains the relationship between practice and assumption, discussing the meaning of this research and possibility of further research.According to my research that brand is the most important element in urban female consumption.Most of urban female consumers'behaviors are pursuit of psychological satisfaction.Minor portion of urban female consumption behaviors obviously shows feature of hedonism and ostentation. This paper innovatively reveals female brand consumption by feminist perspective and by Bardrillard's symbol consumption theory,exploring female brand consumption's dilemma in completely throretical framework,examining and reflecting on the alienation of female made by male culture and consumption.Female as the main force in shopping, in the consumer society, their presence has been highlighted. Female have a more intense nature of liquid than male, more nature of melting of the request in daily life. This is the reason why female adapt to the consumer society more easily than male. Female witches are intertwined with commodities as part of the commodities. In the consumer society that controlled by men, in the"absent","marginal","suppression", Female use their"weak advantage"for the development of various favorable in their own limit space and the meaning of their existence.