I was yapping it up with Allese Thomson, one of the many savvy women over at Wesabe.com, and found out that she was knee deep (actually it sounds like she's neck deep) into studies of women and image, including some fascinating insights into image and finances. I thought this information too intriguing to keep to myself so I just had to interview her.
There is SO much great information that I'll be breaking it into three posts, one a week.
Allese, from the research you have done/read on women and image and finances,
do you feel that a woman's self image has an effect on her finances?
"We live in a culture where self-image is less discovered through individual reflection but rather force fed by a constant proliferation of visual images pictorially defining female beauty, physique and style, selfhood. Images of women in advertising, celebrity culture and television function to consistently reinforce that you are not ok they way you are and that you need x product or service to be more desired, beautiful, happy, liked, or successful.
Consider the much-loved Carrie from Sex and the City; she literally gets a high out of buying shoes. Com’on, are shoes really a source of elation? Fashion is fun, feeling attractive and confident about your appearance is a wonderful thing, but those feelings should be fostered internally, through authentic emotions, experiences, and relations with other people and personal accomplishments, not through a pair of shoes. Shoes, fashion, style, one’s outward appearance is a great way to express oneself, it is not however, who one is nor should it determine how one feels about themselves.
Our culture embraces this rather ridiculous notion that by buying a given product you can feel a certain way. One’s self image then becomes less defined on who one is and more defined on what one looks like and possesses. Or in another vein, what one looks like and possess becomes a visual declaration of who you are.
Subsequently, a woman with less self esteem or weaker self-image has larger propensity to buy more as it is almost like buying a way of feeling or being. Ever wondered why teenage girls have consistently been societies largest consumers?
In a society where reality is more and more defined through visual terms, people respond by claiming themselves visually, be it through a car, outfit or house."
Oh, shoot Allese, you're bang on the money about teenage girls being great, great consumers (and marketers know this). But I will defend my girl Carrie. The girl got a high off the strangest things (Mr. Big - I wasn't too big on him) so it isn't that far fetched to think she was elated by a sweet pair of Manolo Blahnik's.