Women from Rio De Janeiro and their Bodies: An Investigation Regarding the Consumer Value of the Female Body

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe how women from Rio de Janeiro value their bodies and, based on that description, develop a consumer value typology for the female body. Therefore, the authors define the female body as an object of value and seek to understand its consumer value The development of this proposal involves two ontological options: 1) the objectification of the body, based on the dualistic relationship between a subject (the individual) and an object (the body) and 2) the adoption of a perspective the transforms body into capital and investment (Goldenberg & Ramos, 2007). These two movements allowed the use of consumer research theory. Thus, the typology of Holbrook (1999) was used to define categories of advertisement of the female body and guide the analysis regarding its consumer value. The data corpus is composed of fifteen in-depth interviews (McCracken, 1988), exclusively with women. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed through content analysis, as proposed by Bardin (1977). At the end, the authors present consumer value typology for the female body, based on Holbrook’s original typology. Furthermore, relevant issues related to the female body are also presented: the configuration of 'virtual' bodies by the media as source of meaning for the female body; pleasure and sacrifice experienced by women when they invest in the body; and a particular description about the body as locus of capital and competitive potential for women.