Women are the biggest group of consumers, prized by advertisers the world over. In recognising this they can increase their influence in the market-place and translate it into power over other parts of their lives.

Shahjahan is Muslim, like most people in Bangladesh. Since puberty she has been in purdah, which literally means a curtain or a veil. It is a religious instruction where a girl upon reaching puberty is not supposed to show herself to male persons except her closest relatives. So she is only allowed outside the house if veiled. But Shahjahan can still dream. About the time when she played freely with boys in the neighbourhood. Independence. And most of all, to be able to read and write. Her life is bounded not just by the walls of her house and courtyard, but by centuries of tradition which dictate that she stays where she is, obeys her husband and looks after the children. And for many women, while they may not be as physically confined as Shahjahan, the restraints on their lives and activities are just as forceful.

They are held back by lack of education. Their scope is limited by frequent child-bearing which saps their strength absorbing them completely in nurturance and housework. They are refused loans, their ideas and opinions are not sought. They are excluded from the decisions which affect both family and community. They fear physical violence. They dare not break with tradition because they will be ostracised. Their work in the fields and at home is unpaid. They are undervalued and so see themselves as of little worth. They have too much responsibility, and not enough power.

But Shahjahan is a consumer too. And in this book we have seen that part of women's responsibility lies in their role as consumers. Perhaps this can be the key to their power.

What has been revealed about women as consumers? Firstly, they are prime consumers on two counts, for themselves and also for their families. And although their purchases may not be major items like a car, say, they are buying daily in the market-place, influenced by it and therefore able to influence it too. They may be persuaded to buy brand X, but they can also decide not to purchase.

We have also looked at the role of women as consumers beyond the market-place, and seen how they are affected by a range of issues. The development process, for instance, has not always benefited women. The introduction of a cash economy into rural areas has resulted in putting the cash in the hands of men while ignoring the women or sometimes even depleting their resources, such as their land and time for their own activities.

As well as doing most of the buying for the household needs, women spend more time in and around the house — if they have a house. One hundred million people in the world today do not have a roof over their heads. For those women who have homes, their particular housing needs are for adequate space in the right places, for designs that would protect against excessive heat or cold, for services that would collect the garbage regularly and protect them in case of fire and for security of tenancy.

Perhaps if houses were designed differently women would not be so cut off from the outside world, or cut off from the rest of the family as they prepare food out of sight in the kitchen. As producers of food in many parts of the world, and producers of meals almost universally, women spend a great deal of time on food. They grow or shop, prepare, cook, serve, clear up and store it. They do not, on the whole, eat enough of it themselves. They risk buying pesticide residues along with the vegetables, or radioactivity along with the milk. To a harassed homemaker processed foods seem a blessing — too bad they are loaded with fat, salt and sugar, all of which contribute to ill-health.

But a woman cannot afford to be ill. Her labour is needed in the fields and in the kitchen; the children need attention. And if she does go to the doctor it may well be on behalf of the unborn child she is carrying, or the one at her side, as much as for herself. When she complains of pre-menstrual cramps her physician may be dismissive, but give her some pills all the same. Women are large consumers of drugs, and the pharmaceutical companies have found many profitable avenues along which to sell to women, often by playing on their guilt and responsibility as mothers.

Healthy or not, there's work to be done. And technology can help make women's lives easier — although not always. But it can also reinforce their domesticity. As consumers women should ensure that technology is tailored to their needs, and that besides being safe and efficient, it should be part of a wider approach to their liberation. Technology should not create or increase inequalities between men and women. Through sharing in the design, use and maintenance of their machines, women can be empowered.

Technology can certainly help in the work of gathering fuel, fetching water and getting their goods to market. Such jobs are mainly done by women in developing countries and the introduction of a well, a pump, a more energy-efficient cooking stove, a cart, or even a bus service can make their lives much easier.

Innovations sometimes bring additional risks. The low value given to women's work is part of the reason why the products usually used by them are often carelessly designed. Women who are employed are also more likely to be working in menial low paid jobs which expose them to hazards.

So how can women consumers begin to assert their power? Joining together is the vital step, whatever the consumer problem they face. Recognition that other women share their worries and have similar needs gives confidence to each individual — whether it's concern over high prices for food, over male appropriation of land, over advertisements which stereotype, or about fear of eviction from their homes.

Yet becoming aware of any of these issues as a group and therefore bringing pressure to bear to change something may be difficult to achieve.

Women are often isolated from each other, physically in suburban dwellings, but also emotionally through years of seeing each other as rivals, a view that is reinforced by advertising images showing them as seducers of men and on their guard against other women who might 'steal' their man away.

And even where women are not isolated from one another in this sense, the idea of changing anything may seem so remote as not to be worth thinking about. After centuries of submissiveness taking initiative becomes almost impossible. It can be rationalised by almost anything from 'God's will' to a belief that women are inferior. Constant child-bearing and child-rearing also make for docility, filling up their lives so that it is a luxury to think about themselves, of analysing their position and work out ways of altering it.

Isolation, submissiveness, preoccupation with children and home are three reasons why women have not organised. But there are others as well: ill-health — the chronic anaemia which leaves so many women feeling tired and debilitated; lack of time — the process of survival, of working and doing domestic tasks; and sometimes the fear of change. However oppressive the set-up at home or at work, it is at least familiar. Anything different might be worse.

And running through all these reasons is the silvery thread of money. Without it, or its equivalent in land and possessions, women are enfeebled. From the national level right down to the family men earn more, or control more. And as a result they hold the power and command respect. Wealth also gives independence. Knowing that you either have money, or have access to creating it gives you the freedom to take on new challenges, to take risks.

This helps explain why women find it hard to organise. What are the steps that will lead to change?

Recognising that something is wrong is the starting point. The lack of transport to get goods to market; the five-mile trudge to the well for water; the high cost of essential drugs; the dangers of the nearby chemical factory; or the frustration of never sharing in the family decisions — these begin the process. But for some that's as far as it goes. They know something is wrong but feel there is nothing they can do about it.

For others, the rumble of discontent leads on. If lack of firewood trees is the issue, for example, they begin to ask why the trees are being felled, what are the effects on them and their families, who decides that the trees should come down. Here, with a sigh, many will say, again, that there is nothing they can do about it. It is too big an issue; they do not have time; they don't have the influence and so on. But others will not be content to let the matter rest there. These people join to confront the problem.

Faced with an outbreak of infectious disease in a slum near Manila, for instance, people with the help of some community organisers who came to work amongst them, were drawn together as they talked about the epidemic, the high cost of drugs and doctors.

These were the problems they pinpointed. In trying to solve them — in this case by turning to medicinal plants which they grew and administered themselves through a community health project — the women realised that it was not merely expensive drugs or too few doctors that prevented their children from being healthy, but their poor housing in unhealthy sites; that they didn't have the money to buy enough of the right food to give their families resistance to disease; that the water they drank was polluted and so on.

And this led them to see that wider changes were called for if their community's long-term health was to mean anything. In other words, through their initial consumer action they became more critical of other aspects of their life. (See the story, Healing Power, p 54.)

In this story, as in many others in this book, the community was helped in the beginning by a few people from the 'outside', who came to work amongst them and gained their trust and respect. The 'outsiders' — be they called community organisers, development workers, intermediaries, or change agents — can play an important part in bringing women together to talk about the problems they face, helping them recognise the reasons for these as well as work out the solutions.

Consumer groups can and do play such a catalytic role. 'It is our business to find out what consumers need and want,' emphasises Peter Goldman, a long-time leader of the consumer movement.¹ This is the starting point from which consumer groups view the needs of women as consumers.

So when testing sewing machines or investigating shopping hours, consumer groups look at what women want and should have. In many other instances, like these, women are the main users/consumers and have particular needs that stem from their situation.

Take the case of shopping hours. Increasingly women are going out to work. For these women, particularly in the West, doing the shopping becomes a weekly race against time as they try to make it to the shops — before they close — after work. This same point of availability of basic services is shown in the need for rural women to have a water supply nearby since they are the main fetchers of water. In countries where laws deny women equal access to credit facilities it is then a consumer issue. When women are increasingly singled out by the tobacco industry to get them to smoke, then consumer groups need to support them to counter the persuasion to unhealthy habits.

Because the starting point for consumer groups is the consumer (Who is she/he? What does she/he want? What is in her/his best interests?) any special requirements of women consumers should be taken into account in the process. It is, however, also important to look beyond women's immediate consumer requirements to the social and economic conditions that surround them.

Take, for example, Depo-Provera. Advocates of this long-lasting injectable contraceptive argue that the side-effects (which include menstrual irregularities, increased risk of cancer and loss of libido) are in most cases less dangerous than childbirth in many poor countries. Opponents disagree, for the health system in those same countries will not be able to effectively monitor the Depo users. This means that the side-effects will go undetected and the women will suffer worse health as a result.

Pressure by consumer groups on authorities for more consumer safeguards has been fortified by a range of United Nations' measures. In April 1985, the UN General Assembly adopted a set of guidelines to help governments protect citizens through comprehensive measures to ensure the availability, quality and safety of goods and services.² Their adoption and implementation can make a significant difference particularly to disadvantaged consumers which include — whether in New York city or a village in Kenya — women, from girls to single mothers to elderly women.

But consumer groups are not isolated in their mission. More than 150 groups throughout the world are linked in the international movement through the International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU). Intervening in bad marketing practice is more and more a transnational effort. For example the export of unsafe products to unsuspecting consumers in other countries called for a cooperative alert system. Enter Consumer Interpol where a group in one country warns others through this IOCU programme about a particular dangerous product. Another example of working together is lobbying member nations of the UN to continue their support and to allocate the resources needed to compile, regularly update and make available a list of banned and restricted products.³

Other efforts have been made too. The Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies — developed at the End of Decade for Women Conference — call for concern of women as consumers (paragraph 229).⁴ And in Latin America, the first IOCU conference there in October 1986 saw the formation of an informal working group to look more closely into the region's women consumer needs.⁵

Tackling issues effectively at the global level, as IOCU found out, needs the combined strength and commitment of other special interest groups. This has led IOCU to link up with many others in networks such as Health Action International (HAI), Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). Through HAI, for instance, IOCU and women's health groups like the Women's Health Interaction of Canada, the American National Women's Health Network, CEFEMINA in Costa Rica, the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network find a common agenda for their concerns about women and drugs. The last group is an international network in itself. Coordinated by Isis International, it is made up of 450 groups concerned about women's health and working at all levels from community health care to national research and policy-making. They link together to share information, resources and carry out coordinated activities.⁶

The baby food campaign provides a clear example of the need for various groups to work closely, each doing what it does best, to provide a holistic approach to dealing with the issues. Consumer groups were immensely successful in bringing an end to the promotion of baby milks. But it is not enough to end bad marketing practice alone if women working in the fields or factories have neither the time nor a healthy environment in which to breastfeed their babies. Groups like breastfeeding mothers' associations which both encourage and provide practical help are vital, as are women's groups which can campaign for better working conditions, paid maternity leave, and so on.

So by being advocates for the well-being for women consumers at the local level and also setting up universal standards for their protection and advancement, consumer groups are providing a voice to the largest, and usually poorer, group of consumers — the women.

The women's movement has much to bring to consumerism. In analysing the roots of female oppression — patriarchy, lack of basic rights in law and discrimination, for instance — feminism can help women to see themselves as consumers in a different light. They are not inferior to men, they are not the dumb stereotype of the advertisements, they should be able to have money or land in their own right, they should be able to plan their child-bearing. With this kind of awareness, women become more incisive consumers of society and its institutions.

The women's movement has also helped to bring women's perspectives to issues and campaigns taken up by consumer organisations. Women are raising questions: When dangerous medicines and pesticides are the issue, are those that particularly affect women given as high priority as others? And what about women's needs for information and health services?

It is not enough, however, to add on women's concerns to an issue or a campaign after it is already underway. These need to be taken into consideration in the planning stages and when groups or networks are setting priorities.

On all fronts, women can help other women. Identifying themselves as a distinct group with some different needs from men is important. As a member of India's Ministry of Social and Women's Welfare, for instance, C.P. Sujaya is working to steer ministerial attention away from its preoccupation with women's traditional role. Specifically she wants the next government census to have a broader definition of work which would also include women's contribution. 'Everyone you talk with,' says Sujaya 'will say, yes, we know that women do all the transplanting of the rice, all the weeding, harvesting, processing of food grains, storing, and marketing. But it's not reflected in any statistics.'⁷

Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in Ahmedabad, as director of the women's section of India's national textile union took a stand on behalf of the female workers in the informal sector in the industry, whose very existence the official union did not acknowledge.

'But how can you have a labour movement when 89 per cent of the total work-force is not recognised and just lumped together as unorganised labour?' asked Bhatt. Her answer was to call the women 'self-employed' — they are traders and entrepreneurs, their factory is their own home. The Association now has more than 50,000 members and it offers loans to members through its own bank as well as giving technical and management advice.⁸

Through their ability to organise, their clarity of purpose and their support, women like Sujaya and Bhatt can inspire action. They and many more like them quietly transfer consumer principles of fairness and rights (such as the right to be represented) to a range of situations in which women find themselves. Seeing themselves as consumers in this broader sense helps to empower women: they have rights to education, to information, to a healthy environment and the right to choose. Working together to press for fair play — whether about fish prices or high rents, or changes in the law — awakens the sense of their own power.

Power takes many forms, and taking power will mean different approaches for different people. To be sure what you want, organisation, education, legislation, control over fertility and access to finance are all important. And so is support, both for other women and from them.

Realising this, women have formed their own groups all over the world and have joined together in networks to support and strengthen each other's work. Health, development, media, food are only some of the issues that these groups and networks are organising around. And there are clearly many points at which the concerns of consumers and women's groups and networks intersect.

Advertising and media have been scrutinised by women's groups around the world. How do advertisers target women? How are women used to sell consumer goods and what image of women do advertisements project? How is this related to the image of women in the mass media and development media and what is the impact of it all on women's lives and development? What action are women's groups taking to change things? The Pacific and Asian Women's Forum (PAWF) collaborated with Isis International in addressing these issues in a study of 'Women and Media: Analysis, Alternatives and Action',⁹ and media study and action is ongoing in the PAWF network in countries throughout the region. In some countries, notably in Scandinavia, women's and consumer groups have helped to push for legislation that has now been attributed as the main reason why sexist advertisements there have been checked.

Indeed there is the real chance for change for women consumers. They are a specific 'market segment' prized by manufacturers the world over. In most part, they are responsible for family spending. If women recognise this and join forces, then they can beam a message back to the advertisers, manufacturers and governments. Finding strength together as consumers will bolster their power as women, if they seize the opportunity.

'History is the long tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily,' wrote Martin Luther King from his prison cell in 1963. For women like Shahjahan at the beginning of this chapter, in her own kind of prison, the road to power will be long. But seeing what other women do may spur her to take the first step. 'The most important thing one woman can do for another,' says writer Adrienne Rich, 'is to illuminate and expand her sense of possibilities.'¹⁰ A woman who can believe in herself... and who struggles to shape her own life is demonstrating to other women that these possibilities exist.

 

Notes

1. Goldman, P. "... Nor Any Drop to Drink." Which? Aid: Testing Waterpumps, in Which?, March 1986, p.106.
2. Guidelines for Consumer Protection. Annex to Document A/RES/39/248, UN, New York, 16 April, 1985.
3. Consolidated List of Products Whose Consumption and/or Sale Have Been Banned, Withdrawn, Severely Restricted or Not Approved by Governments. Second issue, UN, New York, 1987.
4. Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women from 1986 to the Year 2000. Adopted by the World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women, Nairobi, 15-26 July, 1985.
5. Gonzalez, S. 'Women as Consumers: Organising for Change'. Report on the workshop on women as consumers, IOCU Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, 1-4 October 1986.
6. See Isis International Women's Health Journal, produced bimonthly in English and Spanish.
7. Helmore, K. 'The Emerging Force: Women in the Development Professions', in Development International, November/December 1986, p.30.
8. ibid.
9. 'Women and Media: Analysis, Alternatives and Action', in Isis International Women's Journal, no.2, 1984.
10. Rich, A. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Virago, London, 1977, p.60.