The Ideal Woman’s Reflection in the Distorted Mirror of Marketing

Gender roles and their stereotyped behavior is influenced by various factors, both external and internal during the course of an individual’s life. But, the identity of being an ideal woman, is blamed to be triggered majorly by marketing. It seems to create an identity benchmark in the society, generating compliance pressure in women to the identity standards. These efforts to adhere to the ideal woman benchmark is reflected in their consumption. But, do women really rejoice being the one, or do they regret for? To explore this, we conducted 20 in-depth interviews, which were initially informal, and further an incremental structured depth interviews the study identified the conditioning factors of identity construction process of being an ideal woman, perception of beauty and femininity, the conflict between relative and unique identities of women, women’s avoidance/need to be in relationships with men, and their transition from a private self to public self. The study also brings out the implications of being an ideal woman to marketing, consumer research and advertising.