T h e J o u r n a l of B r a n d M a n a g e m e n t Volume 7 N u m be r
Gender and consumer behaviour: Further
explorations
Gloria Moss
A ddress: 53 Asmuns Place, London NW1 1 7XE, UK;
Tel/Fax: + 44 1 8 1 458 2879
Received (in revised form): 27th July, 1999
Gloria Moss is a director of Product Psychol­
ogy, a consultancy specialising in diffential tailor­
ing of consumer products and services to
differen t marke t segments (eg, the female sub­
market, the French submarket), She was Train ­
ing Manager (UK) with Eurotunnel, responsible
for language and management training and,
prior to tha t, was Site Training Manager with
Courtaulds at Britain's la rgest manufacturing
site. She has lectured for many years with the
Open University Business School and has been
a judge on th e Na tional Training A wa rds
scheme. Gloria is a member of the Institute of
Personnel and Development and is completing a
PhD.
ABSTRACT
One of the major {themes' seen in the past few
years in a n a lyses of s ocio-eco n o m ic tren ds, has
been a focus o n the role of wo men as cons u m ers
of goods a n d serv ices . Th is p aper will look a t
ways i n which a consumer's gender will affect the
appeal that a product has, arguing that men and
women have differe n t vis u a l p references. It will
describe the res u l ts of two p ieces of emp irica l
work which show that the visual aesthetic of men
and wo men differ. It will end by s h owing tha t
these findings are likely to be given a warm wel­
co me in indus try .
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE
CUSTOMER
It is now official. According to Hammer,
the author of the acclaimed 'Reengineering
the Corporation' , the seller no longer has
Pa ge 88
2
the upper hand. Businesses that survive will
be those that shape their products or services
around the 'unique and particular needs' of
their customer. 1
Establishing the needs of those customers
has usually been done through an under­
standing of key variables such as social class,
age, and geograp hical location. Now, after
many years out in the cold, 2 a fourth vari­
able - gender - is receiving increasing at­
tention. Signs of this can be seen in several
places . According to Peters 3 , Bennett 4 and
Leyden and SchwartzS the needs, desires and
values of women increasingly drive the po­
litical and business worlds. And the drive to
understand these needs explains why the
first substantive plenary session of the 1999
Alpbach European Forum on economic and
so cial trends - a symp osium attended by
business leaders and politicians - was dedi­
cated to the issue of ' gender differences ' .
Given the increasing emphasis on under­
standing customers ' needs, it is opportune
to take another look at some of the assump­
tions underlying recent thinking on men
and women as consumers . Are commenta­
tors correct in thinking that women consti­
tute a high proportion of consumers , and
are the needs of female consumers different
from those of men?
NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALE
CONSUMERS
The Journal o f Brand
It is not difficult to find a number of broad­ Management, Vol. 7 No. 2,
1999, pp. 88-100.
brush estimates of the prop ortion of male © Henry Stewart Publications,
1350-231X
and female consumers . Greer in her most

recent book states that ' women are
estimated to buy 80 per c ent of everything
that is sold' and that ' modern e conomies
depend at least as much upon women's con­
sumption of goods and services as upon pro­
duction of any kind' . 6 Similarly broad
statements are p rovided by Carter7 who
writes that 'women dictate at least 60 p e r
cent of c o nsumer sp ending p ower' and
Friedan 8 who notes that 78 per cent of all
consumer advertising budgets are spent to
app eal to women. These statements imply
that the maj ority of c o nsumers - those at
whom advertising is directed - are female.
Are they correct?
When one looks for c orroborative evi­
dence, one finds a dearth of well-validated
off-the-shelf data. The only off-the-shelf in­
formation available in the UK and USA on
the gender of purchasers is in the occasional
market research j ournal (Mintel and the
like) which reports on this . For the rest, the
maj ority of market res earch studies will in­
clude data o n other segmentation variables
such as social stratification and age, but will
tend not to p rovide data on the sex of the
purchaser.
Is there further data to establish whether
the generalisations quoted earlier about
women's numerical importance as con­
sumers is c orrect? I n the UK, special data
was requested from three surveys in order to
provide answers to this question. The first is
the ' S o cial Change and E conomic Life I ni­
tiative ' , the second is the F amily Exp endi­
ture Survey (FES) and the third is the Target
Group Index (TGI) .
Al l ocation of household ex pend i ture
between males and females
In the UK, about 2 1 p e r cent of adults ,
whether male or female, live o n their own
or as lone parents with dependent children. 9
This leaves about 80 per cent of adults living
with other adults, the most common pattern
in the UK. H ow is household exp enditure
managed in such households? Research
Moss
using the ' S ocial Change and Economic Life
I nitiative ' 10 reveale d that in 7 2 per cent of
cases men are likely to have some degree of
involvement in the sp ending of household
income (this b eing the aggregate of the
'whole male wage' category and the ' shared
management one') and sole c ontrol in 1 2
per cent o f cases . Women, by c ontrast, are
likely to have some degree of involvement
in as many as 8 8 per cent of cases and sole
control in 2 6 per c ent of cases. This shows
that women's role in household expenditure
is likely to b e greater than or e qual to that
of men. Data from the USA paints a picture
of women having even greater control with
women controlling 60 per cent of the avail­
able wealth in the USA. Research also pre­
dicts that 8 5 per cent of women in the USA
will be solely responsible for their finances at
some point in their lives. 1 1
The fami ly ex pend i ture survey
A more detaile d view of how men and
women allocate expenditure between them
can be obtained from the F amily Exp endi­
ture Survey (FES) , a survey of 7 ,000 house­
holds in the UK each year. The data is held
by Essex University and in 1995 the author
requested a computer s e arch to show the
p erc e ntage of men and women who p ur­
chas e d various products . From this data, it
would then b e p o s sible to identify those
pro ducts for which there was : (i) a signifi­
cant preponderance of either male or female
c o nsumers ( ' significant' is used here in the
sense of differences which were at the level
of at least p = <0 . 0 5 ) or (ii) no significant
difference in the purchasing patterns of male
and female consumers .
The exercise revealed that there were sig­
nificant differences between the purchasing
p atterns of men and women. For while men
predominated as p urchasers of alcohol,
diesel oil, garden tools, p etrol, records and
cassettes , sp orts goods and video cameras ,
women p redominated as p urchasers of
b o o ks , china and glass , c o smetics, kitchen
P a g e 89
Gen de r a n d c o n s u me r b e h a v i o u r : F u r t h e r ex p l o r a t i o n s
equipment, j ewellery, photographic equip­
ment, small electrical goods, stationery and
toys . There were also products for which
there appeared to b e no significant differ­
ence in the proportion of male and female
purchasers . Product categories included
telephones and maj or electrical goods .
Unfortunately, there are limiting factors
in this survey. These are that:
It does not have a c ategory which dis­
tinguishes between those making the p u r­
chasing decisi o n and thos e m a k i ng the
physical act of p urchase.
It does not indicate whether the pur­
chase was made in ga tekeeper or p rovider
mode. Hence a women may well buy a
Barbie doll for her daughter or Gillette
razors for her husband, and in each case
the design of the product and its adver­
tising needs to reflect the needs of the
end-user rather than the purchaser.
Many other products need to have cross­
over appeal for two target audiences, eg,
Kellogg's C ornflakes or Sunny D elight
(mothers and children) .
The Target Group Index
The Target Group Index (TGI) is an annual
survey of the UK looking at the purchasing
patterns of 26,000 adults aged 1 5-plus in the
UK. As with the FES, a request was made in
1995 for data on those items of the question­
naire which specifically requested informa­
tion on the gender of the purchaser - a
category of question which in fact appeared
relatively infrequently. As with the FE S,
0 . 05 was taken as the level at which a differ­
ence was held to be significant.
The exercise revealed that there were sig­
nificantly more male than female purchasers
of computers, fridges , washing machines,
and SLR cameras, and significantly more fe­
male than male purchasers of chocolate,
china and glass, electric kettles and furniture.
While this is interesting data, it should be
p ointed out that, in common with the FES,
Page 90
the TGI has a number of limitations. On the
one hand it fails to distinguish
between those who make the purchasing de­
cision and those who make the physical act
of purchase. On the other it does not distin­
guish between those products which are pur­
chased for the exclusive use of the purchaser
and those which are purchased in this and/or
gatekeeper/provider mode. Given this latter
p oint, it is impossible to from a view from
the data as to whether the product in ques­
tion is designed to have cross-over appeal for
more than one audience.
Other market research
Petrol an d groceries Tesco's research
finds that 76 per cent of the users of
their p etrol stations are male while 80
per cent of shoppers at their gro cery
outlets are female. The picture of
women dominating grocery shopping is
corroborated by other sources. A Hen­
ley Centre Survey carried out for Asda
found that men shops for an average of
two-and-a-half hours per week while
women shop for four hours . 12 The
greater involvement of women in gro­
cery shopping is confirmed by the Mar­
keting Director of Lever Brothers
(grocery brands) who is quoted as saying
that 'the bulk of our brands are targeted
at women who still do the bulk of the
shopping' . 13
Motor cars The percentage of women
who buy new cars in the United States
has risen from one in three to one in
two in 199 5 . 14 In the UK, a motoring
survey by Conde Nast in 199615 revealed
that 60 per c ent of new car sales are to
women. According to 1994 research, 16 in
j ust under 70 per cent of car sales ,
women either take the maj or decision or
have an equal say.
Houses According to a survey carried
out in 1996 by the National Association
of Estate Agents (NAEA) , men have a
decisive say in the choice of house pur-

chase in only 9 per cent of cases. Over 76
per cent of estate agents surveyed in the
NAEA Market Trends report agreed that
women were the key decision makers. 1 7
Fragrances A Nielson report o n
beauty care service for the twelve month
period ending D ecember 1997, shows
that 9 0 . 8 per cent of p urchasers of fe­
male fragrances are female. 1 8
Comparing the data
One of the problems of comparing the vari­
ous sources of market research shown above
is that categories used are sometimes , but
not always, difficult to relate to each other.
In the single case where the same cate­
gory is used in two surveys (the c ategory
' China and Glass ' , used in the FEs and
TGI) , b oth give women as the dominant
purchasers . In all other cases, however, the
categories vary. For example, where the FES
has ' kitchen equipment ' , ' small electrical
goods ' and 'maj or electrical goods ' , the TGI
has ' electric kettle ' , ' fridge ' and 'washing
machine' . These may sometimes but not al­
ways correspond with each other. Thus, the
FES data on ' small electrical go ods ' corre­
sponds with that of T G I on the ' electric
kettle' , but the FES data on 'maj or electrical
go ods' does not correspond with the TGI
data on the fridge and washing machine.
One p ossible explanation is that the FES
category has greater coverage than the two
products isolated by the TGI.
Given the variability between the cate­
gories, direct comparisons between the sur­
veys are imp ossible to make. This is one
limiting factor in the data. A further limiting
factor is that the surveys frequently refer to
'purchaser' without distinguishing between
the person whose role is limited to the
physical purchase of the item(s) and the per­
son who makes the decision to purchase.
Despite these limitations , the data reveals
that, although there is no direct support for
a statement like 'women buy 80 per cent of
everything that is sold' , there are in fact
Moss
many products for which women constitute
the maj ority of consumers . Examples in­
clude gro c eries , new cars , house buying,
furniture, books, small electrical goods and
female fragrances. However, the importance
of women as consumers should be balanced
with an awareness that many product sectors
are dominated by male rather than female
consumers - examples include p etrol,
sports goods, alcohol, computers and videos.
In other words , the data reveals that a large
proportion of purchases will be mediated by
women as well as by men.
ARE MEN AND WOMEN'S NEEDS AS
CONSUMERS DIFFERENT?
The growing interest in the gender of con­
sumers c ould be linked to one of two as­
sumptions about men and women:
that men and women buy different
products (eg more women than men
purchase make-up, furniture and books) ;
that even where they buy the same
products , their requirements and priori­
ties may be different (eg women might
be looking for different things in a car
from a man) .
A search of the literature to ascertain which
studies have been carried out in the last ten
years, revealed that only one study has been
carried out on the first issue - examining
the question of whether men and women's
internet shopping patterns varied. It con­
cluded that they did not. 1 9 There were, how­
ever, several studies on the second. Those in
this second category on which the author
was able to obtain details were as follows:
Women may interpret an advertisement
differently from men. 20 The researcher
who conducted this study used a sample
of only two people (one man and one
woman) and, although she cites other
research in supp ort of her conclusions,
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her work must, therefore, be repeated (ii) dealership attributes;

with larger numbers before they can be
considered valid.
In mailshots, men like to see precise fac­
tual statements accompanied by graphs
where for women it is the 'look' and
' tone' of the information that is impor­
tant. 21 Unfortunately the articles which
rep orted on these differences do not
provide details on how the study was
conducted. Further details would b e
needed before a view could be taken o n
the findings reported there.
Women have significantly different pri­
orities from men in car purchases in
three areas:
(i) product attributes;
(iii) purchase attributes. A large sample
was used (5 9 1 male subj ects and
1 , 1 1 4 females) and in each of three
areas affecting car purchase the dif­
ference between the male and fe­
male resp onses was significant at
the P < 0.001 level. 22
The literature search also revealed a number of
studies on which the author was unable to un­
able to obtain information in the UK. Given
this, the author is unable to pass comments on
their conclusions which are as follows:
Men and women have different priorities
as regards choice of hotel. From a sample

TABLE 1 THE MALE AND FEMALE PRODUCTION AESTHETIC COMPARED

Male designs Female designs

Characteristic form Straight lines Rounded lines

and colours used Angles Blunt lines
Vertical/horizontal Compact
extension
Minimise detailing Maximise detailing
Technical appearance Non-technical appearance
Emphasis on 3-D Emphasis on 2-D
Serious More light-hearted
Colours Use of different palette
Emphasis on Less emphasis on
typography typography

Thematic inspiration Self-propelling objects Static objects/ objects

moved by external force
Profiles Frontal faces
Males Females
Violent themes Non-violent themes

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of 250 business p ersons, female business
persons rate security and price more
highly than males, and males rate business
related services (eg fax machines) more
highly than their female analogues. 23
A computer's reliability, ease of use and
service are more important factors than
price for women. 24
Men tend to select information that im­
plies a single idea or influence where
women attempt to process all the infor­
mation in the message. 25
Men are more susceptible to sales-p er­
son influence than women. 26
Women respond more p o sitively than
men to music which is at lower
volumes. 27
It can be s e e n that on the b asis of the re­
search literature accessible in the UK, there
is only one study28 from which serious evi­
dence of sex difference in consumer behav­
iour can be confirmed. This is slender
evidence. I n order to broaden the research
base, the author carried o u t a series of
studies in the fi eld of design aimed at un­
derstanding whether the p roductions and
p references of men and women were dif­
ferent or not.
Since there was no previous res e arch in
the field of design, she started with an allied
field, that of p aintings and drawings, to see
what this revealed about p ro ductions . The
literature revealed the differences between
the male and female production aesthetic 29
shown in Table 1 .
These conclusions emerged over a num­
ber of different studies carried out in the
US, Germany and the UK and related only
to drawings and paintings . What of designs?
The author rep orted o n a number of tests
which showed both that male and female
designs differed in statistically significant
ways and that each sex showed a marked
preference for the work of its own sex.
These effects , measured in a series of tests ,
were statistically significant at the 0 . 0 1 level
Moss
and therefore highly significant. The author
termed the tendency for p e ople to p refer
designs of the typ e that they might origi­
nate thems elves the ' s elf-selecting' ten­
dency. 30 I mp o rtantly, it co nfirmed the
existence of both a male and female ' design
production aesthetic' and a male and female
' design preference aesthetic ' .
T h e notion that there may b e a distinct
male and female p ro du c t i o n and p refer­
ence aesthetic is an extremely imp ortant
one. I t would h ave implications fo r our
e d u c ation system, 3 1 fo r the employment
of designers and, since design i s o n e ele­
ment in the marketing mix, 32 for the way
products are marke t e d and design e d . S o
imp ortant is the notion, that i t warranted
further wo rk . The new work c o n d u c t e d
b y t h e author is described in t h e following
section.
NEW WORK ON A SEPARATE MAL E
AND FEMAL E DESIGN AESTHETIC
1 . Interviews
A series of structured interviews with 40
people associated with design were carried
out. I t was intended that interviewees
should divide into roughly equal p ropor­
tions of:
practitioners;
those who comment on or assist in the
design/fine art process, for example; ed­
ucators/ administrators or market re­
search practitioners;
students .
In the event, a total of 40 subj ects were in­
terviewed c onsisting of 1 4 designers , 1 0
teachers , 2 market researchers , 3 adminis­
trators and 1 1 students . The interviewer
asked the interviewe e s whether they
thought that the designs of males and fe ­
males were different and intervened as little
as possible. Some of the interviewees raised
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Ge n d e r a n d c o n s u m e r b e h a v i o u r : F u rt h e r e x p l o r a t i o n s

TAB L E 2 INTERVIEWEES ' VIEWS A S T O WHETHE R THERE IS A SEPARATE MALE A N D FEMALE

DESIGN PRODUCTION AESTHETIC

THE MALE THE FEMALE

PRODUCTION PRODUCTI ON
AESTHETIC AESTHETIC

Differences between Form and colour: Form and colour:

male and female Aggressive lines ( 1 ) Soft surfaces (3)
design
Hard surfaces (2) Smaller pieces (3)
aesthetic
Large size (4) Round, organic and fluent
Straight lines and verticality (6)* shapes (3)*
Functional and technical Aesthetic and non-functional
orientation (7) orientation (3)*
Like gadgetry (2) Less emphasis on three-
Three-dimensionality and clarity dimensionality and clarity of line
(2) (2)*
Male use of colour is different Interest in detail (5)
from females' (8) Use of pattern (2)
Different colours eg pastel
colours (2)
Subject matter:
Draw males ( 1 ) * Subject matter:
Draw caricatures ( 1 ) * Draw females ( 1 ) *
Interested i n sports, beer and cars Use humour i n a more subtle
(1)* way ( 1 ) *
Interested i n inanimate subjects Interested i n plant life, flowers
(1)* and fruit (3) *
Interested i n dead matter ( 1 ) *

issues relating to men's and women's design
p references and these c o mments are re­
p orted later on.
All subj ects were asked whether there was
a separate male and female design produc­
tion aesthetic. Of the 40 subj ects. 29 (73 per
cent) thought there was. Only one person
considered that there was not and ten (25
per cent) were undecided. In the course of
the interviews, ten people (56 per cent)
commented on differences in the way that
males and females approached design tasks .
Many interviewees commented also on dif­
ferences in their design preferences.
A summary of all these differenc e s is
provided in Table 2. The number of inter­
viewees identifying a separate male and fe­
male design p roduction aesthetic is shown

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TABLE 3 INTERVIEWEES ' VIEWS AS TO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE MALE AND FEMALE DESIGN
Male preferences
Hard surfaces ( 1 )
Machine aesthetic (3)
Functional objects ( 1 )
Dark colours (2)
Clear surfaces (2)
Straight, angular lines ( 1 )
Themes related t o sports, beer and
cars ( 1 )
in brackets a n d , where p oints e c h o find­
ings described in earlier work, 33 an asterisk
is shown .
As can b e seen, 69 per cent of those in­
terviewed estimated that men and women
gave expression to a separate male and fe­
male aesthetic in their work. Although it is
impossible to generalise from this small and
unrepresentative sample, the fact that their
views c oncur with the findings of earlier
studies, including those of a quantitative na­
ture, lends them concurrent validity.
I n the course of the interviews , seven
subj ects volunteered information on ways in
which the preferences of males and females
differed. Their comments are summarised in
Table 3 with the number of interviewees
identifYing a particular difference shown in
brackets :
Although relatively few of the 40 inter­
viewees commented on male and female de­
sign preferences, the comments shown in
Table 3 make it clear that the differences
highlighted mirror some of the differences
which were found to characterise the male
and female pro duction aesthetic (see Table
1 ) . This suggests that the design features
preferred by men exemplify the male p ro ­
duction aesthetic, while those preferred by
females exemplifY the female pro duction
aesthetic. This shows , in line with earlier
work by the author, that people's p refer-
Moss
Female preferences
Soft surfaces ( 1 )
Colour ( 1 )
Light, pastel colours ( 1 )
Surfaces with pattern o r detail (2)
Rounded lines (1)
ences follow a 'like for like' direction, rather
than an ' opposites attract' one.
2 . Repertory grid method to es tablish
male and female design p reference
aes thetic
The author had found in earlier work that
men have a statistically highly significant
tendency to prefer designs showing features
typical of the male production aesthetic
while women have a statistically highly sig­
nificant tendency to prefer designs with fea­
tures typical of the female production
aesthetic. 34 She subsequently wondered
which p articular features of the design
served to attract the male and female viewer
separately, and carried out an experiment -
the first of its kind - to find an answer.
Six samples of design work, each consist­
ing of colour photographs of sketch design
(thre e by men and three by women) , were
shown to adult subj ects who were asked to
rank this in order of preference. All the sam­
ples formed p art of larger samples which
had earlier35 been shown to contain designs
which made them typical of the male and
female aesthetic.
The six designs were shown to subj ects
(24 male and 26 female users of a University
library) who were asked to rate the designs
in order of preference (on a scale of 1 to 6
with 1 for the most preferred) . The subj ects'
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TABLE 4 N UMBER O F SUBJ E CTS SCORING 1 6 O R MORE O N T H E HIGHER RATED FEATU RES

Number of males scoring 16 or more Number of females scoring 16 or more

Colourful 1 Colourful 7
Round 6 Round 9
Humorous 4 Humorous 7
Not technical 2 Not technical 7

Total number of scores > 16 = 13 Total number of scores > 16 = 30

Chi square = 6 . 72 P < 0.01

views were also sought on the extent to
which the designs contained features such as
colourfulness, technicality and rounded
line s , all (with the exception of the con­
struct ' humour') features which were de­
rived from the earlier rating exp eriment. 36
I n order to carry out this p art of this exer­
cise, a six-point scale was used with the ex­
tremes of the scale allocated to the following
type of features:
- colourless (1) / colourful (6)
- straight ( 1 ) / rounded (6)
- serious ( 1 ) / humorous (6)
- technical ( 1 ) / not-technical (6)
Once the two sets of data had been col­
lected (ie preference and feature ratings of
the different designs) a repertory grid exer­
cise was performed in order to establish
which features in the designs acted as stimuli
for the subj ects' preferences.
The meth o d used by the author is de­
scribed in Bramley, 37 and involves subtract­
ing each feature rating from each
preference ranking. For example, if a de­
sign had been ranked first in terms of pref­
erence (giving a p referen c e ranking of 1 )
and rated 6 o n colourfulness (meaning that
this design was very colourful) then a final
score of 5 (6 minus 1 ) would be obtained.

TABLE 5 N U MBER O F SUBJ E CTS S C O R I N G 6 O R LESS ON THE LOWER RATED CONSTRUCTS

Number of males scoring 6 or less Number of females scoring 6 or less

Colourless 2 Colourless 3
Straight 3 Straight 1
Serious 3 Serious 3
Technical 4 Technical

Total number of scores < 6 = 12 Total number of scores < 6 = 7

Chi-squared = 1 . 3 1 N o t significant

page 96

Five other similar scores would be obtained
for the remaining five designs . Once all the
scores had been obtained for a p articular
feature, the sums of the six scores were cal­
culate d. I f the s c ore across the six designs
was a high one (defined by B ramley as to­
talling 16 o r more) , this indicated that the
subj ect was attracted to this feature (given
the way the s c oring system worke d , high
scores would imply attraction to colourful­
ness, roundedness, humour, and non-tech­
nic ality) . I f the s c o re was a low o n e
(defined b y B ramley as t o t allin g 6 o r less)
this indicated that the subj ect was attracted
to this feature (given the way the s c o ring
system worked, low scores would imply at­
tractio n t o colourlessn e s s , s traight lines ,
seriousness and technicality) .
The total number o f subj ects scoring 1 6
or more or 6 or less was recorded. The male
and female s c ores were c ompare d . A chi­
square test was then conducted to see if the
differences b etwee n the s cores o f the men
and the women were significant.
Res u l ts
The number of males and females s coring
16 o r more p o ints for any o f the higher
scoring features are shown in Table 4.
The number of males and females scoring
6 or less on any of the lower s c o ring con­
structs is shown in Table 5.
It can be seen from Table 4, the difference
between the number of men and women
scoring 1 6 or more was signific ant at the
0.01 level. Also, from Table 5 , the difference
between the number of men and women
scoring less than 6 was not significant.
Disc u s s i on
This experiment indicates two things . I t
shows that where t h e relative strength o f
male and female preferences are concerned:
Women are much more likely than men
to show a preference for a design if it is
colourful , has round shap e s , is light-
Moss
hearted and has non-technical feature s .
Interestingly, these are all features which
characterise the designs typical of the fe­
male pro duction aesthetic. The exp eri­
ment indicates that these are all features
which have greater appeal for women
than men. I n fact, the extent to which
they have greater app eal is significant at
the 0 . 0 1 level.
The difference b etwee n the extent to
which men as against women demon­
strate a preference for colourlessness, se­
riousness, straight sidedness, and
technicality, all features which charac­
terise the male production aesthetic, does
not reach a statistical level of significance.
Where the absolute app eal of c ertain fea­
tures is concerned:
The experiment shows that colourful ­
ness, roundness, humourousness and
l ack of technicality (all features which
are typical of the female production aes­
thetic) have vastly greater appeal for
women than their opp osite characteris­
tics (colourlessness, seriousness, straight
sidedness, and technicality, all features
typical of the male pro duction aesthetic)
have for either men or women.
) The experiment shows that there is no
significant difference b etween the num­
ber of men who like features character­
istic of the male production aesthetic
(colourlessness, seriousness, straight sid­
edness , and technicality) and those who
like features characteristic of the female
p ro duction aesthetic (colourfulness,
roundnes s , humourousness and lack o f
technicality) .
If these reactions hold good in a commercial
c ontext, it means that products presenting
features appropriate to a female pro duction
aesthetic might win more women than they
would alienate men while, designs charac­
teris e d by the male p ro duction aesthetic
Page 97
Ge n d e r a n d c o n s u m e r b e h a v i o u r : F u rt h e r e x p l o ra t i o n s
would not have greatly more app e al for
men, but would certainly have greatly less
app e al for women. This suggests that if a
market consisted of e qual numb ers of men
and women, and only one aesthetic were to
be employed, the market would b e b etter
served by using the female than the male
p ro duction aestheti c. Further work would
need to be done to confirm this hypothesis .
The author began with estimates as to the
relative p ower of male and female con­
sumers and the fact that interest in this topic
is p re dicated on the assumption that male
and female consumers apply separate p ur­
chasing criteria. The maj ority of e arlier
available literature does not make the case
convincingly and so attention was turned to
the work of the present author. This shows,
both in earlier work38 and in the new work
reported in this paper, that there are grounds
for b elieving that men and women apply
different p urchasing criteria. This is still a
contentious notion however and, in the re­
maining s e ctio n , space will be devoted to
considering the reception that such a notion
is likely to have.
REACTIONS TO NOTIONS OF
DIFFERENCE
According to B ennett, ' the future has never
been so predicted' and 'future- watchers are
watching women very closely indeed' . 39
What will those future watchers say about the
gender differences discussed in this paper?
Kahn argues 40 that in ' normal scienc e ' ,
scientific findings follow the paradigms
which p revail in a given academic culture.
Those findings which are ' anomalous ' , ie do
not correspond to existing p aradigms , will
tend either to be rej ected or used to origi­
nate a new paradigm. The finding of gender
difference is an interesting one in that it is
normal in relation to some traditions, but
anomalous in relation to others .
According to one commentator4 1 the
Anglo-American p aradigm is one that es-
Page 98
chews notion of sexual difference (fo cusing
on a sociological analysis of the institutions
of cultural pro duction instead) whereas the
c ontinental tradition (for example, that
found in France) is one that focuses o n a
discussion of sex differences, a discussion
that is o ften lab elled ' essentialist' . 42 It was
found that the discussion of sex differences
is p olarised between two paradigms and the
findings of the two scho ols - that of the
social constructionists (characterised by the
Anglo-American approach) and the essen­
tialists (characterised by the French ap ­
p roach and writers such as D aly, Gilligan
and Tannen) - take on the app e aranc e of
'binary opposites' . 43
One consequence is that the Anglo­
American school will tend to view with
hostility any position which ' implies or even
states that because of their particular charac­
teristics (biological, reproductive or cultural)
women's world view is different from that of
men' . 44 This view is labelled as ' essentialist
and writers such as Brah, Judith Evans ,
Cameron and Greer45 all of who m o ccupy
p o sitions , many professorships at UK uni­
versities, adopt a negative stance in regard to
such essentialist p ositions. This means that a
finding of sex differences is unlikely to
emerge in the context of women's studies in
this tradition.
Will the commercial world b e any more
responsive? One view is that although man­
ufacturers have b een slow to market to
women ' male ' p ro ducts such as cars , this is
now all set to change. B usiness is predicted
to become more bespoke and will be more
focused on the needs of its consumers . 46
The author has seen evidence of this al­
ready. S everal large, commercial o rganisa­
tions have expressed an interest in the
findings discussed here, and commissioned
work to explore the consequences of a sepa­
rate male and female aesthetic. If this expe­
rience is generalised, then the future will be
an interesting place indeed. Maybe products
will start to look very different indeed.

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