Design and Culture

The Journal of the Design Studies Forum

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Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer

Packaging

Magdalena Petersson McIntyre

To cite this article: Magdalena Petersson McIntyre (2018) Gender by Design: Performativity and
Consumer Packaging, Design and Culture, 10:3, 337-358, DOI: 10.1080/17547075.2018.1516437

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 DESIGN AND CULTURE, 2018
Vol. 10, No. 3, 337–358, https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2018.1516437
Magdalena Petersson McIntyre holds
a Ph.D. in Ethnology and is Associate
Professor at the Centre for Consumer
Research, University of Gothenburg,
Sweden. She has previously
published in English on perfume
packaging in Culture Unbound (2013),
on aesthetic labor and passion in the
Journal of Cultural Economy (2014),
on challenging the masculine norm in
a Swedish leisure boat concept in
International Journal of Small
Business and Entrepreneurship
(2015), and on gender and work
clothes in Fashion Practice (2016).
Her research interests lies within
consumption, fashion, design, and
gender. She co-edited the book
Digitalizing Consumption (Routledge,
2017) and is currently researching the
commercialization of gender equality.
magdalena.petersson@cfk.gu.se
© 2019, The Author. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Gender by Design:
Performativity and
Consumer Packaging
Magdalena Petersson McIntyre
ABSTRACT Mass-produced consumer packages are
everyday objects that almost go unnoticed. However, by
claiming things such as the essence of femininity or
masculinity, they affect us and are co-creators of our
reality. Based on visual ethnography, this article traces
the representation of gender on mass-produced pack-
aging during a time when male privilege is being chal-
lenged and female visual objectification is being
questioned. The chosen products all have an intimate
relationship with body care and the body’s functions.
On some of the packaging, the biological differences
between women and men are presented as scientific
facts. On other examples, such as perfume packaging,
gender is represented as decoupled from the body and
part of an enjoyable choice of identity, as multiple, frag-
mented, and fluid. Such representations conceal power
337 Design and Culture
differences by making gender into a matter of consumer
choice, while also illustrating the constantly changing
nature of gender. Gender and package design are
entangled processes that affect and change with
each other.
 M. P. Mcintyre

KEYWORDS: packaging, gendered consumption, gendered design,

masculinity, sexuality, performativity

Introduction
From clothing and cars to couches and razors, low-fat products and
chocolates to barbecue sauces and spirits, marketers anticipate their
buyers’ gender. It is inscribed into packaging and marketing as forms
of scripts that guide consumer choices and reproduce gender norms
and structures (Oudshoorn, Saetnan, and Lie 2002; Akrich 1992).
Furthermore, divisions between designers and users, production and
consumption rely on gender ideologies that generally place men on
one side and women on the other (Wajcman 2004). In this way, the
conventions of design “do” gender.
In this article, I relate the representation of gender on consumer
packages in contemporary Sweden to Stuart Hall’s strategies for
handling stereotypes (Hall 1997). In doing this, I examine how a com-
mercial field can work as a site for questioning stereotypes, as well
as reproducing them (Landreth Grau and Zotos 2016; McRobbie
1997, 2002; Friedan 1974; O’Connor 2005; Catterall et al. 2001).
Drawing on a combination of actor network theory (Latour 1996;
Callon 1998) and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity
(Butler 1990), I treat packages as objects that play an active part in
gender performativity. By exploring the ways in which product pack-
ages “do” gender, I examine mass-produced consumer packages
that in one way or another make unconventional claims, packages
that do not in a simple and straightforward way use gender stereo-
types. In doing so, I study the agency of materiality for constructing
gender. Focusing on how marketing discourse is increasingly enact-
ing gender as fluid, the purpose is to examine how such enactments
relate to gender ideology: do they reflect a change in cultural norms,
or are they merely a matter of commodifying gender fluidity?

Gender and Design: From Reflecting to Constructing

Many scholars working in the fields of design and gender have taken
an interest in the ways in which cultural gender norms are not only
reflected but also constructed by objects. Consumer goods are not
only the result of cultural beliefs about gender; they also create
notions of what is masculine, feminine, and even gender-neutral.
Design may be understood as a language, but objects communicate
338 Design and Culture

differently than text. Their influence is direct (Kirkham and Attfield

1996, 1; Attfield and Kirkham 1989). Deploying established conven-

cor, symbolism,
tions for form, shape, colors, words, font, texture, de
signs, size, and layout, products communicate the gender of the
intended buyer and/or user (Sanders 1996; Lees-Maffei 2011;
Cockburn and Ormrod 1993). Design gives material form to cultural
and gendered norms of desires, activities, spaces, movement, and
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

the body (especially in the form of clothing; see Brandes 2008, 190;
Lees-Maffei 2002; Entwistle and Wilson 2001; de Grazia 1996;
Kirkham 1996; Martinez and Ames 1996; Sparke 1995; Colomina
1992). Gender segmentation is a process that is often added by
marketing departments, but objects too are designed to appeal to
either men or women (Brunnstro € m 2006; Sparke 2004; Schwartz
1996). Design discourse, however, tends to think of objects as neu-
tral and following fundamental ideas of form and function, rather than
as enactments of gender or heteronormativity (Sanders 1996). What
is more, design that is clearly marketed to boys or girls, men or
women not only enacts gender difference – it also reinforces gender
as binary (Loxley 2007). Recognizing the arbitrariness or changeabil-
ity in the gendering of design language has worked as resistance to
gender ideologies (cf. Garber 1992). By showing that the links
between, for instance, femininity and the color pink have no basis in
nature but are the result of complex representational systems and
signifying practices (cf. Hall 1997, 26f), it is possible to expose the
flawed notion that cultural valuations of femininity have any basis
in nature.
As many scholars have argued, there is no such thing as gender-
neutral design (Brandes 2008, 190). On the contrary, gender neutral-
ity is dependent upon gender conventions, and often involves the
subordination of the supposedly feminine as, for instance, in unisex
fashion (Arnold 2001; Wilson 1985). Penny Sparke’s (1995) classic
study of the hidden masculine ideals of modernism and its
consequent subordination of feminine taste is a powerful dismissal of
gender neutrality. Sparke reads modernism’s taste ideals as akin
to masculine dominance over femininity. However, from a gender
perspective, Sparke has been criticized for reversing modernist
dichotomies without undermining them; thus, rather than dispelling
the stereotypical associations between the feminine and feelings, the
superficial and the irrational, Sparke’s argument reinforces them
(Negrin 2006).

Actor Network Theory and Packaging

as a Market Device
Actor network theory posits the role of objects in enabling social
action and the role of material things in the constitution of subjectiv-
ities, thus arguing that agency is not only a human capacity (Latour
1996). Packages can be understood as “actants,” entities that mod-
ify the behavior of other entities, therefore making things happen.
339 Design and Culture

Building on this framework, Cochoy and Grandcle
ment-Chaffy (2005)

describe how packages are a mediator that change the relationship
between the product and the consumer by cutting the consumers’
senses off from the product and making them rely instead on indirect
written and visual information about the packages’ contents (cf.
Hawkins 2013). In some instances, packages make aspects of their
contents visible to us that we cannot perceive by looking, touching,
 M. P. Mcintyre

tasting, or smelling (for example, food’s nutritional information).

Packages help us to make decisions as consumers (Cochoy 2004,
224, 2007).
Studies of packaging that use actor network theory approach
packages as “market devices” (Cochoy 2004, 2007; Hawkins 2013).
Market devices are those actors that play a substantial part in the
performative making of markets (Callon 1998; Callon, Millo, and
Muniesa 2007). The work done by market devices is referred to as
“qualification,” which involves connecting commercial objects with
cultural and social categories, including “qualifying” products as well
as consumers (Fuentes and Fuentes 2017). Packages actively qualify
their contents, for instance by indicating how they differ from other
similar products. Their different faces make room for branding strat-
egies that performatively co-create a market for their products, along
with the simultaneous qualification and co-creation of consumer
identities for this market. Thus, as market devices, packages have
the capacity to make others act and contribute to shaping consumer
practices, identities, roles, abilities, and dispositions. The term
“market device” refers to the material and discursive assemblages
that intervene in the construction of markets (Callon, Millo, and
Muniesa 2007; Hawkins 2013; Cochoy et al. 2017; Fuentes and
Fuentes 2017). This means that consumer choice is not made by a
choosing individual but instead is shaped by market devices. Devices
shape consumer practices and product markets.
Packaging is actively involved in producing its contents, consump-
tion, and consumers. Applying this framework to the study of gender
illuminates how the gendering of objects is part of qualifying them as
products designed for a specific market. That qualification is a dual
process. The gendering of goods is the result of active production
that involves the identification and valuation of goods and consum-
ers’ qualities, and a process that is subject to continual qualification
and requalification (Hawkins 2013). In shaping a market for fragran-
ces “for her,” packages become qualification devices but simultan-
eously help to form the subjectivities of the people who use them (cf.
Nixon 2013; DuGay 2004). Goods qualify consumers, create market
segments, and inform the identity of the consumer who is interested
in gender fluidity. My interest lies in the simultaneous making of mar-
kets and gender, and the part that is played by commercial goods in
this process. I am concerned with the way in which products “do”
gender and the active part played by goods in gender performativity
(Butler 1990).
340 Design and Culture

The Role of Packaging in Gender Performativity

To understand how market devices and qualification relate not just to
a consumer segment but also to the cultural understanding of gen-
der, I turn to gender performativity. Masculinity and femininity can be
understood as cultural conventions or, as per Butler (1990, 1993,
1997), as performative enactments of gender that have effects. For
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

Butler, gender is not the expression of an inner identity – rather, it is

performative. The notion of “woman,” for instance, cannot be under-
stood as separate from the way in which it is staged and performed.
Gender is not an attribute or an essential property of a subject, but
“a kind of becoming or activity … an incessant and repeated action
of some sort” (Butler 1990, 112). Gender identity is the result not of
physical differences but of complex discursive practices in which
gender, sexuality, and desire are coproduced. Building on speech
act theory, Butler conceives gender as a set of performative citational
practices. They reproduce discourse but can also work subversively.
In this sense, gender both enables and disciplines subjects and their
performances – it is essentially a citation of all previous performances
of gender, an imitation of itself, an idealized norm. Every citation of
gender, even on a package, allows for a change, or a slip, in the way
gender is enacted.
Packages do not only ask us to choose between different prod-
ucts in terms of contents. By telling us whether the contents are “for
her,” “for him,” perhaps unisex, or have no gender at all, packages
perform gender. By extension, they not only provide scripts for prac-
tices of consumption but also take an active part in the performativity
of gender. By saying “for her,” packages claim to express or explain
the contents – but this is not so. By saying “for her,” the contents of
a fragrance bottle become feminine, and construct women as a con-
sumer group that like and are best represented by certain scents
and all that they stand for. Along similar lines, packaging targeted at
women is not pink because women by nature like pink, but because
the color pink creates an effect that links pink with femininity.
Designed goods are necessary props in an ongoing iteration of an
unstable gender norm.

Visual Ethnography in Stores

To address the wider context through which specific consumer prod-
ucts and packages become understandable, it is not enough to look
only at the objects. Combining visual analysis with visual ethnography
(Wagner 2015; Sturken and Cartwright 2001) makes it possible not
only to read packages as texts but also to consider them in relation
to wider social and cultural experiences (Pink 2007). Designed
objects do not have definite meanings in and of themselves, but rep-
resent the power relations, methods, and processes through which
people make sense of them (Partington 1996).
341 Design and Culture

Packages are everyday objects that greet consumers on the

shelves of stores, which are themselves sites of cultural production
and social interaction and can be read as “cultural texts” (Pink 2007,
2). The social rules of commerce are far from equal, and stores may
be seen as interfaces that organize the interactions between produ-
cer and consumer in unequal and asymmetrical ways (Lury 2004).
The terms of the interactions are dictated by the producers, but store
 M. P. Mcintyre

spaces might also be seen as contested, wherein meanings are

negotiated (Hall 1997).
The fieldwork for this article was conducted between 2009 and
2013, during which time the Swedish mass market was scanned for
“new” or significant expressions of gender. I observed everyday gro-
ceries, pharmaceutical products, and perfumes in mainstream,
mass-market stores. I also conducted in-depth interviews with shop
assistants and conducted walk-along interviews with consumers
(Petersson McIntyre 2013b). This article focuses on packages for
pharmaceutical products and perfumes because these product cate-
gories are two of the earliest forms of packaging and have influenced
many others – including each other (Hine 1997, 4, 34–6). They are
different because pharmaceutical packages follow strict regulations
for package design that prohibit marketing messages (Brunnstro €m &
Wagner 2015). Non-prescription products sold in pharmacies are,
however, free to include marketing on their packaging. Perfume
packaging is unregulated and often takes inspiration from medical
bottles, but depends on imagery related to glamour, sexuality, and
seduction (Classen et al. 1994; cf. Kjellmer 2009).

Strategies for Handling Stereotypes

This article adopts Hall’s (1997) post-structuralist methods of visual
analysis and representational critique in order to analyze the visual
content of packages. Hall presents three possible ways to respond
to stereotypes. The first strategy involves reversing or transforming
the stereotype into something good and/or powerful. The second
strategy involves replacing negative stereotypes with positive ones
(for example, “black is beautiful”). The third strategy questions a
stereotype from the inside by using its own symbolism to destabil-
ize it.
In the sections that follow, I discuss and analyze the packaging of
four different product categories: feminine hygiene articles, incontin-
ence protection, sex toys, and perfume. The products in these cate-
gories all have an intimate relationship with body care and function,
and work at the intersection of consumption and cultural understand-
ings of gender via the body’s needs and its pleasures. They suggest
appropriate ways of protecting and presenting the body in social sit-
uations, discretion with bodily function, and bodily empowerment. As
I will show, gender processes and the handling of stereotypes are
constantly at stake in drawing and crossing these boundaries.
342 Design and Culture

Tampons, Incontinence Protection, and Sex Toys

When walking around stores, I found that many packages for
makeup and feminine hygiene articles were decorated with illustra-
tions and images of women with long eyelashes and enlarged lips.
The packages for Libresse pads had decorative, colorful graphics
resembling fashion illustrations (Figure 1a). Their tampons were
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

Figure 1
Libresse tampons: (a) tampons normal; (b) tampons super.

packaged in sleeves reminiscent of lipstick tubes, a far cry from the

brown paper signaling discretion for such products during the first
half of the twentieth century (Figure 1b). Enlisting the visual language
of fashion to express feminine pride, these packages can be inter-
preted as an attempt to turn the culture of shame surrounding men-
struation into a visual language of female empowerment (cf. de Waal
Malefyt and McCabe 2016). In terms of Hall’s (1997) strategies, this
can be seen as an attempt to reverse stereotypes by celebrating

cor with empowering messages
femininity and filling the feminine de
of womanhood.

Difference and Sameness

TENA’s products for incontinence, which are offered in a gender-bin-
ary model that communicates “different but equal,” suggest Hall’s
(1997) second strategy – that is, of replacing negative stereotypes
with positive ones – in how TENA offers products adapted to the
special needs of different groups (Figures 2a and 2b). The strategy is
343 Design and Culture

risky since replacing a negative stereotype with a positive one often

retains the stereotype. For example, even though absorbency was in
the foreground of both the men’s and women’s packaging, mascu-
linity was related to performance and femininity to discretion. During
the period in which the fieldwork was conducted, the men’s pack-
ages were dark blue and adorned with the text “Maxx Protection
Technology.” Graphics illustrated the product’s technology and its
 M. P. Mcintyre
344 Design and Culture

Figure 2
TENA incontinence protection. (a) Silhouette ladies pants; (b) Men premium fit.
Courtesy of TENA.
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

ability to perform. On the women’s package, the text “New feminine

shape” appeared, punctuated by a butterfly and decorated with
organic loops. An association was established between the
product’s “shape” and the stripped, well-formed female body that
covered the pack. The women’s packaging played not upon product
performance, but upon enjoyment, beauty, and discretion. In 2018
the packages were updated, and the men’s packaging has now
been given a human figure illustration in which the product’s padding
amplifies the appearance of the penis, thus hinting at its ability to
increase the wearer’s masculinity. The message is that incontinence
protection helps men to maintain control – and thus to retain their
masculinity – in social situations. For women, incontinence products
help to maintain an attractive, pleasing femininity in spite of the prod-
uct (cf. Schwartz 1996).

Pleasure and Functionality

My third example is the Belladot sex toys sold in Swedish pharma-
cies (Figures 3a and 3b). Launched in 2011, Belladot’s retro-inspired
products were instantly noticed and awarded for their creative forms.
The pastel-colored products have names that play on 1950s nostal-
gia. These designs are intended to normalize the use of sex toys, a
strategy that builds a market for the products at the same time as it
shapes the public’s view of such products (cf. Comella 2017; Wilner
and Dinnin Huff 2016).
In an example of packaging functioning as an educator, graphic
symbols indicate whether the content is intended for women, men,
or both (Cochoy 2008). The emphasis of TENA’s packaging on male
potency and female pleasure is repeated here through text, color,
and font. In the sales blurbs on Belladot’s website, the Sofia dildo
and Ingmar erection pump are described as follows:

Belladot Sofia is a soft and flexible dildo with a silky-smooth matte

texture. Sofia’s speciality is the raised, wavy pattern that circles all
the way down the shaft. The wavy texture makes the feeling more
intense and pleasurable. The powerful vibrator at the top is easily
operated with a multispeed control. This vibrating dildo is great
for shower-time play. (www.belladot.se)

Belladot Ingemar is a high-capacity, powerful penis pump. May

be used for pleasure and to help achieve firmer erections.
Comfortable grip and easy to pump. The cylinder’s soft rubber
ring fits securely around the penis and creates a suction vacuum.
345 Design and Culture

It includes a built-in ruler so you can easily measure growth. A

quick-release function allows you to easily adjust the pressure.
(www.belladot.se)

Like TENA, Belladot presents the idea of different but equal prod-
ucts and communicates this with cultural stereotypes of femininity
and masculinity, in this case concerning performance and pleasure.
 M. P. Mcintyre
346 Design and Culture

Figure 3
Belladot sex toys. (a) Belladot Ingemar, penis pump; (b) Belladot Sofia, vibrating
dildo. Courtesy of Belladot.

While the description of Ingemar enlists the language of a profes-

sional care expert, that used to describe Sofia suggests a sexual
partner. Sofia is described as pleasing in itself, with a “silky surface”
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

and a shape intended to create enjoyment. Agency is given to the

human user and Sofia is described in passive terms. By contrast, the
description of Ingemar is masculine. It does something; it is active
and powerful, a high-capacity aid. Thus, the products reiterate the
conventions by which consumption by women is made meaningful in
relation to pleasure and by men is made meaningful in relation to
function (e.g., sexual performance). In fact, pleasure and self-pleas-
ure are commonly used imaginaries to describe the relationship
between women and consumer goods (Felski 1995). Belladot repro-
duce this convention, but it is also possible to interpret the descrip-
tion of Sofia in more open terms of women’s non-heterosexual
pleasure; given the passive description of Sofia, its female users
become the active sexual party.

Representing Fragrance in Gender Terms

Many fragrance brands that emphasize the artisanal property of per-
fumery resist gender distinction. Instead of creating meaning around
gendered stereotypes of attraction and sexuality, they build mes-
sages around memories, fleeting sensations, moods, and locations.
To accommodate the diversity of these possibilities, the packaging is
often simple, with labels related to craft aesthetics (cf. Hemme
2010). For instance, the Swedish brand Byredo packages its scent in
stylish bottles with no visible markings of gender (Figure 4). In inter-
views, brand founder Ben Gorham argues that scents have no

347 Design and Culture

Figure 4
€strand.
Byredo fragrance bottles. © 2018 Bohman þ Sjo
 M. P. Mcintyre

gender, but marketers have invented them to facilitate the sale of fra-
grances by segment Dagens nyheter, October 3rd 2010.
The lack of gender segmentation is used as a way to express
authenticity – but avoiding gendered expressions on labels and
packages does not mean that consumers will stop, or are intended
to stop, interpreting the goods in gendered terms. Knowledgeable,
experienced perfume consumers, for example, can easily determine
from the list of ingredients on a perfume bottle whether the scent is
meant for women or men (Petersson McIntyre 2013a). Just as
Sparke (1995) argues, what seems like gender neutrality often
involves the subordination of femininity. Thus, it is important to pay
attention to underlying messages which may serve to increase the
status of a product by associating it with masculinity.

Universalizing Femininity
Agonist, another Swedish fragrance brand, has taken craft perfumery
a step further. The scent Kallocain was launched in the late 2000s
and packaged in hand-blown bottles designed by artist Åsa
Jungnelius (Figure 5). The bottle references surrealism and Dali’s The
Persistence of Memory in its conflict between the hard, black base
and the soft, moving bottle. The bottle melts, turns, and changes, as
though demonstrating a frozen movement. The mouth of the bottle
resembles a nipple and the tassel is like that of a striptease dancer.
Agonist’s scent was not launched as a women’s or men’s fragrance,
which makes it particularly interesting; in Agonist’s version, the fem-
inine becomes universal, thus challenging conventional stereotypes.

Playing with Ambivalence

Neotantric’s fragrances, also from Sweden, introduced a third way of
playing with sexuality and gender conventions. Unlike Byredo and
Agonist, Neotantric has retained the division of gender segments,
only to play with them in a way that often exhibits the strategy of
reversing stereotypes (Hall 1997). Neotantric’s packaging and adver-
tisements for men’s and women’s fragrances show women taking
sexual, sometimes sadistic control over men (Figures 6a and 6b).
The packaging for the men’s fragrance shows a man tied and
gagged. In front of him stands a woman with a camera in her hand.
The image forges a connection between daring to live out secret sex-
ual fantasies and daring to consume the product. Meanwhile, the
348 Design and Culture

camera in the hand of the woman can be perceived as playing with

the male gaze (Mulvey [1975] 1992), a term coined to conceptualize
the objectification of women’s bodies and how women who internal-
ize the gaze make it their own and thereby objectify themselves. By
standing in front of the camera instead of behind it, the image might
be interpreted as portraying a feminist avenger who achieves redress
by treating men as they have treated women. As such, the image
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

Figure 5
Agonist fragrance bottle. Courtesy of AGONIST Parfums.

reverses a familiar power relationship and overthrows it. At the same

time, there are also elements in the image that repeat conventions of
the visual representation of men and women. The woman’s naked
buttocks, accentuated with a thong, are arranged to be gazed upon,
and the man’s head can be seen as a penis about to penetrate her.
His gaze is directed upward, both to her face in sexual subservience
and into her vagina. The images are thus ambiguous and without
any definite meaning.
The packaging for a Neotantric women’s fragrance is less
ambiguous – at least initially. It shows two women admiring a male
349 Design and Culture

stripper and trying to tip him. This theme can also be interpreted as
daring in the matters of gender and sexuality, as well as consump-
tion, for it is a clear example of turning stereotypes and using irony.
Why is the packaging for the men’s fragrance more complicated
than that of the women’s? In the case of the women’s packaging,
stereotypes holding that men admire female strippers can easily be
interpreted as reversed, thus addressing female consumers with a
 M. P. Mcintyre

Figure 6
350 Design and Culture

Neotantric fragrances. (a) Citric Metal Kamasutra; (b) (I am) a Sex Goddess.
Courtesy of Neotantric.

comical, feminist, and pop culture approach about taking power over
sexual representations and questioning who is looking at whom. But
a second look reveals that the stripper is, perhaps, a woman (cf.
Schroeder and Borgerson 2003). This ambiguity suggests that a
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

radical image of a woman who completely takes control perhaps

produces the man in an overly subordinate position, thereby making
the marketed product less desirable among consumers (Cheong and
Kaur 2015). Such ambiguity and difficulty in establishing a definite
interpretation may serve as both a way of producing a new role for
men with sexy, active women while positioning them as the sexual
subjects. We can no longer be sure of who is looking at whom, and
in the end, perhaps gender segments – in this case, of women’s and
men’s fragrances – become obsolete.

Gender as Multiplicity and Choice

The approach to gender and sexuality in the perfume market is per-
haps best characterized as a choice in terms of both femininity and
masculinity. People are presented as individual consumers who
select from a range of perfumes and packaging on the basis of
mood, feeling, or identity (Petersson McIntyre 2013b). Such a dis-
course bears similarities to what Kniazeva and Belk (2007) refer to as
the grand postmodern marketplace myth of an empowered and
ennobled consumer (cf. Cody and Lawlor 2011). The abundance of
femininity available on the market (Partington 1996) suggests not
only that gender identities are diverse and can be understood in dif-
ferent ways, but also that consumers are free from normative gen-
der identities.
The packaging for the scent series Fragrance Library from Make
Up Store clearly illustrates the idea of gender as choice. The series
contains 11 fragrances, each of which is described in the form of
personal ads. In “Your Valentine,” the text speaks to the romantic,
passive woman who takes care of herself while waiting to be
seduced. The angular bottle made of thick black glass has squiggly
pink text that reads:

I am sensitive and feminine. I spend my days in the tub, reading

books or taking long walks in the woods. Looking for someone
who likes genuine conversations in front of the fireplace and likes
to take me out to dinner. I love chocolate and red roses.

This romantic woman is just one of many possible female identi-

ties. One of the other scents in the series, “Champion Deluxe,” is
described as lively and sporty. The text on its bottle is printed in cap-
351 Design and Culture

italized, Roman letters. Although completely different, it still makes a

feminine address. The variety of perfumes, bottles, and packaging
portrays feminine, masculine, and unisex as constantly shifting; it is a
vision of identity as optional and of the consumer as someone who
chooses goods to express his or her identity. By extension, that
vision can itself be understood as performative (Partington 1996;
Cronin 2000).
 M. P. Mcintyre

Figure 7
Dolce & Gabbana, Anthology. Courtesy of the Advertising Archives.

Decoupling and Recoupling Gender and Bodies

A final example comes from Dolce & Gabbana’s fragrance series
Anthology (Figure 7). When it was launched in 2009, it consisted of
five identical angular bottles, all with labels bearing a home-printed
look. The scents were not obviously for women, men, or even unisex,
and can thus be seen as an attempt to launch a product that trans-
gresses gender segments. Yet they nevertheless used a visual lan-
guage relying on sexual desire. Each different scent was named after
a tarot card and was represented in the accompanying ads by six
supermodels – three men and three women – each paired with a dif-
ferent bottle. In some of the ads, a bottle was paired with two mod-
els to indicate that the scent had a dual personality and a dual
gender – and of course that both men and women could use the fra-
grance. The marketing was built on dissociating gender from the
body and portraying gender identity as a characteristic that consum-
ers may choose according to their personality. However, in 2013 the
series was expanded to eight bottles and, on the company’s web-
site, four were listed as “pour femme” and four “pour homme.” What
happened to subverting gender roles?

Conclusion
Packaging enacts, or does, gender in many different ways. It helps
352 Design and Culture

to produce a market for gendered goods by enacting gender in par-

ticular ways. It qualifies products in gendered terms, and simultan-
eously creates a consumer group for its contents. This article has
identified eight different ways of representing gender. The first, build-
ing on Libresse’s tampon and pad packages, reverses stereotypes
by upvaluing the feminine yet also by clearly connecting femininity
and pleasure, a convention that often appears in marketing for
 Gender by Design: Performativity and Consumer Packaging

women. The second, as exemplified by TENA, represents gender-

segmented incontinence protection as a response to the cultural
norms of the masculine as universal, but a closer look reveals a vis-
ual imagery strongly rooted in conventional ways of representing
gender. The third, represented by Belladot’s sex toys, also makes a
clear connection between femininity and pleasure, and between
masculinity and (sexual) performance – yet also between feminine
sexuality and activity (as opposed to passivity), thus also challenging
conventional associations between femininity and pleasure. The
remaining five examples all come from perfume. In the fourth
example, Byredo, the craft of perfumery is stressed and set in
opposition to gendered marketing. Nevertheless, the masculine is
reasserted as neutral, even though the brand superficially appears to
stand above gender conventions: a cultural connection is made
between masculinity and neutrality, thereby upvaluing masculinity at
the expense of femininity. The fifth example, Agonist, associates fem-
ininity with the universal, thereby challenging these conventions. The
sixth example, Neotantric fragrances, plays with representations and
creates uncertainty, ambivalence, and ambiguity, yet nonetheless
makes connections to conventional ways of representing gender.
The seventh example, from Make Up Store, presents gender as
choice, thereby hiding gender identities as something normative or
structural. Lastly, Dolce & Gabbana’s Anthology at first appeared to
be gender-neutral, yet later reverted to affirming gendered connec-
tions between consumers and products via its packaging
and marketing.
These different ways of representing gender identities on con-
sumer packaging are neither an expression of dissolution of gender
categories through which individuals choose identities via creative
play (Firat and Venkatesh 1995; Patterson and Elliott 2002) nor an
example of Baudrillardian illusive choices (Baudrillard 1983; Bauman
1988, 1992; Giddens 1991). Although I follow up on the critique of
applications of postmodernism that points to the normative dimen-
sions of consumer choice (Kniazeva and Belk 2007; Schroeder and
Zwick 2004), I also leave room for a more open interpretation that
allows for an understanding of gendered packaging as neither a sim-
ple repetition of conventional gender roles nor an opportunity for their
dissolution. By drawing on the work of Butler (1990, 1993, 1997) I
have interpreted the flow of gender representations as expressing
the absence of any putative, inner, stable identities, while simultan-
eously noting the normative dimension inherent in consumer culture.
353 Design and Culture

Packaging, like gender, is performative and relates to wider cul-

tural processes.
Consumer choice is at the heart of branding strategies.
Representing gender identity on consumer packaging in ways that
question or challenge stereotypes must also be related to market
making and attempts to catch the eye of the consumer on a shelf
packed with many similar products. The qualification of products
 M. P. Mcintyre

does not only address consumer types – it increasingly incorporates

contemporary understandings of gender identity as fluid in its call for
consumers’ attention. When marketing says that our personalities
can be represented by many different genders, it also asks us to
include the daily choice of gender in our consumption. Marketing
devices make a convincing and seductive attempt at persuading us
that gender is nothing but a matter of consumer choice – and not at
all a serious matter.

Acknowledgement
Many thanks to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments
helped to develop the article.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by Riksbankens jublileumsfond (grant
€ r genusforskning,
number P2008-0181:1-E) and GIG, Centrum fo
University of Gothenburg.

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