To what extent does the ‘Feminism Washing’ have an impact on feminist consumers purchase intentions?

Brands usually reflect the major society issues in their advertising campaigns; they seize on societal trends in order to effectively target an audience. This is how the use of gender and feminism in advertising came about and it is at the premise of our questioning. Feminist movement has led to several changes in the society. This cause has gathered broad sections of society. Consequently, brands have adapted their strategies to focus on women empowerment and convey messages of equality, body-positivity and self-awareness to target consumers who share the values of feminism. Several brands have seen a real potential in this cause to attract a wider audience, to increase sales and therefore to make profit. These different advantages explain why many brands convey these messages without actually taking action. This phenomenon is called 'feminism washing'. Through this thesis, we aim to better understand, from the perspective of consumers claiming to be feminists, how they might react to the phenomenon of feminism washing, which is the use of feminist values in advertising campaigns for purely economic purposes. This study opens with a broad review of the literature on feminism and the use of gender as well as feminism in advertising through the concepts of sexist advertising, gender marketing and femvertising. The use of feminism in advertising challenges the stereotypes traditionally portrayed in sexist advertisings. In some ways, the use of feminism also counteracts the effects of gender marketing, which relies on market products differently for men and women. Furthermore, the femvertising which is a type of cause-related marketing, seems to be appreciated by the general public. This study can be defined as a research based on qualitative analysis. Consequently, the necessary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 respondents who all share the values of feminism and claim to be feminists (we will identify them as feminist consumers). The results of our study allowed us to understand the reaction of feminist consumers to the use of gender and feminism in advertising campaigns. In addition, we were also able to analyze the reactions of these consumers to a case of feminism washing. We therefore observed that sincerity as well as consistency are conditions to generate a positive effect when using feminism in advertising. However, if the criterion of sincerity is not met, it creates a very negative feeling among these consumers. Moreover, several criteria appeared to play an important role in this context and to some extent. For example, product quality and consumer habits sometimes play a greater role than the sincerity criterion for several feminist consumers. However, we saw that this observation is potentially related to the degree of engagement in the feminist cause of these individuals. However, it should be noted that the phenomenon of feminism washing is still a new subject, it has not yet been explored by the scientific community. This study is therefore intended to serve as a basis for future research. Therefore, the originality of our thesis, provides a new framework through which we can apprehend the concept of feminism washing.