Consumperialism: American consumer imperialism, the rhetoric of freedom, and female embodiment

Consumperialism: American Consumer Imperialism, the Rhetoric of Freedom, and Female Embodiment argues that women's bodies become political tools used to sell consumerism through the rhetoric of "Americanness": individualism, democracy, and freedom, as well as the seemingly paradoxical declarations of indulgence and leisure. It explores how the contradictions of consumerism intersect with and reflect the contradictions of ideological American mythologies, culturally prescribed notions of femaleness, and consumer-citizenship. This project finds that through co-opting the rhetoric of democracy and freedom, and the enforcement of consumer-citizenship, American consumerism acts as a form of cultural imperialism within and outside the United States as part of globalization. Consumer imperialism, referred to as consumperialism, claims to reflect the American values of democracy and individualism while it homogenizes and normalizes, collapsing freedom with choice. Using the female body as a tool, this politicized consumerism, with its attached American Dream mythology, works in a globalizing world as part of American Empire.;Focusing on consumerism's use of, portrayal of, and inscriptions onto the female body, this project examines the ways consumerism simultaneously reinforces the western alignment of women with the body and consumerism, while also encouraging a disconnection from their bodies. By considering women's socio-cultural ties to the body and materiality, as well as the contradictions of prescribed femaleness and Americanness, this work studies the expression this disconnection takes, in particular, eating disorders and disordered approaches to the body. As an interdisciplinary project, the topics of individual chapters vary greatly: Dove and Nike advertising campaigns, Bratz and Barbie fashion dolls, the film Fight Club, and the novel The Handmaid's Tale. Working these disparate texts together to form an overarching exploration of consumerism's use of the female body as an imperialistic tool to sell American national identity, the project examines the implementation of consumperialism, as well as responses to its use of the female body as an imperialistic tool.