Claiming the Throttle: Multiple Femininities in a Hyper‐Masculine Subculture

This feminist re‐examination of an ethnography of Harley‐Davidson motorcycle owners uncovers a world of motivations, behaviors, and experiences undiscovered in the original work. The structure and ethos of subculture are understood differently when examined through the lens of feminist theory. Through the voices of women riders in a hyper‐masculine consumption context we discover perspectives that cannot easily be explained by extant theory of gender and consumer behavior. We find women engaging, resisting, and co‐opting hyper‐masculinity as part of identity projects wherein they expand and redefine their own personal femininities. This study reveals invisible assumptions limiting the original ethnography and thus reiterates the problems of hegemonic masculinity in the social science project.

[1]  Richard L. Celsi,et al.  An Exploration of High-Risk Leisure Consumption through Skydiving , 1993 .

[2]  J. McAlexander,et al.  Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers , 1995 .

[3]  Dennis K. Mumby,et al.  Reworking Gender: A Feminist Communicology of Organization , 2003 .

[4]  D. Iacobucci.  From the Editor-Elect , 2002 .

[5]  N. Denzin.  The Seventh Moment: Qualitative Inquiry and the Practices of a More Radical Consumer Research , 2001 .

[6]  Kathy E. Ferguson.  The feminist case against bureaucracy , 1984 .

[7]  Stuart Hall,et al.  SUBCULTURES, CULTURES AND CLASS: A theoretical overview , 2002 .

[8]  Jenny Garber.  Girls and Subcultures , 1991 .

[9]  M. Bakhtin,et al.  Rabelais and his world , 1965 .

[10]  Barbara Joans.  Bike Lust: Harleys, Women, and American Society , 2001 .

[11]  Diane M. Martin.  Humor in middle management: women negotiating the paradoxes of organizational life , 2004 .

[12]  S. Levy.  Symbols for Sale , 1999 .

[13]  E. Arnould.  Toward a Broadened Theory of Preference Formation and the Diffusion of Innovations: Cases from Zinder Province, Niger Republic , 1989 .

[14]  D. Holt,et al.  How Do Men Grab the Phallus? , 2004 .

[15]  Silvia Gherardi,et al.  Gender, symbolism and organizational cultures , 1995 .

[16]  Brian Torode,et al.  Subculture: The Meaning of Style. , 1981 .

[17]  Douglas B. Holt,et al.  Poststructuralist Lifestyle Analysis: Conceptualizing the Social Patterning of Consumption in Postmodernity , 1997 .

[18]  Margaret K Hogg,et al.  Gender identity, gender salience and symbolic consumption , 2004 .

[19]  Sharon R. Bird,et al.  WELCOME TO THE MEN'S CLUB , 1996 .

[20]  S. Kates.  The Protean Quality of Subcultural Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of Gay Consumers , 2002 .

[21]  Into the Darkness: Androgyny and Gender Blurring Within the Gothic Subculture , 2004 .

[22]  P. Buzzanell.  Gaining a Voice , 1994 .

[23]  Eileen Fischer,et al.  Feminist Thought: Implications for Consumer Research , 1993 .

[24]  Angela Trethewey.  Isn't it ironic: Using irony to explore the contradictions of organizational life , 1999 .

[25]  John F. Sherry,et al.  Gendered Behavior in a Male Preserve: Role Playing at ESPN Zone Chicago , 2002 .

[26]  S. Gould.  Gender Identity and Gender Salience: a Dual-Path, Person-Situation Approach to Gender Effects in Consumer Research , 1996 .

[27]  R. Belk,et al.  The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy , 1998 .

[28]  J. Butler.  Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity , 1990 .

[29]  Eric J. Arnould,et al.  Writing the differences: Poststructural ist pluralism, retextualization, and the construction of reflexive ethnographic narratives in consumption and market research , 1998 .

[30]  Graciela Hierro,et al.  Gender and Power , 1994, Hypatia.

[31]  A Re-Inquiry on Re-Inquiries: A Postmodern Proposal for a Critical-Reflexive Approach , 2002 .