Feminine Fragrances: The Social Construction Of Gender Relations

Gendered Fragrances; Feminine Perfume

Kimmel’s theory of The Social Construction of Gender Relations (chapter 5) identifies that gender identity is socially constructed.

“It’s the task of the sociological perspective to specify the ways in which our own experiences, our interactions with others, and the institutions combine to shape our sense of who we are. Biology provides the raw materials, while society and history provide the context, the instruction manual, that we follow to construct our identities”.

This institution between differentiating each gender with objects, such as fragrances. Stimulates much of the ideas of “how women should smell” with certain perfumes, or “how men should smell” with some colognes. Which means, not only

Where the shape of the bottle is gently crafted as a small square or rectangle. The noticeable soft colors of the perfume’s eau (liquid) depending on how diluted you want the perfume to be. The colors can range from a light pink, to an orange or a green.

Fashion brands also seem to advertise their perfumes projecting the idea that sex sells. In many of the cases for Miss Dior, they advertise the infamous Natalie Portman whether her sensual pose can be seen as submissive and is wearing black silk lingerie, or standing sideways topless covering her breast with her arms crossed over wearing only a bow headband or seductively looking at the camera while biting a rose.

Another perfume from Dior is Dior Addict where the ad depicts a woman in her undergarments that are falling off, drenched in sweat. Controversially displaying the woman to symbolize a drug addict and a drug. Maybe it is implying that men are addicted to her sexuality as she is addicted otherwise. These ads do a good job in showing women how to be “sexy” and as well as it implies to females that when buying their fragrances in essence, they will become sexy from using it. The fact that the ads are using beauty as confidence to sell their fragrances and sell the image of how a woman should feel, smell, and even resemble to. Ads depicting women as a sex symbol sell because she believes the product will enhance her appearance. By portraying a woman as simply a sex symbol she is devalued because she is now degraded to simply an object rather then an