Empowerment through femvertising - Evidence from Mexico and Hungary

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to understand the concept of femvertising in a cross-cultural study for countries that have not been examined in previous research. Twenty semi-structured in-depth interviews with women from Mexico and Hungary were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The novelty of this study is that it sheds light on culturally bounded aspects of femvertising and provides an extended definition of female empowerment. Contrary to expectations, lower-gender-equality countries with diverse backgrounds show similar patterns in the perceptions of female empowerment. The main difference is that Mexican interviewees considered sorority to be an important element of empowerment whereas Hungarians placed the self in the center. Mexican women admitted that femvertising had a positive effect on them; Hungarian women stated that others were more affected by femvertising than they were. Academics and practitioners should recognize cultural differences given that attitudes toward femvertising in both countries were both positive and negative. This study also offers new critical insights about femvertising that still uses gender stereotypes, such as gender roles mainly associated with men, implying that empowered women must behave like men.