Please, Keep My Secret - How consumer culture influences product-based female empowerment in a specific BOP context

Abstract

The perception of the Base-of-the-Pyramid (BOP) as one single consumer market is no longer a viable notion. The present article illustrates this through an exploration of how local cultural meanings shape a distinct consumer context in a BOP market. This influences products aspiring to establish themselves in this particular context, as it calls for a diversified consumer perspective. On this note, women are systematically discriminated in BOP contexts, making them a consumer group in need of special attention. In particular, the activity of menstruation is an often stigmatized practice leading to female discrimination. Hence, from a young female consumer perspective, this article performs an intensive single-case study of the menstrual hygiene product, Ruby Cup, which attempts to foster female empowerment in Kenya. Beyond its immediate product qualities, the Ruby Cup empowers girls in its provision of education about menstruation and a forum of discussion regarding female topics. However, these discussions occur almost exclusively between women and parallel to the prevalent male-dominant discourse, leaving the inter-gender menstrual topic taboo unaddressed. Still, the identified dynamic interplay between the product and the cultural meanings holds the potential of altering the cultural meanings in the market in favour of women. This article implicates how BOP markets can be approached and altered from a consumer cultural standpoint with an emphasis on the need to perceive each of these markets separately in theory and practice.