Marketing Feminism

One of the great marketing practices in recent times is that any new product is introduced first in USA. The reason is they have lots of disposable cash and are always willing to experiment. Once the product is accepted, it is introduced in the conservative European market who have money but would accept only after it's tried and tested. After a point the market would get saturated (that's a rule) and then the product is shifted to the growing Asian market by lowering price to suit the pockets of the newly some-what rich population. When this market also gets saturated, the product would be moved to the under-developed African market by further lowering the price. That's how any new product moves - from the affluent to lesser ones.

Last night I was wondering, this concept is not just limited to products. It has its presence felt elsewhere too, like Feminism. Feminism (modern) first came into existence in Europe and North America, then it was shifted to Asian countries. At this point it is in the growing Asian market as the less affluent poeple (in Africa or elsewehere) are yet to know what feminism is all about. Even in the developing countries it is not evenly distributed. In India, the affluent cities like Delhi and Mumbai were the first to accept. The rest of the country is still to catch up.

I am living in Kolkata and I was surprised to see the conservative culture given the fact the feminist brigade is full of power-packed Bengali women in Delhi. During the initial days, I was sitting with two females. As the topic of feminism crop up, to impress them I said, "I am a feminist". One of them reacted with shock, "How can you be a feminist? You are a guy". Looks like feminism is still not marketed well here. Thank God for that, we don't need to pretend!