Women’s Empowerment at the Moroccan Supermarket: An Ethnographic Account of Achieved Capabilities and Altered Social Relations in an Emerging Retail Servicescape

Abstract

This study bridges CCT and macromarketing perspectives in carrying out an ethnographic study examining how Moroccan women empower themselves in shopping in the supermarket. Our three-year ethnographic study in Casablanca among women and men illuminates the ways in which women develop new capabilities and alter social relations with family members, friends, store employees and customers. In turn, the interplay of women’s competencies, their interactions with men and women, and their socio-demographics of age and social class, together with supermarket characteristics, provide favorable conditions for the women to empower themselves. As women gain confidence to demonstrate their competencies and manifest their desires in leveraging their traditional nurturing roles and taking on tasks previously in the domain of men, they alter their relations with their husband and with the women who exercise control over them. Theoretical contributions contribute to knowledge of the importance of gender and family interactions as they impact the acquisition of key competencies in novel marketspaces through which women empower themselves, and generate further insight into the complex interweaving of market and social systems.