Renegotiating the patriarchal bargain and the embodiment of womanhood

This research explores how migrant women use consumption to renegotiate their culturally construed gendered identity and related bodily representations. Central to this renegotiation is the embodiment of the migrant female identity embodied within the patriarchal bargain, representing a set of pre-existing rules and scripts that regulate gender identity and related roles (Kandiyoti, 1988). For example, duties the wife is expected to perform, such as mother, cook etc. As migrant women’s roles transition from a wife within a consanguine, traditional, family based around patriarchy to a nuclear family that encourages equality, the cultural values embodied in these women are challenged and renegotiated. This research then addresses previous research gender bias towards male immigrants, with female immigrants either invisible or stereotyped (Dona and Ferguson, 2004; Reid and Comas-Diaz, 1990). Consequently, although the process of immigration offers opportunities for culturally determined gender roles to be reconstructed in the new host society (Dona and Ferguson, 2004), the extent that immigration improves or undermines a women’s ability to renegotiate her sense of identity remains unclear (Moon, 2003).