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Beauty has a price: the global political economy of beauty among youth in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

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Beauty has a price: the global political economy of beauty among youth in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

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Content BEAUTY HAS A PRICE: THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BEAUTY
AMONG YOUTH IN GUADALAJARA, JALISCO, MEXICO

by

Angela B. McCracken

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

August 2009

Copyright 2009 Angela B. McCracken

ii

Dedication

To my family.

iii

Acknowledgements

These pages would be empty if not for the participants of this study who have
been so generous with their time and their candor; thank you all. I am also deeply grateful
for the help of many in Guadalajara who made my research possible by providing care,
friendship, shared meals, directions, Spanish lessons, invitations, introductions, and
everything else. In Mexico City, thank you to María Dolores Pérez Quiroz of CANIPEC.
To each of the members of my dissertation committee I send a special thank you
for sharing your wisdom, encouragement, and that special something that each of you
gave to me that made writing a dissertation a challenging opportunity, sometimes fun,
and always rewarding. To my chair, Ann Tickner, thank you for being a guiding light in
so many ways and on so many days. Thank you, Carol Wise, for teaching what isn’t in
the books and for being there when I have needed help. Thank you, Alexander Moore, for
supporting me and sharing your expertise and creative insight. I also express my
appreciation for the help of a great teacher, Hayward Alker, whose instruction,
enthusiasm and encouragement helped get this project off the ground. I thank all of my
teachers, who have taught so well and made learning so fun. Ronnie Lipschutz, my
undergraduate mentor, deserves special thanks for being an exceptional and generous
teacher. Colleagues Christina Gray, Abigail Ruane, Guilherme de Araujo Silva, and
Laura Sjoberg have read sections, listened to endless presentations, asked questions, and
encouraged me through the rough patches. Jenny McCracken read my first draft and
offered insightful comments, editorial suggestions, and excellent copyediting, and buoyed

iv

me through self-doubt. Thanks for all those helpful things you said; they really made a
difference.
Thank you to the USC School of International Relations, the USC Center for
International Studies, the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and the Center for
International Business Education and Research for making this research financially
possible. I am also grateful to the Centro de Estudios de America del Norte and the
Departamento de Estudios de Pacifico at the University of Guadalajara for the office
space and the intellectual community that made a year of writing comfortable and
productive.
And with all my heart, thank you to my family and friends, just for being your
sweet selves. Plus, thanks for all the food, cleaning, healthcare, eldercare, phone calls,
visits, and acceptance that has sustained and nourished me through this journey.

v

Table of Contents

Dedication ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Tables viii

List of Figures ix

Abstract x

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework, Research Setting, and Methodology 13
Why Global Political Economy? 14
Why Feminism? 17
A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy 23
The Politics of Beauty and Fashion 35
Fashion as a Social Process 37
Fashion as a Situated Bodily Practice 39
Feminist Perspectives on Beauty and Beautification 39
Scholarship on Globalization and Local Ideals of Beauty/Fashion 47
Toward a Global Political Economy of Beauty/Fashion 49
What a Quince Might Look Like 50
Coming of Age in the Church and in Heterosexual Relationships 53
Religious Meaning in Question 56
Syncretic Roots 57
A Living Tradition 59
Social, Familial, Identity-forming Significance 60
Research Setting 67
National Identity, Ethnicity, and Race in Guadalajara 79
Historical Gender Ideals 83
Methodology and Methods 87

Chapter 3: Beauty and the Quinceañera: Productive, Reproductive and
Virtual Dimensions in the Global Political Economy of Beauty 97
The Fiesta de Quince Años 98
Beautification in the Fiesta de Quince Años 102
Normalization versus Particularization 103
Looking Good 108
Cosmetics 109
Hairstyles 111

vi

Dress 114
Comportment 121
Diets, Exercise, and Body Shape 124
Gendered and Racialized Adolescent Beautification in Guadalajara 128
Beauty Consumption and Production in Racialized 135
The Productive, Reproduction and Virtual Economies and the
Quinceañera 139
The Dress 143
Makeovers 148
Dance 150

Chapter 4: The Beautiful Quinceañera and the Global Reproductive
Economy of Beauty 155
Reproducing Beauty, Reproducing Gender in the Quince Años 158
The Changing Role of the Reproductive Economy 168
Is the Reproductive Economy of Beauty Global? 174
The Quince Constructs Social Norms 175
Structures of Privilege in the Reproductive Economy of the Quince 181
Privileged Identities 182
Privileged Ideologies 187
Privileged Institutions 188

Chapter 5: The Beautiful Quinceañera and the Global Productive
Economy of Beauty 193
Globalizing Productive Economy in Mexico 195
Structural Inequalities 198
Globalizing Productive Economy in the Beauty Industry 201
Structural Inequalities 207
Productive, Reproductive and Virtual Dynamics 216

Chapter 6: Being Different: Contesting Gendered Norms Through the
Global Virtual Economy 219
Global Virtual Economy of Beauty 222
The Politics of a Fashion Consumption Economy 229
Structural Inequalities 238
Conclusion 242

Chapter 7: Conclusion 243
Study Findings 245
Reflecting on the RPV Framework 257
Suggestions for Further Research 260

Bibliography 263

vii

Appendices
Appendix A Youth Interview Questions 277
Appendix B Adult Interview Questions 280

viii

List of Tables

Table 1: Highly valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the
global political economy. 33

Table 2: Less valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the
global political economy. 33

Table 3: Summary of highly valued identities, ideologies and
institutions in the reproductive economy of beauty 190

Table 4: Highly valued identities, ideologies, and institutions in
the global cosmetics and toiletries industry 208

Table 5: Structural Hierarchies Manifest in the Beauty Industry 208

Table 6: Highly valued identities, ideologies and institutions in
the global political economy of beauty 253

Table 7: Less valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the
global political economy of beauty 253

ix

List of Figures

Figure 1: Top Company Shares, Cosmetics and Toiletries 203

Figure 2: Relative employment patterns in Mexican cosmetics and
toiletries industry 205

Figure 3: Distribution Channels 210

Figure 4: Direct Sales by Product Category 211

Figure 5: Global Distribution Channels – Cosmetics and Toiletries 2006 212

x

Abstract

This dissertation argues that there is a global political economy of beauty that shapes
ideals and practices of beauty, and which in turn is shaped by the personal production of
beauty. The politics of this global economy of beauty favor historically gendered
hierarchies, but also evidence some openness to transformation, particularly among
youth. The production of beauty in the fiesta de quince años in Guadalajara, Mexico,
serves as a site to explore the mutual construction of personal beauty and the global
political economy through an extended case study. The quince is a birthday party for
fifteen-year-old girls that involves months of preparation, a religious service, a meal, and
dancing. It is an important site for social reproduction and change of gendered norms of
beauty. Applying Spike Peterson’s reproductive, productive, and virtual framing of the
global political economy and feminist critiques of disciplinary beautification, the study
finds that the quince is intimately linked to the global political economy of beauty
through products, social reproduction, and exchange of cultural signs. Beauty production
in the quince is shaped by and shapes global markets in beauty products and services and
the globalization of cultural signs. Additionally, subcultural youth who reject the
mainstream beauty standards of the fiesta are equally engaged in global economies of
beauty. The study finds that varied standards and practices of personal beautification in
Mexico are changing due to the intersection of major shifts in the global political
economy of beauty with adolescent desires to be unique and original. These changing
norms and practices of beautification in Mexico mostly reinforce historical gender
inequalities, but also present some opportunities for unsettling traditional gender norms

1

Chapter 1: Introduction

Everybody line up! The show is about to start.
Places! The show is about to start.
You have to show a look, have a look, or give a look.

Faces.
Beautiful.
No one ugly allowed (laughing)…

Fashion is the art, designers are the gods.
Models play the part of angels in the dark.
Which one of you would ever dare to go against that beauty is a trade and everyone is
paid?

Fashionista, how do you look? (refrain)

New York, London, Paris, Milan Tokyo, I think it's in Japan Asia, Malaysia, Las Vegas
to play, LA, if you pay my way… (refrain)

Who are you wearing?

Sean John, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan's fashion line.
Valentino, YSL, Ferragamo and Chanel.
Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci, don't forget my Pucci.
Fendi and Armani, God, I miss Gianni.
Kenneth Cole, Michael Kors, Mr. Ford I can't afford.
D&G and BCBG, looking good is never easy.
Alexander Perkovich, Naomi Campbell - such a bitch!
I wanna be delgada [tr: thin] to fit into my Prada.
Oscar de la Renta.
Louis Vuitton.
Imitation of Christ, beauty has a price…

- Jimmy James, 2006

This single is a club hit in 2006 and 2007 in Mexico’s second-largest metropolitan area,
Guadalajara, Jalisco, and while it makes my feminist red flags go up, a crowd of youth
gyrate rhythmically to its repetitive beat at almost every nightclub I visit, sweat to it in

2

exercise classes, shop as it plays in fashion stores, blast it out of their car stereos, and
dance to it at disc-jockeyed celebrations such as weddings and quinceañeras. There is a
small set, maybe ten, of electronic pop hits that show up on almost every disc jockey’s
list, and this is one of them. Similar in beat and style to all the rest, and sung in English,
one might question whether it has any social significance at all in this Spanish-speaking
country. To the contrary, however, I argue that the song reflects trends in the
globalization of the beauty industry that beg for feminist critique: beauty as a trade,
fashion cosmopolitanism, global branding, the imperatives to be beautiful and thin, and
new types of sexual dancing. The song hints at a global political economy of beauty that
includes the highly valued: designers, models, celebrities, art, originality, brands,
consumers, cities, thinness, and investment in beauty with the exhortations that “Looking
good is never easy” and “beauty has a price.” The “ugly,” however, are excluded from
the song’s fantastic images of club dancing, shopping, modeling, designing, traveling and
selling. So, too, are many of the lesser-valued aspects of the global political economy of
beauty excluded from the song: manufacturing, copying, brand piracy, direct-selling,
second-hand reselling, the out-of-fashion, the counter-cultural, the fat. Both the highly
valued and the lesser valued participants and processes in the beauty and fashion
industries, however, are central to the global political economy of beauty.
This dissertation asks what the politics of the global economy of beauty and
fashion are, and whether and how the global political
1
economy
2
of beauty and fashion is

1
Politics in this dissertation is about how power is produced. I rely on a feminist
Foucaultian conception of power as immanent: no one “has” power to wield over another

3

changing local body politics. The research is based on a case study of youth
beautification ideals and practices in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. In order to study the
intersection of globalization and local body politics, this proposed research asks four
main questions:

• How do beauty images, products and ideals circulate globally?
• Do particular standards and practices flow across international borders from
groups privileged by race, class, and nation?
• In what ways does globalization affect Mexican youth’s standards and practices
of beautification?
• How do Mexican youth respond to globalized beauty ideals, and what explains
their respective responses?

I answer these questions through a qualitative extended case study of the effects
of globalization on the beauty ideals and practices of youth in Mexico, with a special
emphasis on the production of beauty within the quinceañera, a ceremonial recognition
of a girl’s preciousness and maturity, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Mexico is a
country that is highly integrated into the global economy and into transnational migration
flows, and yet it still retains strong currents of nationalism and local cultural identities.

but rather power is produced and reproduced through social and self-surveillance that
leads to self-disciplining practices (Foucault 1977, 1978).

2
I follow Peterson’s definition of economy, which is based on Bourdieu’s concept of
habitus and Foucault’s concept of economies, as a social system that produces social
institutions through the exchange of material, cultural and symbolic capital (2003: 174).

4

Guadalajara reflects Mexico’s socio-cultural diversity, the trend toward urbanization, and
a high level of integration into the modern global economy and flows of migration. The
fiesta de quince años, a fifteen-year-old birthday-girl’s ceremonial presentation to the
community as a senorita, is a living Mexican tradition that includes an elaborate
production of youthful feminine beauty where gendered performance is staged front and
center. The extended case method places the local, individual, experience and production
of beauty among quinceañeras
3
within its global and historical context through tracing
some of the products, practices, and networks involved in the enactment of the quince, as
well as the generational differences that have emerged in the staging of the celebration.
Therefore, the production of the beautiful quinceañera serves as an entry-point to
understanding the production of Mexican ideals of beauty among youth in Guadalajara,
and the extended case study serves as a method for teasing out how those ideals are being
produced, and possibly transformed, in relation to global flows of information,
production and consumption.
I argue that the global political economy of beauty, from production to marketing
and consumption, entails a gendered global body politics that plays a direct role in
incorporating women into the global political economy on unequal terms, employs
gendered channels of operation, transforms norms of femininity, and privileges
hegemonic masculinities and momentarily, if at all, achievable ideals of womanhood. The
beautifying industries do provide women with some opportunities to get ahead in labor

3
It is common to use the word quinceañera to refer to both the fiesta de quince años and
the celebrant. In this dissertation, following custom in Guadalajara, I use quinceañera to
refer to the celebrant and her 15-year-old peers, and I use fiesta de quince años or quince
to refer to the celebration.

5

and marriage markets, but through traditional channels that funnel their efforts into
highly hierarchical structures of gender, race and class inequality. The global beauty and
fashion industries are built on gendered production, marketing, and consumption. Women
and girls are participating at unprecedented levels in the reproductive, productive, and
virtual economies of beauty. The success of the global beauty industry rests on producing
and reproducing ideals of femininity that include ever-increasing amounts of make-up,
hair products, dieting, beauty services, and incessant youth preservation. Still, the
globalizing beauty and fashion industries also illustrate some areas of hope: the centrality
of women to the construction and persistence of gendered inequality means that women
are not passive victims, that women will be central to unsettling inequality, and that there
are limitless opportunities for resistance.
The argument that the globalization of beautifying industries illustrates a
gendered global political economy speaks to International Relations (IR) and
International Political Economy (IPE) in a number of ways. First, I use Spike Peterson’s
2003 Rewriting Global Political Economy, a rewriting of the global political economy as
intertwining reproductive, productive, and virtual economies (RPV), as a conceptual lens
to understand the politics of globalization in the beauty industries.
Peterson’s RPV framing bridges feminist, critical and mainstream scholarship on
the global political economy to propose that the global productive, or market, economy is
inextricable from economies of reproductive and virtual exchange. Peterson argues that
market production processes, social reproduction and global virtual exchange interact
with one another so closely that inequalities in one area of exchange shape inequalities in

6

the other areas, mutually constituting the global political economy. The RPV framing,
then, provides a critical feminist framework for interpreting global political economy and
the structural inequalities it shapes and is shaped by.
The case study of the RPV framing illustrates the strengths of Peterson’s
interdisciplinary approach. Through the use of in-depth case data, the beauty industry
also pushes Peterson’s agenda forward. Additionally, the RPV framing provides the
conceptual framework for linking the production of beauty on the ground to the global
political economy. The RPV framing provides the framework for incorporating insights
about the reproductive and symbolic value of beauty and fashion into the analysis of
political economy. This is particularly important for analysis of the beauty and fashion
industries, which are so intimately connected to social and cultural reproduction. Indeed,
the beauty and fashion industries may illustrate better than any the deep and intimate
connections between reproductive, productive, and virtual economies.
Second, this research contributes to the body of research in feminist IR that makes
women’s personal lives, even their bodies, as central to understanding how gendered
power and gendered economics operate in international relations and international
political economy. Finally, this research contributes to a growing interdisciplinary
literature on the role of beauty norms in shaping national and international politics.
In the next chapter, I lay out the theoretical framework and methodology that
inform my field investigation. The theoretical framework sets up this dissertation as a
case study of the RPV framework, and an integration of the feminist literature on the
body politics of beauty and fashion into IPE. The methodology, based on Michael

7

Burawoy’s “extended case study” method (1991, Burawoy et al 2000), relies on
ethnographic field research, archival and secondary literature, and Peterson’s theoretical
framework, in order to extend from the local site of investigation into its historical and
global context, and in order to elaborate on existing theory.
In chapter three, I introduce the reader to the production of the quince and the
beautiful quinceañera. I describe the ideals and norms for beauty and beauty practices
among quinceañeras and their peers. I describe ideals for the quince in relation to ideals
in everyday life, and argue that the norms for beautification are gendered and racialized.
I then argue that the production of feminine beauty, as seen through the
quinceañera, is intimately linked to globalization through global reproductive, productive
and virtual economies. I use the quinceañera ball gown, the styles of dance performance
in the celebration, and the employment of cosmetics as lenses on how the politics of the
global economy of feminine beauty is articulated on the ground. I argue that the global
political economy of beauty, as seen through the fiesta de quince años, has reproductive,
productive, and virtual dimensions. I argue that, through its influence on the production
of beauty and fashion in the fiesta de quince años, the global political economy of beauty
has both diversifying and reinforcing effects on traditional gendered norms in the quince
años. Increasing individualization and commercialization of the tradition enables and
encourages diverse approaches to the celebration of the fifteen- year milestone. And yet
the channels of production and reproduction in the celebration reinforce religious- and
patriarchal family-based norms of hierarchy. The production of the beautiful quinceañera
also sheds light on the gendered processes of globalization. The globalization of the

8

beautifying industries is successful in large part due to gendered production,
reproduction, and consumption.
Chapter four extends out from the site of the quinceañera and into the global
productive economy of beauty. This chapter focuses on a slice of the global productive
economy of beauty that is important to the production of the beautiful quinceañera and
illustrative of the politics of the productive economy of beauty: the global cosmetics
industry. Cosmetic modification is an important part of the beautification process in the
fiesta de quince años, and this chapter looks at the cosmetic products used by
quinceañeras in the context of a global political economy of beauty. The chapter
addresses two questions that are central to this dissertation: How do cosmetic beauty
products circulate between the global economy and quinceañeras in Guadalajara,
Mexico? Is the beauty industry in Guadalajara privileging groups by race, class, gender,
and nation?
In this chapter I argue that the service industry, from branding and marketing to
consultation and make-up application, plays an increasingly important role in the global
productive economy of beauty. In addition, the rapidly expanding direct-selling industry
is an overwhelming player in the global cosmetics industry, evident both among
quinceañeras and regional and global data on cosmetic sales. I argue that the global
productive economy of beauty is gendered in a way that provides opportunities to some
women, but at the expense of recreating gendered hierarchies. The beautifying industries
provide some women with opportunities to “empower” themselves, but through

9

traditional channels that funnel their efforts into a highly hierarchical structure of gender,
race and class inequality.
Finally, I argue that the global political economy of cosmetics illustrates well how
the global reproductive, productive, and virtual economies are intimately interdependent.
Employment patterns in the productive economy are heavily shaped by dynamics in the
reproductive economy: the gendered division of labor, assumptions about caring labor,
and assumptions about women’s time. Success in the productive economy of cosmetics is
highly dependent on the exchange of virtual signs through marketing and media, as well
as the successful performance of privileged identities such as “fashionista,” or the
knowledgeable fashion consumer. Most visibly, the exponential growth in beautification
techniques and products is propelled by global marketing and media, leading women to
seek more and more beautification expertise, beauty products, and the money to spend on
them, in order to successfully achieve a feminine gendered body. In sum, through
woman-centric employment, selling, advertising, and consumption, the beauty industry is
a through-and-through example of how the reproductive, productive, and virtual
economies are inextricably linked. The beauty industry is also extremely gendered,
making it absolutely central to the reproduction of femininities. From paid work to semi-
informal direct sales, to the home, the market, and the body, femininities are being
produced.
Chapter five extends from the production of the quince and the beautiful
quinceañera into the global reproductive economy. I ask what role the reproductive
economy plays in the circulation of beauty products and what role it plays in the

10

construction of youth’s beauty practices and norms. In answering these questions, I
explore how youth respond to the reproductive economy of beauty and the identities,
ideologies and institutions that are privileged in the production of the beautiful
quinceañera.
I argue that the key role of the reproductive economy in the fiesta de quince años
is a major conduit for the social reproduction of gendered beauty norms. The
reproductive economy of the fiesta de quince años contributes to the reproduction of
social hierarchies which privilege masculinities; institutions such as family, culture, and
religion; and ideologies of patriarchy, racism, capital commercialization and individual
consumption.
Families, particularly mothers and close female relatives, play an important role
in guiding quinceañeras in the production of the fiesta de quince años. Families attempt
to imbue the tradition with cultural, social, and religious meaning and values. Celebrants
negotiate with their families in an attempt to make their quince special and unique.
Youth’s pursuit of originality propels commercialization, individualization, and changes
in beautification norms in the quince market. Negotiations between families lead to the
reproduction of some norms and values, and to the transformation of others. Notably,
youth are adopting increasingly diverse and personalized tastes and diverging from norms
of modesty and circumspection.
The reproductive economy, historically concentrated in families and the
supposedly private sphere, appears to be the least globalized aspect of the global political
economy of beauty. Most feminist scholarship on the global political economy and the

11

reproductive sphere addresses how reproductive work is affected by globalization. The
RPV framework, however, makes clear that reproductive work is central to shaping the
global political economy because economic activity is embedded in the reproductive
work of social life.
Globalization in the reproductive economy of beauty is at least very uneven; few
study participants had global care chains involved in their quince preparations. The
reproduction of beauty in the quince, however, is increasingly and intimately tied to the
global political economy through its links to the global productive and virtual economies.
The reproduction of beauty in the quince illustrates how the reproductive economy,
through its links to the global productive and virtual economies, is indeed very global.
Chapter six extends from the research site into the global virtual economy of
beauty, as seen through the globalization of youth subcultures. This chapter asks whether
and how the diversity of youth subcultures is contesting the globalization of hegemonic
images of beauty. The chapter focuses on the experiences of non-mainstream youth and
their beauty ideals and practices. It shifts the focus away from the globalization of the
mainstream “beauty pageant” variety of beauty to subculture or counter-cultural
globalizations. Many youth do not subscribe to mainstream beauty standards and
practices, but their images of fashion are equally if not more globalized. Still, even
among subcultural groups, certain hegemonic ideas about feminine appearances persist.
These subcultures show how the global political economy of beauty and fashion actually
facilitates increasing diversity on the ground, which in turn facilitates increased

12

contestation of social norms. Still, even among subcultural groups, many hegemonic
ideas about feminine appearances persist.

13

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework, Research Setting, and Methodology

This dissertation brings two literatures into discussion: feminist Global Political
Economy (GPE) and feminist perspectives on beauty and fashion. I argue that there is a
global political economy of the beauty and fashion industries that can be seen through the
production of the beautiful quinceañera. Links between reproductive, productive, and
virtual economies show how closely the production of beauty in the fiesta de quince años
is linked to the global political economy. The quince illustrates a global political
economy of beauty that values some women and some men, although the privileges of
the beauty industry are won at the expense of reproducing social inequalities, particularly
gender inequalities.
The reproductive, productive and virtual (RPV) economies play central roles in
the production of the beautiful quinceañera. Their politics, while intimately connected,
are also distinct. The global productive economy of beauty and fashion plays a
tremendous role in incorporating women, on unequal terms, into that economy as
producers, distributors, service providers, and consumers. Much of the labor of producing
the beautiful quinceañera is performed in the reproductive economy, playing a key role
in reproducing social norms of gender appropriateness. Through youth contestation, the
reproductive economy of beauty in the quince also illustrates changing gendered norms
of beauty and comportment. The global virtual economy of beauty is a conduit for
hegemonic norms of beauty that privilege thin, Anglo-American, global-beauty-pageant-
style ideals, but also enables alternative globalizations that contest hegemonic beauty
standards. The increasing diversity of beauty ideals and practices among youth in

14

Guadalajara illustrate trends toward individualization, celebration of difference, and
social change. Still, strong gender hierarchies persist even among diverse groups of
youth.
I make these arguments by applying Spike Peterson’s 2003 Rewriting Global
Political Economy to the global beauty industries, as seen from ground-up through the
production of the beautiful quinceañera. Data comes from interviews, participant
observation and archival material concerning the fiesta de quince años and beautification
in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. In this chapter I first explain the justification for a
feminist, global political economy, approach to understanding the body politics of the
global beauty industries. Second, I introduce Peterson’s theoretical framework and its
advantages. Third, I argue the theoretical basis for understanding beauty ideals and
practices as political, and I make the case for a ground-up view. Fourth, I introduce the
practice of the quince años and survey the existing theorization of the quince años as a
context for social, cultural, and familial reproduction and youth development. Fifth, I
elaborate on the research setting, giving brief introductions to Mexico, to Guadalajara and
to historical gender ideals in Mexico and Guadalajara. And finally, I explain the extended
case study method and how it applies to the study of the global political economy of
beauty and the quince años celebration.

Why Global Political Economy?
The products and processes of beautification have often been trivialized if not
ignored in social sciences. Anthropology and art history have recorded the largest body of

15

scholarship of dress and beautification practices, yet with little attention to the politics of
bodily adornment. Feminist scholarship on “body politics,” on the other hand, has argued
extensively that beautification and dress is anything but politically neutral. Liberal,
socialist, and radical feminist scholars and activists argued that feminine beautification
practices are physically limiting, visually marking women as “other” than men, sexually
objectifying, and oppressive. As feminist scholarship became more sensitive to different
subject positions and women’s agency, feminist scholarship on beauty ideals and
practices explored hegemonic beauty norms from different subject positions, how some
women find pleasure or agency in beautification and how beautification practices are part
of the production of gendered subjects. By and large, however, scholarship on beauty
ideals and beautification has been the domain of feminists in sociology, anthropology and
cultural studies.
Considering the conditions of globalization in the late 20
th
and early 21
st

centuries, important sources of norms of beauty are now integral to the global political
economy; mass media and product advertising increasingly cross borders and circulate in
the global economy; migrants increasingly cross borders. News accounts frequently
report the global dispersion of, for example, skin lighteners, plastic surgery, and body
ideals. In academic scholarship, the global spread of beauty products, media, and Anglo-
American standards of beauty are frequently cited as examples of globalization and

16

cosmopolitanism.
4
And yet, despite repeated reference, the globalization of beauty
products, practices and ideas is rarely explored as a global political and economic issue.
There is a need to link scholarship on gendered body politics and the global
political economy. Feminist scholarship on beauty ideals suggests that such images,
practices, and discourses on feminine beauty are not neutral, but rather are important to
the social construction and disciplining of gendered, and racialized, bodies.
Beautification may also be a source of pleasure, agency, and social power. Still, beauty
ideals and practices are contextually dependent, and feminist scholarship has just begun
to explore how the changing context of globalization intersects with historical beauty
ideals and practices. This dissertation explores the politics of beauty practices and ideals
under conditions of globalization.
In addition, feminist scholarship on beauty has focused primarily on the
intersection of gender and cultural politics, leaving analysis of the broader political and
economic context to be explored. Feminist scholarship on both beauty and global
political economy can benefit from this academic dialogue. Therefore, I propose a
feminist global political economy approach to understanding the politics of the global
fashion/beauty industry.

4
E.g. Altman 2002: 58-61; Enloe 2004 chapter 3; Hammond and Prahalad 2004; Seager
2003. McGrew states that “globalization as ‘simply the intensification of global
interconnectedness’ and stresses the multiplicity of linkages it implies: ‘Nowadays,
goods, capital, people, knowledge, images, crime, pollutants, drugs, fashions and beliefs
all readily flow across territorial boundaries. Transnational networks, social movements
and relationships are extensive in virtually all areas from the academic to the sexual’”
(McGrew 1992: 65, 67, qtd in Tomlinson 1999: 2).

17

Consider the potential consequences on factories, advertising, chemical
laboratories, chemical plants, regulators, lobbyers, television, public relations, magazines,
publishing, salons, beauty schools, beauty services, distributors, retail sales, and direct
sales if the $274.8 billion USD dollar global cosmetics and toiletries industry were to
collapse. Or consider the collapse of the $1.1 trillion USD clothing and footwear industry
(Euromonitor 2008, data reflects 2006). A shock of this magnitude would ripple
throughout the global economy, with unknowable consequences. But, one might say, so
would the collapse of the untold-billions global industry in illegal narcotics, the multi-
billion dollar economy in soft drinks. What distinguishes a hypothetical collapse in the
beauty industry, however, is its unique set of politics that are distinctly shaped by gender,
race, nation, competing identities, and visions of modernity. The global cosmetics
industry is unique due to the unique politics of the global political economy of beauty.

Why Feminism?
This dissertation takes a feminist perspective in order to investigate the ways in
which the global political economy of beauty is gendered. Feminist scholarship in
international relations and global political economy have made significant inroads into
understanding gendered inequalities between actors, including income and welfare
inequalities between men and women. By exposing patterns of privilege based on gender,
feminist scholarship brings us closer to unsettling historical inequalities that have
excluded women from full political citizenship and made women the subjects of global
sexual slavery trafficking, among other things. But there is still a ways to go. Even in

18

countries where women have had the right to vote for decades and do not suffer from
high rates of poverty, women’s legal equality has not led to equal political representation,
women’s property rights have not protected them from domestic violence, and women’s
paid employment has not led to equal earnings or a reduction in household labor.
Feminism, broadly defined as an academic and an activist movement to understand
gendered inequality and to improve the prospects for women and other feminized actors
and acts, is unpopular and commonly disparaged. Gendered inequality continues to be a
basis for which women and racial and sexual minorities are marginalized. It is therefore
as important as ever to try to understand gendered inequality and what we might do to
overcome it.
These analyses require a specific understanding of the terms gender and gendered.
Gender is a category of analysis based on the social construction of sex differences.
Gender is not the biological categories of male and female sexes, but rather the social
relationships and significations of power associated with those categories (Scott 1988).
Therefore, gender is not a biological given, and is not a universal category of binary
difference between men and women. Rather, gender is a social construction of difference
between men and women that varies in different social, economic, political and historical
contexts.
Despite the heterogeneity of gender constructions in different social contexts,
feminist scholarship has shown some remarkable generalizations. While women are
expected to behave in a feminine way, and men are expected to behave in a masculine
way, those characteristics associated with femininity are less valued and less rewarded in

19

general than those characteristics associated with masculinity. Therefore, gender is a
near-universal hierarchy that values masculinities over femininities and this gender
inequality is reflected in social life (Peterson and Runyan 1999:7-8; Hooper 2000).
Gendered relations refer to this understanding of gender as a set of hierarchical
social relations that generally rewards masculinity over femininity. Marchand and
Runyan identify at least three dimensions on which gender hierarchy operates: “(1)
ideologically, especially in terms of gendered representations and valorizations of social
processes and practices; (2) at the level of social relations; and (3) physically through the
social construction of male and female bodies” (2000: 8). This dissertation addresses
gender hierarchy in the global beauty industries in these three dimensions.
On the level of ideology, I ask whether the global political economy of beauty
privileges masculinity and masculine-associated representations. On the level of social
relations, I look at how men and women are differentially affected by and participate in
the global beauty industries. On the level of physicality, I look at how men’s and
women’s bodies are constructed differently and unequally. Gender is an important
category of analysis in every sphere of social and economic life, however feminist
scholarship on beauty and fashion has argued that the politics of beauty industries is
especially salient to reproducing gendered inequalities. Therefore, gender is especially
relevant in the global political economy of beauty, and the global political economy of
beauty is especially relevant to gender politics.
Further, the global beauty industries highlight the ways that the politics of gender
are central to international relations. One of the central axes of gendered power in

20

international relations and International Relations (IR)
5
has been the valorization of and
concentration on the public sphere over or at the expense of the private sphere (Tickner
1992, Youngs 1996). Feminists fault the public-private division with obscuring violence
against women, the personal politics of war, and women’s work in the global economy,
among other things. Feminist scholarship has consistently challenged the historical
divisions that make Political Science and IR concerned with the politics of war and
political economy in the public sphere while leaving the private sphere to other
disciplines. Feminist economics has consistently challenged the division of paid labor and
free labor into the economy and the reproductive sphere. This dissertation extends the
feminist project of making visible the ways in which “the personal,” or the private sphere,
is also political and economic and international. Therefore, this dissertation extends the
feminist project of undermining the public-private divide in politics, showing how
personal beautification is intimately tied to the global political economy.
Additionally, feminist perspectives on beautification offer the chance to make
more explicit the central role of bodies in international relations. Feminist IR scholarship
has foregrounded the politics of the gendered body within international relations through
scholarship on gendered aspects of the global political economy and international
security. IR feminists have called attention to how feminized bodies are central to the
workings of the global political economy through their gendered work in the labor
market, in the reproductive sphere, and in the informal market. For example, the

5
I use the upper case International Relations and International Political Economy to refer
to the academic disciplines and lowercase international relations and international
political economy to refer to the subject matters of the respective disciplines.

21

feminized and racialized body itself, compliant and with nimble fingers, has been crucial
to the successful feminization of export-processing labor (Elson and Pearson 1981,
Salzinger 2003, Enloe 2004). Likewise, the sexualized and racialized body is central to
the operations of the international sex industry (Pettman 1996, Agathangelou 2004). The
feminine gendered body is a key site for the construction and contestation of competing
nationalisms (Grewal and Kaplan 1994; Yuval-Davis 1997, Tickner 1996; Enloe 2004).
Women experience particular forms of violence due to the gendered nature of militaries
and war (Moon 1997, Tickner 2001). Contests over women’s bodies are a consistent
source of NGO and social movement interest (e.g. Keck and Sikkink 1998).
This feminist scholarship in IR illustrates how the feminine gendering of the body
plays a significant role in how power operates globally. Crucial to understand is that the
feminine gendered body, through its successful feminization and concomitant
devaluation, facilitates the unequal effects of such global politics as globalization and
securitization. At the same time, these processes help to reproduce that recognizably
feminine, subordinate, body. This dissertation highlights and extends the feminist project
of making the politics of gender and bodies visible by looking at the very gendering of
the body and how that gendering is influenced by and influencing processes of
globalization. Drawing on feminist perspectives on “body politics,” this research takes
the project of linking bodies to international relations further, by making explicit the
relations between producing the gendered body and the working of the global political
economy of beauty.

22

Finally, the global political economy of beauty presents an opportunity to
elaborate on Spike Peterson’s (2003) Rewriting Global Political Economy (hereafter
Rewriting) in a case study. In Rewriting, Peterson frames the global political economy as
intertwining and inextricable reproductive, productive and virtual economies. Peterson
integrates large bodies of feminist IR and International Political Economy (IPE) research
with other critical perspectives on globalization and the global political economy. As
such Rewriting presents one of very few comprehensive feminist approaches to
understanding global political economy.
Peterson’s approach is particularly useful because it does not abstract political
economy from social and cultural exchanges. Rather, Rewriting frames the economy
broadly as systems of cultural, social and material exchange that cannot be divorced from
one another, and that jointly construct the global economy. There may not be any but the
beauty industry that is more illustrative of how deeply intertwined these three spheres of
economic, social and cultural activity are. The RPV framework is therefore very useful
for capturing the breadth of the dynamics of the fashion and beauty industry.
Likewise, the case of the globalizing beauty/fashion industry is a good case study
to elaborate on Peterson’s model with new data. Much of Rewriting, as other
contemporary feminist theoretical approaches, is developed based on empirical data
dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. The present research presents an opportunity to apply
a feminist theoretical approach to fresh, contemporary data.
In sum, I use a feminist GPE approach to understanding the politics of the global
beauty industries because it raises political and economic questions and is attentive to

23

gender politics. Peterson’s Rewriting in particular is a useful tool for bridging social
science and humanities research on gender, politics, economy, and beauty. In the
remainder of this chapter, I elaborate on the theoretical framework for this dissertation. In
the first section, I outline Peterson’s approach to mapping the intertwining reproductive,
productive and virtual economies as part of critical, feminist Global Political Economy.
Then I review the feminist literature that makes the politics of the beauty industry central
to global politics. I conclude by tying these theoretical perspectives together, arguing that
the globalization of beauty products, practices and ideas, seen through the lens of
Peterson’s global political economy and the feminist literature on beauty politics, can be
framed as the global political economy of beauty.

A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy
Spike Peterson’s Rewriting Global Political Economy (2003) proposes a
conceptual framework for understanding and mapping
6
globalization and the structural
inequalities that shape and are shaped by the global political economy. Rewriting does
this by framing the reproductive, productive, and virtual economies as “inextricable and
interacting.” Peterson also pays special attention to how structural hierarchies are
manifested in, restructured, and reproduced by, processes of globalization in the global
political economy. In order to understand the structural inequalities of the global
economy, Peterson proposes a “triad analytics” of mutually constitutive identities,

6
Peterson is careful to differentiate the RPV framework from a theory because it does not
make a claim to causality. The RPV framework, rather, is based on conceptual
redefinitions that form a new approach, or ”map,” to understanding the relationships
between productive, reproductive and virtual work.

24

ideologies, and institutions that are critical to understanding how power operates within
the reproductive, productive, and virtual economies (40).
Peterson’s RPV framework marks a monumental effort to map the politics of
globalization that takes into account empirical developments in economic, social, and
cultural activity, while also integrating critical and feminist critiques of mainstream GPE
accounts of globalization. Rewriting is a “map” for understanding the GPE, but
Peterson’s treatment of globalization as the main subject and the defining contemporary
development in GPE make Rewriting a major contribution to the study of globalization in
particular. The resulting framework is an innovative, feminist approach to bridging social
scientific and humanistic research on globalization.
Globalization in a broad sense refers to a process through which there has been an
intensification of both the speed and volume of cross-border interactions in economic,
political, social, and cultural dimensions of life (Held et al. 1999). Many authors date the
recent stage of globalization to the early 1970s. IPE generally points increased economic
interdependence resulting from major empirical developments in the early 1970s: the
decline of US economic hegemony, the increase in multinational enterprises, the end of
the Bretton Woods system, and the 1973-74 oil crisis. As the literature on globalization
developed, more attention was paid to social, technological, and cultural dimensions of
globalization, and the concept evolved to include the intensification of political, social
and cultural relations across borders (Held et al 1999).
Sociological perspectives point to the revolutions in technology and
transportation, which made information exchange, communication and travel cheaper,

25

faster and increasingly accessible. Cultural perspectives have pointed to the threats and
opportunities presented by increased cross-cultural contact, including the threat of
conflict, the loss of cultural tradition, cultural hybridization, and resistance.
Feminist scholarship on globalization dates to the 1980s when the phenomenon of
an emerging global economy preoccupied many scholars, and globalization was largely
conceived of as the increased importance of the global market relative to states. A first
wave of feminist scholarship on globalization made women and women’s experiences
visible in the emerging global economy. On the one hand, these scholars brought to the
fore the unacknowledged roles women were playing in the quickly transforming global
economy. Of particular importance was women’s work in the reproductive sphere,
women’s unprecedented integration into the productive economy particularly in
manufacturing and agriculture for export, and women’s migration for employment (Elson
and Pearson 1981, Safa 1981, Fernández-Kelly 1983, Nash and Fernández-Kelly 1983,
Standing 1989).
On the other hand, this feminist scholarship critiqued the differential effects of the
global economic restructuring on women relative to men, particularly in the Third World.
Of particular note here were the differential impacts of structural adjustment policies and
of the flexibilization and feminization of certain labor sectors (Waring 1988, Elson 1994).
Existing gendered divisions of labor shaped women’s unprecedented entry into the
productive sphere. Women, based on assumptions about appropriate gender behavior and
the value of women’s work, were channeled into jobs with low pay, low security and
poor working conditions. Their reproductive labor remained unaccounted for, even as it

26

became more crucial to the development of the productive economy and to withstanding
structural adjustments. The emerging global economy, feminist scholars argued, is clearly
not gender-neutral.
The second wave of feminist globalization scholarship built on the first wave’s
empirical contributions, and was also concerned to pay more attention to women’s
agency, to differences among women, and to epistemological and ontological debates.
Feminist scholarship critiqued totalizing, macro, and hegemonic accounts of
globalization, arguing that universalizing globalization discourses have underestimated
differences among women and women’s agency in globalization (Gibson-Graham 1996,
Chang and Ling 2000).
With critiques of totalizing globalization discourses came another wave of
empirical work that paid attention to differences among women and women’s agency
(Chin 1998, Sassen 1998; Marchand and Runyan 2000, Kofman 2004). This research
highlights the differences among women’s experiences of globalization. It also highlights
the importance of taking men and masculinity into consideration: men also fare
differently under globalization, and it affects gender relations, not just “women” and
“men” (Hooper 2000, 2001; Heyat 2006). Therefore, this scholarship challenges
overgeneralizations about all men or all women, shifting the focus toward recognizing the
intersections of structures of inequality including gender, class, race, nation, and
postcolonial status, in shaping experiences of globalization. Feminist scholars focused on
women’s agency also argued that globalization created the infrastructure and the

27

conditions to facilitate transnational feminist alliances as well as local resistances (Enloe
1995; Krause 1996; Runyan 1996; Meyer and Prugl 1999; Stienstra 2000; Rai 2002).
Finally, much of the second wave of feminist scholarship on globalization called
into question the epistemological and ontological foundations of political economy.
Epistemological critiques challenged the masculinist underpinnings of positivist
approaches to globalization for privileging male experience and masculinist scientific
standards in the construction of theories of and knowledge about the processes of
globalization (Youngs and Kofman 1996, especially chapters by Peterson and Krause).
This scholarship also critiqued the territorial state as the primary ontological unit, the
separation of politics and economics, and the assumption of the public/private divide in
IR (Youngs 1996, 2000; Peterson 1996). A second are of research, feminist attention to
globalization discourses brought into relief the ways in which the very meanings of
gender are contested within globalization discourses (Hooper 2000, 2001).
This feminist scholarship has played an important role in the conceptual
development of globalization to include more than the expansion and integration of
global markets and state economic interdependence. Just as IPE had critiqued and
challenged the state-centricity of International Relations (IR) (Katzenstein et al 1998:
647), feminist perspectives critiqued the discipline’s privileging of the public sphere. Be
it state- or market- centricity, or both, feminists critiqued IR and IPE for privileging the
public political and economic spheres over the private sphere, reinscribing the public-
private dichotomy and obscuring the roles of women in international relations and the
global economy, as well as their differential burdens. Feminist scholarship on

28

globalization therefore has pushed IPE to take seriously the effects of globalization on
gender identities and relations, and the effects of gendered identities and relations on
globalization.
For example, feminist scholars argued that globalization involves dramatic shifts
in gendered social relations in spaces as varied as households, the labor market, and
migrations. The most cited feminist edited volume on globalization goes so far as to
reconceptualize globalization as a process of global restructuring, in order to capture the
multidimensional, multilevel processes and effects of global integration in the late 20
th

century (Marchand and Runyan 2000).
Peterson’s Rewriting builds on this critical feminist scholarship of IPE and
globalization studies that has made gender central to critiques of power in the processes
and outcomes of globalization. One result that is central to Peterson’s reformulation is to
conceptualize the study of global political economy as Global Political Economy (GPE)
instead of International Political Economy (IPE). This shift indicates conceptually the
shift away from state-centricity and away from privileging the public sphere.
The qualities that make Rewriting useful for the current study are numerous.
Peterson’s main innovation is to incorporate interdisciplinary insights into globalization
into a broad framework that captures political economy in reproductive, productive and
virtual spheres. This comprehensive “mapping” of the political economy of globalization
makes Rewriting an especially interesting opportunity to try out a general feminist
framework with a case study. Additionally, Peterson’s approach is particularly
appropriate for the current study because the beauty and fashion industries are so deeply

29

cultural and social, a purely material economic approach could not capture the degree of
the industry’s embeddedness in social and cultural life. Finally, Rewriting is useful for
this case because it foregrounds gender and gendered power, important axes of power in
body politics. Peterson’s feminist approach, by foregrounding gender as a category of
analysis and gendered processes in the global political economy, is useful for asking
questions about how gender is produced, what the differential effects of globalization are
on men and women, and what the gendered processes of globalization are. Furthermore,
Rewriting highlights other axes of power and social inequality such as race, class, and
nation that are also of central importance to the body politics of the global beauty
industry.
It is important to understand the breadth of Peterson’s framework in order to
appreciate its application to the case of the global political economy of beauty in
Guadalajara. Peterson defines the productive economy as “about products…, factors of
production…, processes of production…, and processes by which goods are marketed,
distributed, and consumed” (44-45). Therefore, the productive economy is the arena of
economics typically addressed in IPE, and globalization in the productive economy is
what is most commonly addressed in IPE and the popular press. Globalization in the
productive economy of beauty is often cited by the popular and economic press as
evidence of globalization.
Peterson’s innovation is in her conceptual linking of the productive economy with
the reproductive and virtual economies. The reproductive economy encompasses the
work invested in reproduction of societies, both biologically and socially. Peterson’s

30

conceptualization of the reproductive economy is based largely on a sizeable body of
feminist economics and IPE that argues that women’s caring labor has been mistakenly
overlooked by economics. In actuality, feminist economists argue, reproductive labor is
an essential productive activity without which the productive economy would not
function as it currently does. The reproductive economy includes biological reproduction,
social and cultural reproduction through education and rearing young people, caring work
for the young, sick and elderly, and production of unpaid goods and services for home
consumption (Bakker and Gill 2003, Barker 2005, Hoskyns and Rai 2007). Making the
reproductive economy one of the three intertwining economies in the global political
economy, Peterson increases the visibility of reproductive labor in the global political
economy. As discussed in the next two sections, the inclusion of the reproductive
economy in the global political economy of beauty is essential to understanding the depth
of the politics of beauty in women’s personal lives.
Finally, the virtual economy represents three areas of virtual exchange: finance,
information, and cultural signs. The conceptualization of the virtual economy is
developed based on critical and cultural studies that argue that how we value symbols, for
example money, is not objective or politically neutral. Rather, the values that we place on
signs are highly subjective, being shaped by cultural identities, institutions, and
ideologies. The virtual economy, therefore, is critical to political economy through
shaping the use of money, investments, technology, communication, and consumption.
The virtual economy is arguably the most important of Peterson’s intertwining economies
to the global political economy of beauty. The financial sector motivates and shapes the

31

growth of the beauty industries into unincorporated markets, including especially
emerging markets and youth markets, the demographic of the present study. The
information and cultural economies are central to shaping the globalizing images and
ideas about beauty and product consumption.
Together, the reproductive, productive, and virtual economies are undergoing
profound transformations that are referenced in interdisciplinary literatures as
globalization, economic restructuring, or global restructuring (Marchand and Runyan
2000). Peterson identifies two empirical trends that are of paramount importance to
globalization: growth in financial markets and growth in informal and flexible work
arrangements. Additionally, the fusion of culture and economy through the information
and technology revolution, and ubiquitous and persistent structural hierarchies, are also
treated as integral but often overlooked features of globalization. The
productive/reproductive/virtual framework is intended to capture the breadth of these
empirical trends and their social ramifications.
The reproductive, productive, and virtual economies in Peterson’s account are
conceptually distinguished for heuristic purposes although Peterson variously and
repeatedly states that they are inextricable, intertwining, overlapping, and mutually
constituted. Indeed, many feminist authors, as Peterson extensively acknowledges, have
argued that the productive and reproductive have been separated and naturalized along
gendered lines as the separate spheres of work and home or public and private life
(Benería 1982, Mies 1986, Elson 1991, Bakker 1994). This gendered division of labor is
argued by many feminists to be a gendered social construct that obscures and devalues

32

the integral economic contributions of reproductive labor. It is not Peterson’s intention to
reify any separation but rather to use “productive,” “reproductive,” and “virtual” as
organizing concepts which, taken together as they should be, illustrate a much larger field
of political economy than either what is historically taken to be the “productive”
economy or what feminists take as the mutually continuous productive and reproductive
spheres. Therefore, one of Peterson’s major advances is the comprehensiveness with
which she incorporates mainstream, critical, and feminist insights into a conception of
global political economy that includes material, social, and cultural exchange.
Another critical advantage of Peterson’s approach is her insistent focus on
analyzing the effects of globalization on structural hierarchies and vice versa. Peterson
focuses primarily on gender, but also on race and national boundaries as historical
structures of inequality that shape the processes and outcomes of globalization in the
interrelated economies. Globalization processes are embedded in and shaped by structural
inequalities, and globalization also has restructuring effects on these same structural
inequalities.
A third, related, benefit of Peterson’s approach is her conceptualization of “triad
analytics” which maintains that the social context and effects of the globalizing political
economy must be considered in terms of mutually constituting identities, ideologies, and
institutions. Together, historical structures of inequality and empirical developments of
globalization privilege certain identities, ideologies and institutions over others. Tables 1
and 2 are an attempt to extract from Peterson’s text the general trends of privilege created
in the contemporary global economy, categorized by identities, ideologies, and

33

institutions. Table 1 summarizes the identities, ideologies, and institutions that are
privileged through globalization. Table 2 summarizes the less valued and devalued
identities, ideologies and institutions, using examples from Peterson’s text.

Highly valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Investors,
Professional and
producer service
providers,
Functional
managers
Breadwinners,
Northern
consumers
Investors, Global
elite, Advertisers,
Media makers,
Conspicuous
consumers
Ideologies Neoliberal
capitalism,
Competition
Patriarchy Commodification,
Information,
Consumption
Institutions Market, Firms,
OECD states
Family Corporate capital,
Financial markets,
Financing
corporations and
financial rating
corporations,
Firms’ financial
and planning
departments
Table 1: Highly valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the global political economy.

Lowly valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Personal and
distributive service
workers, most
flexible workers,
Feminized,
Racialized workers
Femininities,
Housewives,
Southern producers
Political
identities,
Workers, Poor,
People in the
“space of places,”
Subsistence
consumers
Ideologies Governance Feminism Governance
Institutions States, IOs Caring work States, IOs
Table 2: Less valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the global political economy.
Source: developed by the author from Peterson 2003 chapters 3-6.

34

Major transformations in the reproductive, productive, and virtual economies
have led to these structures of privilege. Rapid changes in technologies of communication
and transportation, as well as economic policy restructuring towards neoliberalism, have
driven transformations in each area of the global political economy. Major changes in the
productive economy include a shift from material-based to information-based production,
a shift toward flexibilization in production processes, and intensification in the
application of neoliberalist ideology in practice.
In the reproductive economy, caring work has been intensified. The reproductive
sphere has become a default safety net due to economic insecurity and reduced state
services. In addition, reproductive labor has been expanded into the swelling informal
market. Finally, reproductive labor is increasingly globalizing through the international
markets in domestic service, sex, marriage, and even bodies and organs.
Peterson distinguishes three modes of the global virtual economy: the global
exchange of symbolic money, information, and symbols or “signs” (115-116). The major
transformation in the virtual economy is that information and communication
technologies make the exchange of symbols increasingly deterritorialized and
dematerialized, which leads to global, real time exchanges. It also leads to the production,
exchange, and consumption of information being central to the global economy, but also
a marked unevenness in access to the benefits and contributions to the virtual economy
(118). Another transformation is the fusion of culture and commodity through the
increasing importance of “signs” in marketing commodities globally.

35

In sum, Peterson’s rewriting of global political economy as intertwining
reproductive, productive, and virtual economies undergoing a process of global
restructuring is useful for understanding how production, reproduction, exchange, and
consumption, are extensively tied to each other, to structural hierarchies, and to different
identities, ideologies, and institutions. Peterson’s RPV conceptualization of the global
political economy is useful for understanding the body politics of the global beauty
industries because it presents a comprehensive strategy for linking cultural, sociological,
political and economic spheres, while paying attention to gender and other axes of social
inequality and power.

The Politics of Beauty and Fashion
Much of social science has sustained a peculiar blind spot in regards to the
political significance of the beauty and fashion industries. Niessen and Brydon (1998)
explain academia’s tendency not to take fashion seriously as a result of the
Enlightenment valorization of mind over body, reason over desire, rationalism over
pleasure. Enlightenment dualisms have deeply shaped the social sciences, and led to a
tradition of dismissing fashion as irrelevant at best, but also often as superficial or as
“conspicuous waste” (Veblen 1945 [1899]), whose trivial and wasteful aspects are
particularly associated with the body and with femininity. One exception has been
feminist scholarship, which has approached beauty and fashion as a political issue
through consecutive waves of scholarship. Another exception, inspired by feminist
arguments, has been the literature on the effects of a “beauty premium” on social capital,

36

which argues that there are quantifiable gains to be made through approximating social
standards of beauty (Mobius and Rosenblat 2006; Hamermesh and Biddle 1994). A final
area of substantial scholarship of beauty and dress standards comes out of
anthropological and folk studies. This scholarship tends to describe the material culture
of dress as part of nonpolitical, localized, cultural traditions, particularly outside of the
West.
A growing number of feminist scholars have taken fashion and beauty ideals
seriously as sites of political struggle, and since the 1990s, scholarship on the politics of
beauty and fashion abounds. Niessen and Brydon (1998) suggest that the entrance of new
standpoints into the academy – for example women, people of color, and sexual
minorities – has led to new questions being raised about the politics of beauty and
fashion. The hermeneutic turn in the social sciences, by raising questions about how
meaning is constructed, has also contributed to increasing interest in the social meaning
of beauty and fashion (Craik 1994). The politics of beauty and fashion is now a vibrant
interdisciplinary field of study, despite prejudices against it being trivial, superficial, and
feminine. Still, there remain absences, particularly with respect to studies that take into
account the politics of the increasingly global nature of the beauty and fashion industry.
The global spread of beauty products, media, and Anglo-American standards of
beauty are often cited as examples of globalization and cosmopolitanism, but rarely
explored for their politics. Anthropology and art history have recorded the largest body of
scholarship of global dress and beautification practices, yet with little attention to their
politics. Traditional dress studies within anthropology have focused on “folk” dress as

37

traditional, static, ethnic markers (Barnes and Eicher 1992), a common view held of
fashion outside of the West (Veblen 1945 [1899]); Brydon and Niessen 1998). This
literature is mostly dedicated to documenting material culture, operating on the
assumption that “traditional” dress patterns are static markers of authenticity rather than
contextual constructions of local authenticity (McAllister 1996), often already globalized
(Niessen 1998). The anthropological literature has contributed to a common distinction
between dress and fashion studies; whereas dress refers to the garments used to clothe the
body, fashion is used to refer to the emergence of ever-changing styles of dress that is as
part of Western industrial capitalism.

Fashion as a Social Process
This dissertation departs from the dichotomy of dress and fashion. What I refer to
as beauty/fashion is based on the concepts of fashion as a social process and as a set of
situated bodily practices aimed to achieve personal beauty, but also much more. First, I
use Aubrey Cannon’s conceptualization of fashion as a social process (1998). According
to this conceptualization, fashion is a social process of group identification and
differentiation rather than as a specific mode of dress associated with the West (Cannon
1998). For example, the fashion process includes national identification and
differentiation. Fashion is central to nationalist identity formation, as has been
particularly shown through the now-global system of beauty pageants (Cohen et al 1996,
Banet-Weiser 1999, Leeds-Craig 2002). Likewise, the fashion process indicates
belonging to social constructs such as modernity or tradition. (Basyouny 1998, Ossman

38

2002, Lukose 2005). The process of social identification and differentiation through
fashion is facilitated by the fashion industry that emerged out of the industrial revolution,
however the use of fashion is not exclusive to industrial capitalism. Rather, it is a social
process through which, in small groups, fashion functions as a signifier of belonging. In
larger groups, it functions as a signifier of differentiation. This process of identification
and differentiation is universal, although it manifests in different types of fashions in
different contexts.
The framework of fashion as a social process is apt because it captures the
dynamic of social belonging that is so important to fashion, particularly for youth. In
addition, conceptualizing fashion as a social process of identification and differentiation
breaks out of the staid model of fashion as solely a marker of social class. Early theorists
of fashion saw it as a marker of social class through conspicuous consumption (Veblen
1945 [1899]) or a system of communicating class status (Barthes 1993). Fashion may
mark social class, but marks many more areas of social status and belonging, as well
(Cannon 1998). This is easily illustrated, for instance, by the numerous accounts of
fashions that identify and construct ethnic, language, and national group membership.
The dynamic of social belonging through fashion is especially important because it brings
into relief a central issue brought up by globalization in the beauty industries: how the
expanding global sphere of material, social, and cultural exchange affects group
identification and differentiation through fashion.

39

Fashion as a Situated Bodily Practice
Further, the framework of fashion as a social process also captures the constitutive
nature of fashion. Entwistle’s (2000) concept of fashion as a “situated bodily practice” is
useful here. As a situated bodily practice, fashion includes not just clothing and
adornment, but also bodily modifications. Adornments can range from clothing to
accessories to cosmetics. Modifications can range from haircuts to weight loss to
cosmetic surgery. Fashion as a situated bodily practice is therefore not only shaped by
social context, it also reflects bodily practices that are affective on the body and the lived
experience. Through shaping the appearances of the body, dress practices not only reflect
social belonging and differentiation, they actively shape social and individual practices
and values (Entwistle 2000, Mahmood 2001). The concept of fashion as a situated bodily
practice links fashion social context and the construction of bodies and identities. This
concept raises the important question of how the expanding global context for material,
social, and cultural exchange affects the bodily practices and therefore the construction of
identities. The framework of fashion as a social process and as a situated bodily practice
opens up the study of fashion to a number of intersecting political dynamics in addition to
class, nation and ethnicity.

Feminist Perspectives On Beauty and Beautification
One very important dynamic of power that manifests in fashion is gendered
power. Feminist theorists and activists, particularly in the West, have long argued that
body modification and fashion are evidence and tools of gendered power. Feminist

40

activism against culturally dominant beauty standards and practices date back at least to
19
th
century fights against restrictive and heavy skirts (Banner 1983). Feminist activists in
the early 20
th
century used lipstick (Peiss 1996) and bloomers (Cunningham 2003) as
ways to contest feminine docility and confinement. Among second wave feminist
academics and scholars, social norms for women’s dress and make-up were largely seen
as integral to women’s oppression, leading to widespread feminist rejection of
mainstream standards of feminine beautification (de Beauvoir cited in Wilson 2003,
Morgan 1970)
7
. There was general agreement among liberal, socialist, and radical
feminist theorists that conventional feminine beautification was a manifestation of
patriarchal oppression. The feminist stance toward beauty ideals as oppressive was
famously expressed in The Beauty Myth (Wolf 1991), which argued that unattainable
ideals of feminine beauty keep women from achieving equality with men by undermining
women’s self-confidence, wasting their time and money, and encouraging eating
disorders and cosmetic surgery.
As more feminist scholars began to question universal notions of “woman” and
“man”, scholarship on the politics of beauty ideals began to take a cultural turn. Around
the same time, feminists began to adopt more sophisticated understandings of power,
agency, and how gendered power is constructed and maintained. The idea that all women
were oppressed by patriarchal standards and practices of beauty was challenged. Scholars
began to look at how culturally-specific ideals of feminine beauty and masculininity
reflect specific constructions of femininity and masculinity. Scholarship became more

7
Feminists during this time also garnered the infamy of being ugly, either as explanation
for their rejection of beautification or as a result of it, or both.

41

sensitive to how women in different subject positions experience conventional beauty
ideals differently (Chapkis 1986, Leeds-Craig 2002). From different subject positions, it
became clear that culturally hegemonic beauty ideals did not hold the same meaning or
power for all. Cracks began to appear in the notion that beautification was merely a form
of gender oppression.
Based on the Anglo-American experience, what I call the feminist literature on
disciplinary beautification emerged. Bartky (1990) argued that feminine socialization,
through sexually objectifying women, alienates them from their bodies. What is
commonly called narcissism in women is actually the production of power in which a
woman self-objectifies through an internalized gaze of what Bartky terms the “fashion-
beauty complex…a vast system of corporations – some of which manufacture products,
others services and still others information, images, and ideologies – of emblematic
public personages and of sets of techniques and procedures” (39). The fashion-beauty
complex ostensibly celebrates women’s bodies but actually undermines them; through
media images and advertising, “the female body is revealed as a task, an object in need of
transformation” (40). Thus, narcissistic beautification, ostensibly the fetishization of
one’s own body, is really the internalization of objectification and the alienation from
one’s own body.
In another essay, Bartky (1990) identified beautification as “disciplinary practices
that produce a body which in gesture and appearance is recognizably feminine” (65). In
the constellation of beautification, there are “three categories of such practices: those that
aim to produce a body of a certain size and general configuration; those that bring forth

42

from this body a specific repertoire of gestures, postures, and movements; and those
directed toward the display of this body as an ornamented surface” (65). Practices of
cutting, shaping, and otherwise modifying women’s appearances “are part of the process
by which the ideal body of femininity – and hence the feminine body-subject – is
constructed” (71). Bartky is roundly critical of the fashion-beauty complex, the male
gaze, and practices of beautification as disciplining women’s bodies, alienating to
women, and policing of a hierarchical gendered order.
Susan Bordo (1993) further developed a conception of beautification as the
regulatory production of femininity, due in large part to cultural images that serve to
homogenize across differences and standardize ideals of beauty. Bordo argued that
women’s bodily modifications, for example through eating disorders, are the site of the
crystallization of cultural norms and the reproduction of norms of femininity which
revere masculinity, feminine constraint, whiteness, and slenderness, among other things.
In sum, these authors theorize feminine beautification as a repertoire of
disciplinary techniques of body modification that reflect and reinscribe asymmetrical
power relations on women’s bodies. This literature on disciplinary beautification does not
assume that fashion/beauty is simply an expression of patriarchal oppression, but rather
identifies beauty and beautification practices as disciplining, as constructing the feminine
subject and creating the experience of woman as subordinate, incomplete, and objectified.
Feminist scholarship on beauty and beautification also became more sensitive to
how women in different subject positions experience conventional beauty ideals
differently. Wendy Chapkis (1986) explored the beauty practices of differently positioned

43

women, as well as the broader social context in which feminine beauty standards
circulate. Chapkis is well within the feminist scholarship on disciplining beautification,
arguing that norms of beauty, pervasive in women’s intimate lives, push women toward
an often painful and unattainable conformity. Chapkis illustrates how beauty norms
permeate women’s thoughts, police women’s behavior, and mark some women as
acceptable and others as unacceptable based on hair, skin color, dress, body shape and
perceived gender appropriateness. But Chapkis also suggests reason for hope; building on
and critiquing the highly influential feminist position against beautification, Chapkis
argues for a “move toward a more colorful revolution” in beautification practices, where
difference and nonconformity are celebrated and enjoyed (177).
Likewise, Maxine Leeds-Craig questioned universal feminist abhorration of
beauty contests when in 1968, the same year that feminists protested the Miss America
contests by throwing their bras into a garbage can and garnering the moniker “bra-
burners,” African-American women contested their exclusion from the Miss America
pageant by holding their own (Leeds-Craig 2002). From different subject positions, it
became clear that culturally hegemonic beauty ideals did not hold the same meaning or
power for all.
Queer scholarship has argued that feminine beauty practices are part of the very
production of gender difference. Butler (1999) theorized gender and sex as performative
discursive formations. This theory of gender holds that gender and sex, rather than
corresponding to biological givens, are the manifestations of repetitive citational
discourses that name and thereby constitute gender and sex as discourses. Gender

44

discourses produce the appearance of a natural, sexed body that is prior to gender, but
which is actually the effect of the discourse. Gender is thus a regulatory discursive
construction of the body, it is “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts
within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce appearance of
substance, of a sort of natural being” behind it (43-44). This is very similar to the
argument cited above that feminine beautification is a production and reproduction of
what is recognizable as feminine, although Butler takes the argument further to say that
there is no “true” female sex behind the regulatory feminine to which to return or
celebrate; the stylization of the body is the source of gender.
Based on this non-foundational conception of gender, Butler and others suggest
possibilities for subverting gender regimes. Halberstam (1994) argues that all bodies
should be read as already transgendered, as having become their gender and as not being
fixed, and further that elective gender reassignment should be as socially acceptable as,
indeed classified as, any cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic modification, for Halberstam,
reinforces and undermines gender regimes. For example, through the eyelid surgery
popular for making an Asian eye look European, “the racially marked face is not only
marginalized by a kind of economy of beauty, but it is also quite obviously the product of
imperialist, sexist, and racist ideologies” (130). In addition, however, there is the
“possibly unforeseen effect of making race artificial, another fiction of culture” (131).
Therefore, Halberstam argues that there is subversive potential in cosmetic surgery
through its unintended consequences and that subversivity can be nurtured through
learning “how to take pleasure in gender” and by witnessing for the multiplicity of gender

45

already extant (132). These queer feminist theoretical interventions on beauty and
beautification suggest that there is subversive potential in bodily modification, although it
is not predetermined. Unfortunately, distinctions between subversive transgression and
the reinscription of cultural hegemony are neither easily identifiable nor open to
classification and catalog; the boundary between subversion and reinscription is delicate
and unstable. What this theoretical position provides is the assurance that a universal
theory of disciplinary beautification is untenable, and that close contextual analysis is
necessary for understanding body politics.
Finally, feminist scholars began to entertain the idea that beautification could be
pleasurable and even empowering for some women (Davis 1995, Cahill 2003). Etcoff
(2000) goes so far as to argue that beauty standards are based on universal, biological
imperatives, which makes beauty and the pursuit of beauty empowering in labor markets
and romantic pursuits. This dissertation takes an ambivalent stance toward the argument
that beauty standards are based on biological universals (Etcoff 2000), because despite
any supposed universals, there is abundant evidence that beauty/fashion standards do
vary substantially by culture (Cassidy 1991, Cohen et al 1996, Gremillion 2005) and that
those culturally-defined standards are intimately tied to power – be it representative or
material power in the labor market, the marriage market, the sex industry, or the beauty
and fashion industry.
The culturally-sensitive literature on beauty and body politics illustrates two
important points for this dissertation. First, it is necessary to approach research about
body politics from a ground-up perspective that pays close attention to local cultural

46

context. This point is important because most theories of beauty politics have been
articulated in a developed-world context. To simply extend these theories to other local
contexts risks making the theoretical error of ethnocentric universalization (Mohanty
1988). According to Mohanty, Western feminism has long fallen victim to universalizing
its theories to “Third World” women, thereby objectifying Third World women and
undermining their agency while at the same time making the intellectual error of false
universalization.
Second, it is important to take a ground-up view in order to foreground the
practices and ideas about beauty in their lived context. This is a helpful way to bring
marginalized subjectivities to bear on globalization. Tomlinson (1999) argues that the
effects of globalization must be studied as they are articulated in specific localities
because there is no literally “global” space to focus on; cultural and political effects are
experienced through their local manifestations. Chang and Ling (2000) also strongly
argue, from a feminist postcolonial position, for shifting the focus of globalization away
from “gods-eye-view” analyses of “macro-corporate entities” which privilege privileged
subjectivities, and toward analyses that center ground-up views, marginalized
subjectivities, and corporeal experience (see also Enloe 1996). Following these authors,
this research focuses on how the politics of the globalization of beauty practices and
ideals is experienced through youth’s words and experiences. Even, or especially, when
studying the globalization of beauty products, practices, and ideas, it is necessary to view
them from a situated, personal perspective. Therefore, the empirical focus of this research
is global body politics as they are experienced locally because this captures the lived

47

politics of globalization, emphasizes marginalized subjectivities, and foregrounds
corporeal politics.

Scholarship on Globalization and Local Ideals of Beauty/Fashion
Scholarship on the globalization of beauty ideals and practices so far, mostly
conducted in Anthropology, has been very sensitive to cultural context. Authors have
argued that a Western-centric ideal of beauty and fashion is globalizing. Western-centric
ideals are spread through international beauty contests (Cohen et al 1996). Richard Wilk
(1996) argues that the internationalization of beauty contests, and international beauty
contests, build “structures of common difference” 1996: 217) that “build equivalence
between…diverse dialogues of gender and beauty, so that gender and beauty emerge as if
they were indeed universal categories” (1996: 218). A number of authors note that
international beauty contests and the globalization of the fashion industry create a
universalized, naturalized ideal of beauty based on a largely Anglo-American ideal of
thinness, whiteness, and fine facial features (Moskalenko 1996, Li 1998).
Many authors point to the ways that the globalization of Western-centric beauty
ideals is mediated by local context. As Adrian (2003:10) argues, the globalization of
beauty/fashion looks like Westernization on the surface, but is more complex when
viewed through an anthropological lens. For instance, the imitation of glossy fashion
magazine spreads in Taiwan’s bridal photography industry, rather than replicating a
Western ideal as authentic, exposes its emptiness (Adrian 2003). While many authors
argue, as does Wilk, that the universalization of beauty/fashion is essentially an extension

48

of Western power, they also note that there are competing local discourses and
globalizations (Wilk 1996; Niessen et al 2003; Tinajero 2005), processes of hybridization
(Adrian 2003) and reinterpretation (Fadzillah 2005).
Scholars have also tackled the relationship between the global economy and the
globalization of beauty/fashion. Using the case of Nike and its innovative use of flexible
specialization through production subcontracting, Skoggard (1998) argues that the
consumption of fashion in the West is based largely on production in developing
countries, and that the divorce of production from marketing and consumption hides the
unequal conditions under which fashion is produced. Therefore, the production of
Western fashioned femininities is based on production in poorer countries for
consumption in richer countries. Freeman (2000) and Salzinger (2003) argue that fashion
is integral to the production of “productive femininities” among developing country
factory workers, as well.
It is into this culturally-sensitive feminist scholarship on fashion/beauty that this
dissertation enters. I look at how gendered norms are constructed through beautification,
dress and fashion, without attacking the pursuit of fashion as trivial, superficial, or
feminine. I look at how fashion as a social process shapes both social belonging and
contest. I take the gender politics of beauty standards and the construction of masculinity
and femininity seriously, but not given based on outdated notions of universal patriarchy.
As Niessen and Brydon (1998: xvi) argue, it is necessary to move beyond moralizing
about beauty standards and address the politics of the economy of beauty/fashion. We do,
however, need to maintain a critical eye toward the evidence of and construction of

49

structural hierarchies through the beauty/fashion industry (cf. Jones 2008, Rugh 1986).
Scholarship so far on the political economy of beauty/fashion so far addresses the
connections between production and consumption (Enloe 1989, Skoggard 1998, Freeman
2000, Salzinger 2003) but needs to be linked theoretically to the politics of the fashion
process and fashion as a situated bodily practice.

Toward a Global Political Economy of Beauty/Fashion
This dissertation puts culturally-sensitive feminist scholarship on beauty and
beautification into dialogue with feminist global political economy. Peterson’s (2003)
framing of global political economy as intertwining and inextricable reproductive,
productive and virtual economies is particularly useful because it provides a political
economy approach that also takes seriously the political economy of identities, culture,
and social belonging. It also maintains a critical eye toward social inequality, hierarchy
and power. It is therefore an apt framing for addressing the political economy of
beauty/fashion as a process and as a set of situated bodily practices.
The globalization of beauty products, practices and ideas make up a global
political economy of beauty that is based on reproductive, productive and virtual
dimensions. The beauty/fashion industries, intimately tied to the reproduction of social
belonging and differentiation, as well as of social hierarchies, result in a global political
economy that privileges some identities, ideologies and institutions more than others.
Gender is a particularly salient category of social inequality in the global political
economy of beauty, as are race, ethnicity, and national status. Gender is particularly

50

relevant to the global political economy of beauty because beautification and fashion are
central to the development of the gendered body, so the global beauty/fashion industries
are playing an important role in constructing gender difference. Developments in the
global economy of the 20
th
and 21
st
centuries indicate that there is reason to inquire into
how global flows of goods, information, and ideas changes how gendered bodies are
constructed under conditions of globalization.

What a Quince Might Look Like
A quince is, simply-put, a religious service followed by a celebration that
acknowledges a girl’s fifteenth birthday. It is also referred to as “los quince años” or,
when personalized, “sus quince” or “her/one’s fifteenth”. Quinceañera refers to the
celebrant herself, or any fifteen-year-old girl, but with the added social significance that
this year is an important one in the girl’s life.
8
The details and meaning of this
celebration, however, are not simply-put. The historical origins and authenticity of the
tradition are in doubt. Its status as a rite-of-passage is contested. It has many meanings
and personal, familial, and societal significance. In the following I review the scholarship
on the history and meaning of the quince, and later return to its significance for
constructing an ideal of feminine beauty (Ch. 3 and 4).
The details of the ceremony and fiesta vary according to region, ethnicity, class,
resources, religious options, and family and celebrant tastes. Most authors identify the

8
There are signs that the ritual celebration of the fifteenth birthday is being celebrated by
some (very few) boys (this research, Salcedo 1997, Álvarez 2007), however the
definition in the popular press, academic press, and on the street continues to reference a
girl’s birthday.

51

ceremony with a religious service and a fiesta afterward where celebrants share a meal
and cake, the quinceañera dances a waltz with her father, a waltz with a male escort, and
then opens dancing for the whole party. Guides to celebrating the quinceañera offer
myriad more ways to celebrate the quinceañera, although still based around this format
(e.g. Salcedo 1997).
Literature on quinceañeras illustrates variations among and between Mexicans in
Chicago (Davalos 1996, Stewart 2004), Latinos in the borderlands of Texas and Northern
Mexico (Cantú 1999), Mexicans in Guadalajara (Napolitano 1997), and Mexican, Central
American, and Caribbean celebrants all over the USA and in their sending countries
(Álvarez 2007). For example, Cantú describes a color divide between Mexicans and
Central Americans: Mexicans quinceañeras in Texas prefer to wear a white dress,
whereas Central Americans prefer a pastel color, usually rose pink.
The 2006 movie Quinceañera provides a useful depiction of a typical, if there
were one, Mexican-American fiesta de quince años in Los Angeles, California. In the
film’s opening sequence, Eileen, the main character Magdalena’s cousin, celebrates her
quince años in a full-length, full-skirt, strapless bodice pink gown with lace and corset
details. She is accompanied, in a rented limousine, by a court of six damas (maids-in-
waiting), six chambelanes (chamberlains), and one chambelan-de-honor in matching
gowns and tuxedos. After an implied church service that the audience does not see, la
festejada (celebrated girl) and her court of friends and young family members travel to a
park to take pictures with each other and her family. They then proceed in a limousine to
a rented dance hall for the food, mariachi music, a disc jockey, and dancing.

52

Magdalena’s desire for an even-more spectacular quince, one with a stretch-
Hummer limousine, plays the backdrop to the rest of the movie as she struggles with her
parents over money, the dress, and virginity. In the end, her honor salvaged, Magdalena
is granted her dream and celebrates her quince as a pregnant virgin and with her parents’
smiling approval. After another implied religious service, Magdalena’s party is started
with a waltz with her father, who then passes her to her male escort, her chambelan-de-
honor, in this case her dear cousin, for a second waltz. This second waltz is
choreographed to include her court of damas and chambelanes. After the dance show, we
see the brindis (toast) to the festejada.
The details of the quinceañera above are commonly described in the quinceañera
literature, as are many other symbols of religious maturity, female adulthood and
promised virginity. There is a symbolic changing of shoes from flats to high heels by a
quinceañera’s father, the presentation of la última muñeca (the girl’s last doll), and the
presentation of other gifts such as: a gold medal with the image of La Virgen de
Guadalupe, a missal, a ring promising commitment to the church and virginity until
marriage, and earrings representing the ability to listen to god. These and other symbols
may or may not be employed in a single celebration. As discussed below, the format for
the quinceañera is not fixed, but rather is deeply reflective of social context and social
change, as well as family circumstances and individual taste.

53

Coming of Age in the Church and in Heterosexual Relationships
The celebration’s meaning as a rite of passage is not settled, however the quince
can be understood as an important context for adolescent development (Stewart 2004).
Van Gennep’s The Rites of Passage (2004) first argued in 1909 that
The life of an individual in any society is a series of passages from one age to
another and from one occupation to another. Wherever there are fine distinctions
among age or occupational groups, progression from one group to the next is
accompanied by special acts…. (2-3)

These special acts include rituals of separation, transition, and incorporation to that
cultivate the sacred dimensions to these passages of life. Rituals of separation separate
the person from their previous world. Cleansing is a common theme in rites of separation.
Rites of transition usually occur on sacred thresholds during which the relationship to
divinity is nurtured. Rituals of incorporation ceremonialize a person’s reincorporation
into a new role or stage in life, and often include a meal. The universal structure of rites
of passage make life transitions like birth, marriage, and death, look surprisingly similar
across cultures.
Napolitano (1997) states that the quince does not exactly fit the criteria for a true
rite of passage because it is not obligatory, it is not universally practiced, and girls
become women with or without having celebrated a quince. In any case, Napolitano uses
the terminology of rites of passage and explains how the Mass does replicate the three
stages. According to this interpretation, the ritual of separation is performed as a
quinceañera is taken to the altar by her godparents and “left alone to receive the Mass”
on the day of her celebration (283). The Mass then serves as the transitional or liminal
stage, and the quinceañera begins reincorporation as she is ‘handed over’ to her

54

chambelan-de-honor (283). In this interpretation, the quince is a ritual of incorporation
into heterosexual courtship.
Napolitano’s account, however, focuses on how familial contexts shape the
meaning of the quince to be quite heterogeneous. For one family, the quince may be a
sign of respectability in the church, and control over their daughter’s sexuality. For
another, the quince might be a chance to celebrate in an ostentatious way. In the end “the
same ritual can enhance different aspects of womanhood in relation to the life-styles and
religious beliefs of girls’ families” because they might find different meaning and
emphasize different elements of the ritual (293).
Different participants in the Mass and celebration may have different opinions
about the meaning of rituals, as well. One quince legend is that a girl’s fifteenth birthday
was important because she became legally and socially eligible for marriage in Mexico
(Álvarez 2007). Therefore, the ritual is said to have performed a coming-out and a path
toward heterosexual courtship and marriage. On the other hand, the festivities begin with
a religious service of thanksgiving, and clergy are apprehensive of the quince marking a
passage into womanhood before marriage. The quince is not a recognized sacrament of
the Catholic Church, and some parishes have refused to perform quince Masses (see
below). Those who agree to perform some type of religious service in observance of what
many argue is a ceremony of popular religiosity, make efforts to define the ritual as
simply a thanksgiving, or a recommitment to God, the church, and the Virgin of
Guadalupe (Davalos 1996; Erevia 1996, 2000; Napolitano 1997) rather than as a path
toward marriage.

55

Cantú (1999) also frames the quince as a life-cycle ritual, arguing that it inducts
women into both marital and religious womanhood. Cantú does not enumerate the stages
of a rite of passage but, like Napolitano, sees the symbolic relationship between
quinceañera and chambelan-de-honor as a rite of initiation into heterosexual
relationships, and argues that the religious ceremony and symbols are rites of induction
into a female role of religious responsibility akin to marianismo (see page 80). Cantú,
while acknowledging the diversity and constantly changing nature of the quinceañera,
argues that the religious service and the waltz are the two essential elements that define a
quinceañera and the two realms of life into which she is being conducted: responsibility
for religious education and morality and the world of wifedom.
This dissertation takes these interpretations of the quince as a ritualization of
female development , regardless of its universality in practice of meaning, as indicative
of the importance of the quince to the age-group’s developmental process. Despite the
fact that not all girls in Guadalajara celebrate the ritual, it is a widely available option.
Also, they will all participate in a quince on some level, if only as guests. The quince,
therefore, plays an important role for individuals, families, and society, in constructing
ideals of womanhood. As these authors have shown, the quince plays an important role in
framing heterosexual and religious womanhood. As the ritual evolves it is also taking on
many more personal, familial, and social meanings. This dissertation’s focus on
beautification and comportment within the quince festivities brings into relief the
importance of professional makeovers and contemporary dances to youth’s experience of
the ritual and of becoming an adolescent.

56

Religious Meaning in Question
The quinceañera was historically practiced in Catholic churches, however in
recent years, with the spread of evangelical Christian denominations in Latin American
communities and the Latin American diaspora, it has also been adopted as a practice in
Protestant Christian churches as well (Stewart 2004). There are numerous reports that
religious leaders in the USA resist validating the quinceañera with their religious
services, or choose to shape the rituals in accordance with their religious view. With the
increasing Mexican- and Latino-descendent population in the US and its Catholic
parishes, the Catholic Church has been struggling over how to treat the quince.
Napolitano (1997) reports that Catholic ecclesial base communities (CEBs) in
Guadalajara also disapprove of the increasing luxury and expense of the quince, and
therefore discourage it or require celebrants attend classes and make commitments to
community service in order to share a quince Mass. As a result, however, many families
in the CEB parish that Napolitano studied celebrate their Mass in another parish.
A similar adaptation made by church leaders in the US have made is to require
preparation classes for girls, girls and parents, or girls, parents, and padrinos
(godparents). For example, a handbook for parish teams in the parish of San Antonio
prescribes ten different teaching points about womanhood and scripture for preparation of
the girls approaching their quince (Erevia 1996). Stewart (2004) reports that Sister
Erevia’s guides to the quinceañera are widely used in Chicago’s Catholic parishes. Other
parishes choose several days a year to perform group quince blessings, or will even
refuse to hold special religious services. In these cases, a celebrant can attend a Mass as

57

any churchgoer, or she can schedule a special quince Mass outside of her parish. In 2008,
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published the first Vatican-approved
prayer book, The "Order for the Blessing on the Fifteenth Birthday," to help standardize
and guide parishes to make the religious service and commitment to Catholic faith an
important part of the quince.

Syncretic Roots
The fiesta de quince años is arguably a quintessential Mexican tradition: its
“authentic,” “traditional” roots are not clear, but rather obscured by centuries of cultural
mixing including colonization, cultural exchange with the USA (Cantú 1999), and other
Latin American countries (Salcedo 1997, Álvarez 2007). The ritual reflects the facts of
cultural and ethnic mixing, forced and voluntary, that characterizes Mexican history.
Due to the religious ceremony, it is no wonder that, in a discussion of the
importance of food and drink in ritual celebrations in Mexico, Brandes (1990) refers to
the quince as “religious in origin and meaning” (174). No academic study of the fiesta de
quince años, however, offers a sure or explicit answer to where the tradition comes from
or even what its traditional form is. English-language how-to guides for celebrating the
quince are much more confident. Erevia (1996), a Sister in the order of the Missionary
Catechists of Divine Providence in Texas, writes in a guide for parishes on the religious
aspects of the ceremony that the tradition is inherited from Mayan and Aztec indigenous
rites of passage. Napolitano (1997) reports that a catechism class for quinceañeras in
Guadalajara, required in their CEB parish, invokes the fiesta de quince años as a tradition

58

that has reinvented Toltec and Aztec initiation rites, European debutant balls, and Jewish
coming-of-age ceremonies (282).
Salcedo (1997), in an event planning guide for celebrants, writes that the ritual
can be traced to various indigenous peoples of Latin America as well as the European
court customs practiced by the Duchess of Alba and the Austrian empress of Mexico,
Carlota. These stories, however, are best read as competing discourses about the meaning
and traditionality of the celebration, rather than as historical fact (Davalos 1997). Indeed,
the tradition was exclusively celebrated by the wealthy classes, having been gradually
popularized over the last half of the 20
th
century. In Guadalajara, the first public notices
of quince años being celebrated were announced in the 1940s in the social pages of local
newspapers (Napolitano 1997). As discussed in chapter three, young women usually do
not articulate deep religious or cultural meaning for the tradition, and religious leaders
and adults are anxious to guide the celebrants to find deeper religious or social meaning
in the ceremony (Napolitano 1997, Davalos 1997, Álvarez 2007).
Cantú (1999) and Álvarez (2007) both note the obvious European influence on the
event, from the Catholic service to the Viennese waltz with a court of maids and
chamberlains, but argue that there is insufficient evidence to merit an exact historical
account of the tradition. It is unclear when the ritual became popularized, to what degree,
and what its “original” form was. Despite its uncertain heritage, the practice of the
quinceañera celebration is no doubt a widespread phenomenon in Mexico, other Latin
American countries, and the Latino diaspora (Davalos 1996, Cantú 1999, Napolitano
1997, Álvarez 2007).

59

A Living Tradition
Cantú explains the historical uncertainty and the difficulty in defining a quince by
calling it “a living tradition.” In her study of the meanings and changing practices of the
quince años celebration in Laredo, Texas, USA, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico,
between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s. The quince, Cantú argues, is a living tradition
that speaks to the persistence of tradition as well as the existence of social change. Cantú
concludes that, while the ritual manifests obvious 17
th
century European influences and
suggests a deep relationship with Mexican history, even possible indigenous Aztec and
Mayan ancestors, the exact origins of the quinceañera are not verifiable.
Likewise, Davalos (1996) argues that the quince can be understood as a tradition
inasmuch as it is constructed in society as a tradition. The ritual’s tradition and
authenticity are derived from the tradition and authenticity ascribed to it by its
participants. Davalos argues, however, that claims to tradition in the quince are contested
and negotiated. Some women, for example, speak of “tradition as a living practice in
which innovation and continuity are not mutually exclusive” (1997: 154). As Davalos
argues, the uncertain history of the quince suggests that as a “tradition,” it is a social
construction, and that it is contextually defined. Davalos sees the quince “‘tradition’ as an
open and sometimes chaotic terrain that is constantly reconfigured in everyday practice”
(143). Girls, their family and clergy define what is “traditional” for a Mexican woman’s
coming-of-age ritual, but tradition and meaning is constantly constructed through
dialogue and negotiation between the parties. This study adopts these authors’

60

understanding of the quince as a socially constructed tradition that is in flux due to
competing personal, familial, and social forces.
The very idea of “tradition” is potentially problematic as it evokes twentieth
century ideas about primitive tradition giving way to modernity through a linear,
evolutionary, pattern of progress. This type of modernization thinking inspires criticism
of tradition as being backwards and exalts modernity as a superior, scientific, and moral
way of life. The notion of a “living tradition,” by contrast, does not imply that there is or
will be any type of linear development from tradition into modernity. Rather, tradition is
a concept that is socially constructed and contextually dependent. In this dissertation,
following Carrillo (2002) a tradition refers to the colloquial use of the term as “‘what was
in the past” and “what they inculcated in us’” (16). A tradition is a tradition because we
say it is and because we treat it like one, sometimes with reverence, sometimes with
distaste, and sometimes with ambivalence.

Social, Familial, Identity-forming Significance
As a living tradition, the fiesta de quince años plays an important role in the
reproduction of social and familial norms, as well as in the construction of gender and
ethnic identity. As such, the quince serves this research as a magnified snapshot of the
reproductive economy. Scholarship on quinceañeras highlights different areas of social,
familial, and individual significance to be found in the quince.
In terms of social significance, quinceañeras serve as vehicles for the social
construction of cultural norms and tradition (Davalos 1997), a realm for cultural ideals to

61

compete and combine (Davalos 1996, Cantú 1999), and as a catalyst for passing on
traditional values from the church (Davalos 1996, cf. Erevia 1996, Stewart 2004).
Davalos’ analysis of public and private discourse about the quinceañera illustrates that
“people’s explanations, descriptions, and forms of the quinceañera are embedded within
ideas about appropriate gender roles, ethnic identity, traditional culture, sexuality, class
position, and anticipated results of culture contact” (143). These discourses construct the
tradition of the fiesta de quince años, and through this what it means to be a religious,
Mexican, woman living in the USA.
According to Davalos (1996) as well as Cantú (1999), the cultural discourses
between the USA and Mexico and Mexican-descendent cultures, are often competing.
Davalos argues that the quince serves as an “anchor” between USA and Mexican
cultures, evidencing how neither is either independent or static. The use of the quince as a
“traditional” ethnic practice functions as resistance to assimilation, and at the same time
discourses justifying the quince practice based on “roots” and “rights” adopt those same
assimilative discourses (See also Pleck 2000).
Cantú similarly argues that the changing customs of the quince años, for example
in the food served, music played, religious service, and celebrant dress signify “a site of
postmodern cultural expression” in which hegemonic cultural forces are both
appropriated and resisted. The postmodern cultural environment “turns on two axis: that
of south Texas and northern Mexico and on various planes of social class.” The
intersecting cultural influences lead to a smorgasbord of options exercised in the fiestas,
including “nontraditional” foods, music, and most importantly for this study, dress.

62

The dress and accessories are “the cultural signifiers that construct the feminine in
a particular fashion,” and hegemonic cultural forces and resistance are evident in the
changes in quinceañera fashion. Cantú uses the example of the head covering that was
once obligatory in the Catholic church, and became optional in 1970. Since then, the use
of headpieces has been maintained, but now takes the form of flowers, ribbons, and other
frilly adornments. By extension, I argue that, since “the objects worn and received by the
young honoree signify female adulthood,” changing quinceañera fashions are an
excellent place to see changing ideas about female adulthood.
At the family/community level, the quinceañera is a medium for the
communication of values between parents, padrinos, and extended family to their
daughters (Stewart 2004, Álvarez 2007), an arena for contestation and redefinition of
family roles and norms (Davalos 1997, Stewart 2004), a way to deal with fears and hopes
surrounding life’s struggles (Stewart 2004), and a ritual for consolidating a sense of
ethnic and community membership (Cantú 1999, Stewart 2004, Álvarez 2007).
Quinceañeras offer many chances for families to communicate their values to
daughters. According to Davalos, family discourses revolve around ethnic roots, cultural
heritage, the dress, guest lists, the program, or alternative ways of celebrating the
quinceañera
9
. Such discourse may arise at numerous points in the enactment of the
quinceañera. The birthday-girl and her family may prepare for years prior to the event,
securing padrinos (in this case patrons or sponsors) if financial support is needed,

9
Davalos reports that families consider a trip to Mexico or an automobile purchase as
alternatives to the fiesta. In Mexico, a trip to Europe, the US, South or Central America is
common, especially among the more educated classes.

63

investing in livestock for food for the party, saving money for the festivities and the girl’s
elaborate dress, arranging a religious service with their father or pastor, planning a fiesta
that many, quite fairly, compare to a wedding party without a groom, attending church
retreats and seminars preparing her for the ceremony, and finally enacting a day of events
that involves hundreds of family and community participants. Families, and particularly
mothers, use these opportunities to offer advice on how to practice the tradition and how
to be a young woman (Davalos 1996, Stewart 2004, Álvarez 2007).
The quinceañera becomes a particularly important arena for contestation and
redefinition of family roles and norms as young girls are given more liberty. Girls
typically are granted more freedom in dress, the right to wear make-up, and liberty to
date young men after their fifteenth birthday. At the same time, the quince is an
opportunity for clergy, parents, and parent-figures to counsel girls in cultural, religious
and family norms. A prominent theme for family members and clergy is to encourage
girls to guard their sexuality, avoid pregnancy, and remain chaste señoritas (Stewart
2004). Likewise, it is an opportunity for families and communities to revisit familial and
cultural traditions, passing on what they see to be the values of their traditions. Parents in
particular participate heavily in the process of passing on and sometimes revising
traditional values in order to correct for what they see as their own or their parents’
failures. For example, the mother-daughter relationship is of particular importance during
the process of planning and executing the quinceañera. A parent who herself became a
mother in her teens may see the quinceañera as an opportunity to lead her daughter in a
different direction (Stewart 2004).

64

Stewart (2004) argues that families use the quinceañera as an opportunity to work
through some of its own issues regarding life’s struggles. In her study of quinceañeras in
Chicago, Stewart found that Latinas and their immigrant families faced many
developmental challenges and anxieties: poverty, unplanned pregnancies, gangs, family
conflicts, and educational opportunities or lack thereof, to name a few (398). Fears of
unwed or teenage pregnancy are a consistent theme for the girls, their family members,
and clergy. Stewart finds that the challenging cultural context plays a very important role
in the production and meaning of the quinceañeras, and that given the struggles and
anxieties of adolescent development and familial success, the quinceañera ends up
functioning as “a sort of talisman against such tragedies and a symbol of hope for a
different, better future” (399). To take the example of unplanned pregnancies, the
ceremony becomes a talisman as it is constructed around her supposed virginity, her
promise to remain so until marriage, and her future as filled with promise. Likewise, in
the face of poverty and financial insecurity, the elegant and expensive celebration
functions as a temporary escape from anxieties and a symbol of the possibility of the
future.
Álvarez (2007), writing a rich account of the contemporary milieu of quince años
celebrations in the USA, interwoven with autobiography of her own adolescence and
reflections on the challenges of coming of age in a bicultural environment, argues that the
quinceañera is an opportunity for families/communities to come together in mentoring
young women. Álvarez, like other authors, questions the benefit of practicing the
“princess-in-the-patriarchy fantasy” aspects of the quinceañera (227) but comes to

65

conclude that the ritual can play, and certainly has the potential to play, a positive
socializing role in young girls’ transition to adulthood. For Álvarez, the coming together
of older female relatives, friends, and even quinceañera event organizers, is an important
opportunity to affirm a teenage girl and to pass on wisdom that she might need in her
transition to adulthood, especially when many of the older women in her family remain in
her country of origin or struggle in offering guidance in an unfamiliar country and
culture.
Finally, the quinceañera plays a role in consolidating a family’s sense of ethnic,
community and class membership. Davalos (1996) sees the construction of the
quinceañera as the construction of a sense of ethnic identity. Cantú (1999) argues that
“cultural displays such as the quinceañera serve as affirmations of ethnic identity and of
resistance to outside cultural forces.” Stewart (2004) describes the quinceañera as a
developmental process for not only the birthday-girls but for the whole family, which
leads families as well as girls to seek a sense of ethnic continuity with their cultures of
origin. Likewise, it is a dramatic statement of success and of having “made it” in their
adoptive community. Álvarez (2007) notes that the party, in some cases, is more about
parents displaying their success than it is about the daughter’s coming-of-age.
On the individual level, the quinceañera is a context for ethnic and gender identity
development (Davalos 1996, Stewart 2004, Álvarez 2007), religious socialization
(Davalos 1996, Cantú 1999), and adolescent psychological development (Stewart 2004).
Scholarship based on the practice of celebrating quinceañeras in the USA argues that it
plays an increasingly important role for immigrants in negotiating bicultural identities or

66

connecting with cultural origins (Davalos 1996, Stewart 2004; Rodriguez 2005; Alvarez
2007). Davalos (1996) argues that the quinceañera is constructed through personal,
familial and public discourses as a way for a girl to “become” a Mexican, Catholic,
woman. Stewart (2004) and Álvarez (2007) argue that the quinceañera provides a context
or an opportunity to connect with family history, cultural customs, and a sense of
belonging to an ethnic community.
The “archaic,” “fairy-tale,” (Stewart 2004) “fantasy,” “princess” (Alvarez 2007)
femininity that dominates the attire, adornment, and orchestration of the celebration is
called into question by most authors. Still, all authors find value in studying the
quinceañera as a key to understanding Mexican or Latina womanhood, and also find
value in the ritual itself.
Davalos (1997) argues that the important function of the celebration is to
negotiate cultural and religious ideals and standards of femininity, and leaves critique of
the types of femininity produced in the ritual up in the air. For one woman, in recalling
her quinceañera she saw is as an awakening to her womanhood and her sexuality that
included the ability to wear make-up and attract the opposite sex (Davalos 2003).
Arguing that the quinceañera is a context for adolescent developmental tasks,
Stewart sees it as an opportunity for adolescent women to develop their identities as
young women, relationships with family and peers, and relationship with their culture of
origin or bicultural social environments. For example, the quinceañera becomes a vehicle
for a girl to develop her own vision of her special day at the same time as developing her

67

familial and community relationships through collaborating with family, peers, and party
sponsors or padrinos.
Another central observation that Stewart (2004) makes is that the quinceañera in
Chicago presents an opportunity to develop femininity in a complex way. Stewart
describes a sugar-sweet femininity based on fairy-tales that dominates the quinceañera
process, but finds that it is only one aspect of femininity that is under construction in the
participants’ life. In addition to the hyper-feminine model of womanhood, participants
are developing skills through their involvement in event organizing, including financial
planning, managing dance practices, balancing responsibilities with schoolwork, multi-
tasking, and developing mature relationships with family, community, and friends.
Stewart identifies these skill sets as promoting a more modern model of womanhood that
exercises agency and autonomy.

Research Setting
I chose to study the global political economy of beauty through the quince, in
Guadalajara, for a variety of reasons, including the ritual’s uniqueness and the city and
country’s high degree of integration into both the global economy and national culture.
The tradition of the quince serves as a good point of entry for researching Mexican
beauty ideals because it is a slice of life in which the construction of the ideal Mexican
woman is central. In addition, the quince’s association with Mexican tradition makes it an
ideal site for studying the change in “traditional” beauty ideals and practices of girls and
women.

68

Research on the quince in Mexico seemed natural because, although of uncertain
heritage, it is said to have originated in Mexico. Aside from its provenance, the quince is
considered a Mexican tradition, and Mexican-Americans practice it as a way of affirming
or constructing their Mexican identity. Increasingly popular, it is now practiced by
Mexico’s two major religious denominations, Catholics and Protestant Christians.
10
And
yet, there is little research on the quince in Mexico. Of the little available scholarship in
the quince in Mexico, one chapter was dedicated to the quince in a working-class
neighborhood of Guadalajara (Napolitano 1997).
In terms of studying global political economy and the transformation of traditional
gender norms, Guadalajara is also an appropriate research location. Mexico is highly
integrated into the global economy and into transnational migration flows, and yet it
retains strong currents of national and local cultural identities. Guadalajara is both central
to the country’s integration into the global economy and its efforts at national culture and
identity preservation. This medium-sized city proved to be a fitting research location
because it rests at the intersection of urbanization, globalization, national identity and
conservative social tradition.
The Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone (ZMG) is made up of eight municipalities.
The six central municipalities are Guadalajara, Zapopan, Tlaquepaque, Tonolá, El Salto
and Tlajomulco de Zuñiga. Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos and Juanacatlán are not
considered central to the ZMG, but the outlying areas are where the most population

10
Protestant Christianity is increasing its membership, however it remains a relatively
small proportion of the population. The 2000 census counted 7.3% of the national
population as Protestant, and the state of Jalisco reported 2.9% (Dow 2005: 830).

69

growth is occurring (Secretaría de Desarollo Social 2007: 32). There were over 1.5
million inhabitants in Guadalajara in the 2005 population count, and 4.1 million in the
ZMG (INEGI 2007). As the second-largest metropolitan zone in Mexico, it is
representative of medium-size urban environments. Mexico City, by contrast, is
competing for first place as one of the world’s most populated cities. The 2005
population count estimated the Valley of Mexico’s population at 19.2 million (INEGI
2007). As a mega-city (Castells 2000), I decided that Mexico City would be too much of
a special case, and too globalized, and therefore less expressive of local economies and
social change in Mexico. In 2005, 56 metropolitan zones in Mexico counted 57.9 million,
or 56% of the country’s population. The largest metropolitan zones, with over 1 million
inhabitants, include the Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla-Tlaxcala,
Toluca, Tijuana, León, Juarez and La Laguna. These nine metropolitan zones account for
36.6 million, or 35.4% of the national population (Secretaría de Desarollo Social et al
2007: 31). The next eighteen largest metropolitan zones, with between 500,000 and 1
million inhabitants, account for 13.5 million, or 13% of national population, and are the
zones where the most population growth is occurring (Secretaría de Desarollo Social et al
2007: 31-32).
Guadalajara also reflects Mexico’s integration into regional and global economies.
The ZMG has been an important part of the regional, national, and increasingly global
economy. Guadalajara has been the economic hub for Central-Western Mexico since its
foundation. In the twentieth century, Guadalajara and its surrounding region played a key
role in the national economy during the period of time that the Mexican economy was

70

relatively closed to the global economy. With the liberalization of the Mexican economy
in the 1980s, the Central-Western region has played an important role in attracting
foreign investment and engaging in international trade. Since the turn of the twentieth
century, the city has attracted increasingly high levels of rural-to-urban migration,
particularly from the surrounding region but also nationally. Up until 1930, and once
again after World War II, the region has been deeply integrated into transnational flows
of labor migration and return from the US. The city and the region, therefore, have
followed the national trajectory toward global economic integration and have been
central to the transnational flows of people which link Mexico with the United States.
After World War II and through the mid-1970s, Guadalajara was central to
Mexico’s rapid industrialization and relatively closed economy. During this period,
Mexico nationalized the oil industry and initiated the import-substitution industrialization
(ISI) model of economic growth. ISI is a state-led model of economic growth based on
substituting locally manufactured goods for imported ones. Policies aimed at protecting
national industries and reducing imports included two currency devaluations and three
tariff increases between 1949 and 1968 (Chant 1991: 32). National policies also included
price supports and subsidies to manufacturers. Due to ISI, until the end of the 1970s,
Guadalajara industrial activity was based in manufacture of basic goods and consumer
goods for local and national consumption. Likewise, consumption was filled by national
production. Clothing, shoes, and processed foods were the industry’s staples. Production
was fed by primary goods produced in the Central-Western region, which in turn served
as a market for the manufactured goods (Pozos 2004: 152).

71

Export-oriented growth was a second development initiative. Beginning in the
1960s, Mexico promoted export-oriented industrialization and agriculture. The institution
of the Frontier Industrialization Program in 1965 established an export-processing zone
along the US-Mexico border, where maquiladora or in-bond factories assembled
manufactured inputs and exported them back to the US market. In agriculture, cash crop
development was promoted over subsistence farming.
Through the mid-1970s, ISI was successful at propelling economic growth,
although income polarization remained problematic. In the end, however, ISI as a model
for economic growth was unsustainable. The industries were not efficient or competitive
enough, and they did not generate sufficient employment (Chant 1991). Modern and
export-oriented agriculture also employed fewer workers.
In order to prop up economic growth, Mexican leadership began to borrow
heavily from international financial institutions in the late 1970s to make up the
difference, banking on the discovery of new oil reserves to guarantee industrial progress.
What was called “indebted industrialization” (Frieden 1981) became equally
unsustainable. Particularly because of successive drops in world oil prices in the early
1980s, oil was not the economic guarantee that was hoped for and needed.
No longer able to pay back over $80 billion in loans, Mexico sought refinancing
from the International Monetary (IMF) in 1981. The IMF refinanced loans, and applied
conditions on the new loan terms: structural adjustments. The Mexican structural
adjustment program (SAP) called for general reductions in state expenditures, which
included ending subsidies to industrialists and effectively ending ISI, and cutting public

72

sector employment. The social impacts of the SAP have been extensively documented,
and were particularly difficult on women’s livelihoods (Gonzalez de la Rocha 1986,
Benería and Roldán 1987, Chant 1991, Benería 1991).
The Miguel de la Madrid and Carlos Salinas de Gortari governments (1982-1994)
implemented the IMF SAP and pushed the neoliberal agenda forward. In 1986, Mexico
became a member of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1991, the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada
passed, and it went into effect in 1994. Together, the IMF structural adjustment plan and
the market-minded Madrid and Salinas de Gortari governments started the country on its
path toward neoliberal economic policy and integration into the global economy on a
large scale.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, due to structural adjustments and the 1994-1995
monetary devaluations, small and medium size businesses suffered tremendously (Durán
and Pozos 1995). As the Mexican economy entered into crisis, informal work increased
in importance (Escobar Latapí 1988). Women’s participation in paid employment picked
up, beginning in the 1970s (Durán and Pozos 1995: 89) and increasing though the 1980s
(Pedrero 1990, Escobar Latapí 2000 cited in Chant and Craske 2003). Women’s wage
labor could not make up the difference in lost male wages and government subsidies, and
so women pursued other household strategies and informal market activity in order to
make up the gaps. The adjustments made in households, largely by women, are credited
with increasing reproductive labor. Public employment and social services were also
curtailed (Anastasakos 2002). Many of the burdens of adjustment fell on households,

73

where mostly women picked up the extra work (Benería and Roldan 1997, Chant 1991,
Gonzalez de la Rocha 1994). Despite women’s increased participation in paid and unpaid
labor, however, there was a concomitant increase in income polarization according to
class and gender, meaning that women made fewer relative gains during the 1980s and
1990s (Escobar Latapí 2000 cited in Chant and Craske 2003: 214).
The shift from ISI to neoliberal development entailed a high level of openness to
foreign competition and foreign investment. Foreign competitiveness meant that the local
economy shifted from locally-owned manufacture of consumer goods to importation and
distribution of consumer goods and to an increase in foreign-owned manufacturing
(Pozos 2004). Foreign investment in manufacturing has increased in particular the role of
Guadalajara in manufacturing and service support for technology companies, leading
many to hope that Guadalajara will become the Silicon Valley of Mexico (Barba and
Pozos 2001, Gallagher and Zarsky 2007).
The transition from manufacturing to distribution and sales has been felt very
strongly in the clothing and shoes sectors. The fashion clothing industry is illustrative of
these changes. Due to the shifts in the manufacturing sector and increases in imports, the
1980s-1990s saw an increase in commercial sector activity, especially in retail sales and
distribution through tianguis (flea markets) and in plazas (commercial malls and plazas).
Between 1980 and 1992, 60 new plazas were built in the city. The street shopping
districts of Álvaro Obregon, Medrano, and Esteban Alatorre were developed as
commercial clothing districts (Duran and Pozos 1995: 88). In the 1990s, another 40
plazas were built (Pozos 2004). In addition to the plazas and clothing districts, the growth

74

of supermarkets and hypermarkets in the 1990s - Wal-Mart, Aurrora, Soriana, Gigante,
Comercial Mexicana and Chedraui –added to an increase in overall commercial activity
and a decrease in small and medium-sized businesses (Pozos 2004:144).
At the same time, informal commercial activity, especially in tianguis, continued
to proliferate. Tianguis vendors sold more and more imported products, especially in the
clothing market. Many vendors import clothes themselves, from Los Angeles, and sell
them in the East side of the city in Medrano and Álvaro Obregon. These clothing zones
have since become central to regional distribution, as wholesalers came to buy and resell
in their cities (Mendoza, Pozos, Spener 2002). Guadalajara is now a regional hub for
imports and distribution of clothing. On the other hand, manufacturing, especially small
manufacturers and workshops in shoes and clothing, decreased significantly throughout
the 1980s and 1990s leaving many people unemployed, working in the informal
economy, or moving to the retail and distribution sector (Escobar Latapí 1988, Hernández
2006).
In sum, post-World War II economic development in Mexico has seen two
distinct phases. From 1940 to the mid-1970s, state-led modernization, nationalization,
and ISI created a relatively hermetic national economy. From the late 1970s onward,
Mexico has lurched into the global economy, becoming a major borrower of international
finance, undergoing neoliberal policy transformation, and entering into free trade
agreements. The open economy has transformed the employment, production, and
consumption landscape in Guadalajara, making it a local and regional hub for distribution
of locally-, nationally- and internationally-produced and marketed consumer goods.

75

Mexico’s integration into the global economy cannot be understood without at
least cursory reference to its colonization and formation as a nation-state.
11
Colonization
brought the future territory of Mexico definitively into the global economy for the first
time, a process that only intensified in the last half of the twentieth century. The conquest
of the Aztec and Maya empires in the territory of what is now called Mexico began in
1519, and established a three-century colonial system of forced labor and tribute to
Spanish conquerors and settlers (peninsulares, being from the Spanish peninisula) and
their descendents (criollos or Creoles, the term used to identify people of Spanish descent
born in the Americas).
The Catholic Church was also central to the colonization process, as Catholic
missionaries were charged with the conversion and civilization of the supposedly
barbaric peoples of the territory, beginning centuries of Catholic Church patronage of the
indigenous and later mestizo and mulatto (ethnically and/or racially mixed) populations.
Spanish peninsulares, Mexican-born Spanish criollos and later mestizos, their numbers
growing, took possession of more and more agricultural land, resulting in a feudal system
of landlords and forced laborers and tribute-payers that, by the end of the eighteenth
century, had created a sizeable landed and wealthy class. The monopoly of land by the
wealthy created a system of vast income polarization between Spanish or European
descendents and indigenous and African descendents.
In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Spain and overturned the Spanish
monarchy, upending the established system of authority and order in Mexico. By this

11
The following historical survey relies heavily on Joseph and Henderson 2002 and
González 1974.

76

time, there was a sizeable class of peninsular and criollo Liberals who wanted to create a
republic of Mexico. Spanish conservatives, on the other hand, supported the status quo.
The struggle for independence began, and although it was not formally achieved until
1821, Mexican Independence Day is celebrated on September 16, the day in 1810 that
Father Miguel Hidalgo, a priest from Dolores, Guanajuato, declared revolution (Joseph
and Henderson 2002).
Liberals and Conservatives continued to struggle for authority in Mexico until
Liberals established a durable hold on power in 1854. The Liberal reform period focused
on land reforms, with the stated aim of reversing the consolidation of land among the
wealthy, modernizing Mexican agriculture and winning the support of the populace. To
the contrary, land reforms helped to further concentrate land in the hands of the
landholding wealthy, largely criollos (Joseph and Henderson 2002: 239-262).
For a brief period, French Emperor Napoleon III occupied Mexico and, with the
help of Conservatives, installed Maximilian, the Hapsburg Archduke of Austria, as
Emperor of Mexico. Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta reigned for three years
from 1864-1967. The Emperor and Empress, dependent on French armies to secure their
power, fell to the Liberals when Napoleon began to withdraw his troops, but their reign
left an indelible mark on the culture of Mexico, as can be seen in references to the
Empress and her ladies-in-waiting as a possible role model for the celebration of the
fiesta de quince años and the use of suits for chambelanes.
Following Maximilian’s brief reign, Liberals returned to power, but not to peace.
In the 1870s, Porfirio Díaz led armed revolts against the incumbent presidents and

77

campaigned for a policy of “no reelection.” Finally successful in the defeat of the
government forces, Díaz was elected in 1876 with promises of democracy and a single-
term policy, but instead consolidated the authoritarian, centralist government and
maintained policies that favored the wealthy until 1910, when his refusal to allow a
democratic change of power erupted in the Mexican Revolution of 1910 (Joseph and
Henderson 2002, Krauze 1998).
The violent Revolution that began in 1910 resulted in a quick succession of
presidents and ruling revolutionary factions, a new constitution in 1917, and the slow
consolidation of a strong state-led democracy with power concentrated in the presidency
as executor and the ruling party as agenda-setter (Huntington 1968). The national party,
National Revolutionary Party (PNR), was founded in 1929 by Plutarco Elias Calles. The
PNR was established to create an institution that would incorporate “regional and special
interest parties” (Hellman 1988: 30), remove military combat from the political process,
and still consolidate the power of revolutionary leaders. This new party structure helped
to stabilize state politics by incorporating and managing competing political interests
within a unified party (Huntington 1968). The PNR was renamed the Mexican
Revolutionary Party (PRM) in 1938, at which time President Lázaro Cárdenas
restructured interest group participation along sectoral, rather than regional lines, and
solidified the corporatist nature of the state. Cárdenas formally incorporated labor,
peasant, and professional sector representation in the party (Hellman 1988). The military
sector won a seat at the party table between 1938 and 1941, but military political
participation was on the wane and this was a final stage in military cooptation and

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removal from the political process (Huntington 1968). In 1946 the party was renamed the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which dominated presidential and high office
politics until 2000, the first year an opposition party candidate was elected to the
presidency.
The anticlericalism of the revolution and the 1917 Constitution was perhaps the
most controversial element of the new state, and was opposed by political and social
conservatives. Conservative opposition was most vehement during periods of armed
insurrection and resistance in the 1930s and centered in the states of Michoacán,
Zacatecas and Jalisco. These insurrections, now called the Cristero Wars (1926-1929 and
1932-1933), reflect and contributed to the particularly strong social and political
conservativism in the Central-Western region surrounding Guadalajara.
In spite of this continued instability into the 1930s, the strong ruling party, the
removal of military from governance structures, the powerful yet single-term presidency,
popular social reforms, and the promotion of national pride in the revolutionary period
led to a stable authoritarian state (Huntington 1968: 315-324, Hellman 1988). At the
same time, the revolutionary promises to workers and peasants were not well-realized
because the middle-class sectors dominated political processes and because party power
was carefully managed among elite networks. Political access and economic privilege
remained concentrated in the hands of few and shaped the country’s economic
development in a way that only increased that polarization (Hellman 1988).
In 2000, the main opposition party, the conservative Partido Acción Nacional
(PAN), won the election for the Mexican Presidency, breaking 71 years of national party

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rule at the national level, and raising the hopes of many for deeper democratization in
Mexico. Alas, by 2006, the year that this study began, the optimism created by the Fox
presidency had been tempered by the slow and ineffective rate of political change. The
2006 presidential election was won by another PANista, Felipe Calderón, although his
win raised significant questions as to electoral legitimacy.
In sum, Mexican political development in the twentieth century was both
revolutionary and status quo. The revolution was the establishment of a strong state party
and presidential system that took political succession out of the battlefield and established
long-term stability. This provided the context necessary for the post-war statist
development model, its eventual demise (Rubio and Newell 1985), and the subsequent
liberalization of the economy. On the other hand, the status quo of elite-run politics,
corruption, and the concomitant income polarization were not overcome, either during
the more populist or more liberal years. Many argue that liberalization in the 1980s
actually deepened income and social inequalities (see also chapter four).

National Identity, Ethnicity, and Race in Guadalajara
National identity, ethnicity and race in the ZMG is complex and does not lend
itself to brief summaries, however some general comments can lend some context to the
present study. I use Anderson’s (1983: 6) conceptualization of national identity as the
identification with an “imagined political community” and therefore as socially
constructed through mass communication and discourses about the nation as a

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community. I use Wade’s (1997) conceptualization of race as a social categorization built
on phenotypical cues which are themselves historical constructions. That is,
…the physical differences that have become cues for racial distinctions are quite
particular ones: not just ones that show some recognizable continuity over
generations (perhaps height, weight, hair colour, etc.), but ones that correspond to
the geographical encounters of Europeans in their colonial histories. It is specific
combinations of skin colour, hair type, and facial features that have been worked
into racial signifiers (15).

Thus, race does not refer to objective reality of biological differences or phenotypes, but
rather social categories of difference. Therefore, race refers not to biological phenotypical
difference, but to certain sets of phenotypical markers, as well as bodily modifications
such as clothing, that have emerged as racial signifiers. In Mexico as in Latin America,
racialization, the process of signifying phenotypical cues, has been built on “a European
history of thinking about difference” based on skin color, hair color, eye color facial
features, and clothing (Wade 1997: 15). The “Indian” as a racial category thus is not the
result of biological destiny, but rather of the colonial encounter (Wade 1997: 37).
Ethnicity, on the other hand, refers to the social construction of cultural
difference, typically tied to a shared cultural place (Wade 1997: 17). It may or may not
overlap with national identity and/or racialization. In addition, ethnic belonging can be
multiple, depending on the level of identification and the social context. Again, clothing
and dress are important signifiers of ethnic difference.
Carrillo (2002) identifies two currents of national identity construction in the
twentieth century: leftist romanticism toward pre-Columbian roots and conservative
exaltation of European roots. Romanticism toward pre-Columbian cultures was promoted
by the PRI government and leftist intellectuals (Carrillo 2002: 21) as well as youth

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countercultures beginning in the 1960s (Zolov 1999). This current of nationalism was
used to construct a new, popular, sense of national identity based on authentic
Mexicanness defined as indigenous heritage and the rejection of colonial powers,
including Europe and the US. Intellectuals and politicians at the turn of the twentieth
century expressed these ideals through rejecting earlier social Darwinism and invoking
mestizaje, ethnic and racial mixing, as central to the creation of a national identity.
During the Porfiriato, social Darwinists “promoted the whitening of the [Mexican]
population through European immigration and colonization and uplifting Indians through
civic assimilation and education” (Stern 2003:189). They considered Indian populations
to be backwards and “interracial” mixing between Indians and Spanish descendents to be
leading to the degeneration of the Mexican population. They therefore sought to whiten
the population through encouraging immigration from Europe.
Revolutionary intellectuals, then, turned social Darwinism on its head and
proclaimed the mestizo as the future of Mexico, and even the future of the world as the
“cosmic race” (Vasconcelos 2002). Vasconcelos and his contemporaries used a biological
concept of race to argue that a new race of mestizos would supersede all previous races
by combining all of their strengths. The idea of an ideal mestizo used a biological concept
of racial mixing as the basis for ethnic cohesion and to promote a new basis for national
identity. Mestizaje was hoped to amalgamate racial phenotypes and bring together “a
happy synthesis, the elements of beauty, that are today scattered in distinct peoples”
(Vasconcelos, 1925 cited in Stern 2003: 191). The concept of mestizaje also made it
possible for Indians to “pass” out of their ethnic identity and into a larger national mestizo

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identity by changing the way they dressed to match emerging national and transnational
codes of dress (Wilson 2007). Still, as has been widely noted, the concept of racial
mixing as a way to construct and improve a Mexican race, ethnicity and national identity,
was thinly veiled and sometimes explicit attempt to whiten the Mexican population
(Wade 1997, Stern 2003, Rénique 2003). Therefore, mestizaje did not undo Darwinist
notions of racial uniqueness, superiority, and biological improvement. Racism, for
example anti-Chinese sentiment, remained a strong political force in post-revolutionary
nation-building (Rénique 2003).
Guadalajara has also historically fostered and maintained a strong sense of
conservative Mexican national identity. Conservative nationalism has promulgated the
idea that true Mexicanness is based on the Catholic values of the distinguished European
oligarchy. Historically, and reinforced by the rush of rural migrants during the Cristero
Wars, Guadalajara has been a stronghold of religious conservatism. During the Cristero
Wars, religious rural migrants from nearby villages in the region known as Los Altos
escaped to the city for protection (Martinez Casas y de la Peña 2004: 233). Guadalajara
has remained a bastion for cultural and political conservativism. The center-right
opposition party, the PAN, grew in popularity in Guadalajara and Jalisco years before it
did nationally, electing exclusively PAN representatives to the mayoralty and state
governorship since 1995 (Alonso 2003). Guadalajara and the Central-Western region
have also been the most resistant to conversion to Protestant denominations, falling
significantly behind national averages for conversion (Dow 2005).

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And, of course, Guadalajara is popularly known as the city with the most beautiful
women because of their association with European phenotypical inheritance. Some in
Guadalajara will say that there are even more beautiful women in the villages of Los
Altos, where the French inheritance is even stronger. But the general sentiment is that the
women of Guadalajara share the pale skin, lighter hair, large and light eyes, and
European figures that give the area its fame for beautiful women based on what are
perceived as European-Mexican phenotypes.

Historical Gender Ideals
Recalling that fashion is a process of social identification and differentiation,
ideals of women’s beauty and fashion is always socially constructed based on social
context, and also always indicates difference. There are no authentic, traditional costumes
that purely represent ethnicity (Borland 1996), nationality (Cohen et. al. 1996), or sexual
orientation (Higgins 1998). The process of using fashion to create social identification
and differentiation is part of the process that creates authenticity as a social construct.
Authenticity is not prior to the fashion process, but rather a result of it. Therefore,
particularly in a post-colonial context like Mexico, there is no set of authentic local
ideals, but rather historic trends shaped by previous social context and innovation.
Historical gender ideals in Mexico are not easily or simply described because they cannot
be understood without an understanding and acknowledgement of diverse and competing
identities and interests. Still, the following discussion warrants some summary notes that

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can be used as a basis for understanding the role of gender in shaping Mexican ideals of
beauty in the quince, and vice versa.
Gender ideals in Mexico, both contemporary and historical, have been influenced
significantly by the colonial legacy. Authors have linked the two dominant archetypes of
Mexican women, la malinche and la virgen to the colonial legacy which introduced
European patriarchy as well as Christianity (Leal 1983, Arrizón 1999). La Malinche was
the indigenous mistress of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés, and her memory is
invoked as a self-interested, traitorous, raped, unpure, woman (Paz 1950). The archetype
of La Virgen de Guadalupe, on the other hand is that of a maternal ideal, pure, virginal,
“suffering, humble, and passive” (Leal 1983: 232). The revered ideal of the Virgen de
Guadalupe helps explain the cultural ideals of femininity such as motherhood and
chastity in Mexico.
In 1973, Evelyn Stevens articulated the Mexican ideal for womanhood as guided
by marianismo, “the cult of feminine spiritual superiority, which teaches that women are
semi-divine, morally superior to and spiritually stronger than men” (91) as the female
counterpart to machismo, a cult of virility for men. Marianismo is based on reverence for
the Virgin Mary (María). Stevens argued that marianismo is equally prevalent, although
less well recognized and understood than machismo. Indeed, machismo has become
global shorthand for excessive patriarchalism in men (Guttmann 2007). Marianismo
includes
…near universal agreement on what a ‘real woman’ is like and how she should
act. Among the characteristics of this ideal are semidivinity, moral superiority,
and spiritual strength. The spiritual strength engenders abnegation, that is, an

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infinite capacity for humility and sacrifice. No self-denial is too great for the Latin
American woman… (94).

The cult of marianismo suggests that feminine virtue in Mexico is measured in self-
denial, commitment to the family, and spirituality. Since Stevens’ articulation of
marianismo as the ideal of Mexican womanhood, much more research has been
conducted on Mexican women’s roles in society and households, showing that women do
indeed perform feminine virtue through self-sacrifice and prioritizing their family’s needs
before their own; marianismo translates into women’s assumption of responsibilities as
reproductive workers, educators, and transmitters of culture (Bellón 1994, González de la
Rocha 1996, Craske 1999).
Machismo, on the other hand, has long been considered the archetype or
hegemonic ideal for Mexican manhood. According to Chant and Craske (2003),
…the forging of asymmetrical sexualities in men and women starts early in Latin
America. Long before puberty, girls in many parts of the region are controlled,
kept within or close to the home in their play, encouraged to be demure and
deferential, and to build up a solid repertoire of domestic skills. Boys, on the other
hand, are allowed greater spatial and social freedoms, and receive positive
endorsement of aggressive and ostentatious behaviour…, that would meet with
serious disapproval among their female counterparts (144).

Differential gender socialization is especially important for youth because these patterns
are reinforced closer to puberty (Chant and Craske 2003: 144).
Based on the differential treatment and socialization of boys and girls and
Mexico’s violent revolutionary history has emerged the concept of the macho as the ideal
of masculinity in Mexico. Octavio Paz (1950) perhaps most famously argued that “the

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essential attribute of the macho
12
– power – almost always reveals itself as a capacity for
wounding, humiliating, annihilating” (Paz 1950: 23).
Subsequently, scholars have challenged the idea that the macho is the only or
most important ideal of Mexican masculinity. Rubenstein (2002) argues that Mexicans
also appreciate another ideal of masculinity, the counter-macho. According to
Rubenstein, “El Santo,” the iconographic wrestling actor from 1940s to the 1980s,
“personifies a particular image of the good Mexican man: the virtuous man, in stereotype,
as the opposite and twin of the stereotypical Mexican macho. “ (576). In contrast to the
macho, the counter-macho is self-controlled, orderly, celibate or monogamous, nurturing,
sober, and humble. Both are patriotic, adored, powerful. But they share some
characteristics, such as being loved, powerful, highly sexual, patriotic. His power comes
more from “quiet commands and self discipline” (576) and he does not fall to the
temptation of his many admirers. El Santo embodies the counter-macho.
Rubenstein suggests that the counter-macho ideal of masculinity may be in
decline, however Guttmann (2007) argues that material and social changes in the last half
of the twentieth century in Mexico is resulting in the emergence multiple Mexican
masculinities, and that the macho stereotype is outdated (Guttmann 2007).
Scholarship on historical ideals of beauty in Mexico also reflects the influence of
colonialism and religion. Cyntia Montero Recoder (2008) describes 19
th
century ideals of
feminine beauty as based on physical aspects and comportment. Tied to expectation of
marrying and becoming a mother, women were considered beautiful when they embodied

12
A macho refers to an animal of the male sex, as opposed to an hembra.

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characteristics of youth, prudence, modesty, seduction, decency, moderation,
truthfulness, sweetness, humility, grace, virtue, quietness, and pleasantness. Highly
prized physical features included delicate and skillful hands, small feet, thin waist
(Recoder 2008), pale skin, light eyes, light and wavy hair (Santamaria 1997, Carrillo
2002). Woman’s beauty is also seen as closely tied to “nature” (Santamaria 1997). In
post-colonial Mexico at least until the 1910 revolution, European fashions were markers
of higher social status (Randall 2005). Since the 1960s, US influence in media and in the
beauty and fashion industries has increased relative to European market share, although
European names, celebrities, and sources of information remain highly valued in popular
fashion and gossip magazines.

Methodology and Methods
I approach this research project using the extended case method or ‘global
ethnography’ (Burawoy 1991, Burawoy et al 2000), which lends itself to studying
globalization from the ground-up. The extended case method entails the researcher
extending into the world of participants, extending from the lives of participants into their
sociohistorical context, and extending existing theory, using ethnographic field methods.
What differentiates it most from other methods of ethnography is that it prescribes
“extending out from micro processes to macro forces” and the “extension of theory.”
The element of extension from micro processes into the macro context operates on the
premise that micro processes are situated among broader socio-historical forces, and
requires that the researcher put ethnographic observations within that socio-historical

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context. Extension of theory is achieved through using, challenging, and refining existing
theory with ethnographic data.
According to Burawoy, since globalization entails changes in relationships
between people, time and space, and ethnography is the study of people in their time and
space, “[t]he ethnographer has…a privileged insight into the lived experience of
globalization” (Burawoy et al 2000: 4). For a feminist analysis of globalization from the
margins, and one that is particularly interested in corporeal politics, the extended case
method has the advantage of focusing on lived experience, while also highlighting the
reciprocal construction of lived experience and larger social forces (Burawoy 1991: 6).
The extended case study is also useful as a method of testing existing theory
through what Burawoy calls extension of existing theory. As Burawoy argues, ‘our intent
is not to reject bad theories but to improve good theories” (1991: 7). Neither is the intent
to develop theory by the researcher entering the field as a blank slate, as is the case with
grounded theory. Therefore, the researcher enters the field with a theoretical framework
that has reason to be tested and, through failure, dialogue with other academic literatures,
and reconstruction, theory is refined.
This method is also useful for bridging hermeneutic and scientific aspects of
social science. Through reliance on participant observation, Burawoy argues,
“understanding is achieved by virtual or actual participation in social situations, real or
constructed through dialogue between participant and observer” (Burawoy 1991: 3). In
addition, explanation is achieved through the observer’s use of theory and data to
reconstruct better theory. To this end, I apply Peterson’s mapping of the global political

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economy and feminist theories of body politics to the field data collected. Data are used
in collaboration with existing theory in order to test its strengths and weaknesses and
push it further where needed.
The extended case method prescribes a single in depth case study. The case study
began with the fiesta de quince años in Guadalajara, and focused specifically on the
construction of ideals of feminine beauty and fashion through the fiesta. In order to
understand beauty ideals in the quince, I conducted interviews with youth about their
experiences and ideas of beauty. In order to understand ideals in the quince, it was
necessary to ask questions about beautification both especially for the fiesta de quince
años and in everyday life. In order to understand feminine beauty ideals, it was necessary
to ask both men and women about both feminine and masculine beauty ideals. Therefore,
the research began with semi-structured interviews with forty adolescents 14-16 years old
about the fiesta and their ideals of feminine and masculine beauty and fashion in the
fiesta and in everyday life.
Potential participants were initially approached in the street with informational
sheets, but my response rate was zero, and I quickly became discouraged. Because
interviews were to be conducted with minors, I had more formal requirements for
recruiting and asking for consent, and later conversations with participants led me to
believe that I made it too difficult for a busy adolescent to become a participant and that
the formal information sheet and requirement for parental permission intimidated them.
In the end, all participants were recruited through personal introductions through my
social and extended social networks and through snowball recruitment. While most of my

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initial introductions came through friends and friends of friends at a centrally-located
dance school, participants’ profiles are quite varied, and they lived in almost every area
of the city. I interviewed twenty-three girls and seventeen boys. Interviews ranged
between twenty-two minutes and one hour and forty-five minutes, but most often lasted
within ten minutes of an hour.
Interviewees were also asked to allow me to spend participant observation time
with them. Participant observation allowed me to understand more personally the lives
and priorities of youth in Guadalajara, put their interviews in context, and interact with
participants in an unstructured way. This participant observation time proved to be very
informative for two main reasons. First, interviewees knew that I was interested in beauty
and quince años, so they offered lots more commentary and information when we hung
out. Second, interviewees often presented their best selves and their best behavior to me
during interviews, but relaxed, joked and teased while we were just “hanging out.” It was
during this time that I learned of many of the contradictions between what youth will say
in an interview and how they will act in an informal environment, especially with friends
around. During interviews, they were much more open about their personal insecurities
about friendships and romantic relationships. They were also less likely to reveal racist
comments. During unstructured time, they were much more likely to present themselves
as confident (especially when peers were around) and also more likely to make negative
comments about other people’s looks, for example their stature, their body size, their skin
color, or their clothing.

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When we just hung out, we did household chores, went to the movies, went to
malls, bought ice cream, watched television, exercised, danced, worked, watched
futbol/soccer, watched boys, went to family events, went to school, went to coffee, put on
make-up, styled hair, went to a beauty pageant, and cooked. In all, I spent time with
thirty-three participants outside of interviews. Usually, I spent an afternoon or a morning
with a participant, depending on whether they went to school or worked during the day or
during the afternoon. With a number of participants, I spent several half-days as they
opened their lives more to me, introduced me to their social networks and their families,
and showed me around.
Recruiting, interviewing, and hanging out with participants took anywhere
between three days and a year from start to finish, but typically ranged between two and
5 months. I was often introduced to a teen, arranged for a meeting with them and their
parents, scheduled an interview, scheduled time for participant observation, scheduled
time for them to introduce me to their friends, visited with them as I recruited and then
interviewed their parents and possibly friends. Occasionally I would see them again
socially, months later, through our mutual friends.
The extended case method requires that the researcher extend out from the local
site of research into sociohistorical context. My research places the participants’ lived
experience within its sociohistorical context in two ways. First, in order to give an
historical perspective on beauty norms in the fiesta de quince años, I pursued interviews
with older family members. I recruited and interviewed formally seventeen parents,
grandparents, or other older relatives of sixteen participants. By interviewing adult

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relatives of participants about their lives and beauty ideals during their own adolescence,
I compare lived experiences of beauty ideals over a period of about 50 years. I had
informal conversations about their views on the quince with another six older adult
family members, and countless conversations with everyone from taxi drivers, party
revelers, classmates and friends. These added perspectives also lent historical and broader
social perspective.
Second, in order to extend out from the interviews into the global networks that
influence the production of beauty in the quince, I explored the origins of beauty
information sources and beauty products cited by participants. To do this, I asked
interviewees about their idols, their favorite places to shop, and their sources of
information. Research proceeded to extend out from the experiences of youth into the
networks of information and product distribution that youth cited in interviews. In this
stage, I collected magazines, watched popular television shows, went to outdoor markets,
malls, expos and commercial plazas. In this stage, I also gathered statistical information
on the global cosmetic industry.
In addition, I spent 14 months, between June 2005 and January 2007 and June
2008 and January 2009, immersed in youth beauty and fashion culture in Guadalajara. I
tried every beauty procedure that a participant reported trying, except hair bleaching or
highlighting or dying. I took dance classes, and I spent my weekends and afternoons at
the malls, plazas and centers of youth attraction throughout the city.
Explaining the sociodemographic characteristics of my study population is
complicated. In terms of race and nationality, all participants identified as Mexican,

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although one was born in the United States and raised in Mexico and two had spent half
or more of their childhood in the United States. All participants had some relatives in the
United States, but these three families and three others had immediate family ties to the
US, with one or more of their immediate family members living in the US. With the
exception of two, all participants were born in the city, although many of their parents
moved to the city through internal migration. If their parents were not immigrants, their
grandparents were.
The simple explanation for class is that my study population was middle-class.
All youth participants reported themselves to be middle class, although a couple
suggested that they are lower-middle-class and one suggested upper-middle class. The
most illustrative comment, however, was the oft-repeated refrain, and variations of it, that
stated simply “we are neither very rich, nor very poor.” Participants regularly assured me
that they had everything they needed, but also usually included that they did not have
money for everything they wanted. Participants came from all areas of the city except the
richest. No participants had servants at the time, although one had had a live-in childcare
provider.
The difficult part of this explanation is explaining what middle-class means, and
what it means to these participants and their families. The self-identified middle class,
having undergone economic hardships and increasing economic polarization in the last
forty years, is not well-off. Indeed, most of these families would be considered poor by
first world standards. Twelve adolescents worked in paid employment, mostly in family
businesses. Two of these participants worked specifically in order to be able to afford

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luxuries such as fashionable clothing and cosmetics. Others worked in order to support
their families and to help pay family expenses. Many spent considerable time in unpaid
reproductive labor, caring for younger siblings, nieces and nephews while other family
members worked in paid employment.
School enrollment among my study population was average-to-high. In my
population of forty 14-17 year olds, thirty-three were attending school (82.5%). National
statistics estimate that 93.3% of 5-14 year olds are in school. High rates of school
enrollment begin to drop off around 12 years, and only 84.7% of 14 year olds nationally
attend school. Nationally, 52.9% of 15-19 year olds are in school, and in Jalisco, 47.7%
of 15-19 year olds are in school (INEGI 2007). I attribute an average-to-high rate of
school enrollment among my study population because participation attracted more
interest and approval from families familiar with fieldwork and thesis writing, a normal
part of high school and especially university-level education. Participants often had
teachers and university students in their families. Parents’ education levels vary between
having finished some primary school to having finished advanced degrees (two parents in
different families).
All of the participants live in cement homes and receive public services, but their
living conditions vary considerably. The more well-off families had new homes with
individual bedrooms, driveways and new cars. Two of these middle class families divided
their time and/or their family members between the United States and Mexico, which has
given them considerably more economic advantage in Guadalajara, but has not moved

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them into the class of the truly privileged in Mexico. I estimate that six participant
families are comfortably middle-class.
The majority of the participants’ families, however, could not count on the
privileges of middle-class life. Having family members living and working in the US is
not always an economic boon. One participant lived with extended family members
because her mother could not care for her and her father was a recent labor migrant to the
US. Her economic security was low compared to her peers. One family of nine people in
a two-bedroom government-financed housing complex identified as middle-class. The
one participant who identified herself as upper-middle-class did not appear to be so,
because signs of her family’s material wealth, including their large run-down house, poor
neighborhood, untreated health problems, and lack of personal transportation, indicated
that she was in the middle in terms of privilege among other participants. I think her
calculation captures best that, rather than typically middle-class, this study population is
largely aspiring middle-class.
Interviews were transcribed verbatim or according to detailed notes taken during
interviews. I then read the interview transcriptions for patterns, made a preliminary list of
codes, and read through the transcriptions again coding them for topics and themes such
as hair, cell phones, color combining, beauty services, originality/uniqueness,
insecurities, and emotional support. I combined notes and quotes into theme-based
memos which essentially summarized the ideas of participants as they were expressed to
me and the related observations that I made while hanging out with them or while on
personal participant observation excursions. These memos form the basis for chapters

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three and the starting points for chapters four, five, and six. Some themes made it into the
analyses, and some did not. I also made a database of participant information, including
age, sociodemographic information, and particulars about their quince participation.

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Chapter 3: Beauty and the Quinceañera: Reproductive, Productive,
and Virtual Dimensions in the Global Political Economy of Beauty

In this chapter I argue that the production of the gendered body, as seen through
the fiesta de quince años in Guadalajara is intimately linked to globalization through
reproductive, productive and virtual economies. The links between the production of
feminine beauty and the global political economy can be seen through the entire process
of quince beautification, from dress and accessory selection to dance classes, make-up
application to hair-styling, photography and videography.
Through the lens of the fiesta de quince años, we can see many interesting things
about the global political economy of beauty. The global political economy of beauty is
not “out there” in a fictional global space, but intimately connected to the production,
consumption, and imagination of beauty in the fiesta de quince años. The formal market
in productive goods is important, but equally or more important are the semi-formal
direct-selling markets, the informal markets in products and services, and reproductive
labor by the quinceañeras and their families and friends. So, too, is the global virtual
economy of media images and marketing.
Not all are equal in the market for the construction of the beautiful quinceañera.
Gender is one axis of power evident in the construction of feminine beauty, an axis of
power that favors some men and women at the expense of others. Race, national status,
and age are important qualifying factors for which women “win” in the global economy

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of beauty. The privileged status of youth gives the youth participants in fiestas de quince
años significant voice in the global political economy of quince beauty.
Globalization in the beauty industry appears to have both diversifying and
reinforcing effects on gendered norms within the quince. Despite the problems with
globalizing Anglo-American norms, there are also signs that this very same globalization
may concomitantly be increasing multicultural tolerance.
The production of the quince años also sheds light on the gendered processes of
globalization. Globalization in the beauty industry is successful in large part due to
gendered production, reproduction, and consumption. Linking the production of the
gendered body to gendered globalization illustrates the salience of linking the
reproductive, productive and virtual economies (Peterson 2003) to understand the politics
of globalization, and highlights the importance of (gendered) bodies within globalization.

The Fiesta de Quince Años
The fiesta de quince años was historically used as an opportunity for religious
affirmation and as a social presentation of a girl as of eligible age for suitors. The quince
is centuries old and although of uncertain heritage, it is said to have originated in Mexico.
It is now practiced by Mexico’s two major religious denominations, Catholics and
Protestant Christians, as well as in other countries in Latin America and in the Latin
American diaspora. Some have hypothesized that the quinceañera tradition is the result
of syncretism between Spanish, Aztec and Mayan traditions, however its precise
evolution remains uncertain. Its very history calls into question the notion of a static or

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definable “tradition” (Davalos 1996). There are, however, identifiable commonalities
within this social custom.
The format for celebrating the quince años is varied because the quince is “a
living tradition.” It is a constantly negotiated and evolving social tradition-in-the-making.
A rough format for contemporary quinceañeras in Guadalajara begins with attendance by
family and other invitees at a religious service, most often a Catholic Mass, which is
dedicated to the quinceañera. The Mass dedication may simply be a mention of the
quinceañera in the Mass, but often it includes special flower decorations, musical
accompaniment, a grand entrance down the aisle by the quinceañera accompanied by her
parents or by up to 14 damas (ladies-in-waiting) and/or up to 15 chambelanes
(chaimberlains). In the more formal quince Mass, the quinceañera kneels in front of the
altar on a special pillow as in a typical marriage Mass, but alone, receives a blessing at
the end of Mass, and lays her bouquet at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary. In this
wedding-like ceremony, the quinceañera often lingers at the altar or the steps of the
church taking photos with family and friends.
After Mass, 100-300 family members and friends congregate for a meal and a
party at a rented dance hall of a large estate. Once family and guests are seated at the
party, the quinceañera makes a grand entrance, warmly applauded, and she dances a
waltz, leads a toast, and dances a “surprise” dance. She might perform any number of
living traditions, such as the ritual changing of her flat-soled shoes to heels or the
presentation of her symbolic last doll. She may dance a special dance while making and
receiving a toast. After the dances and during the party, the quinceañera takes pictures

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with guests at every table, dances with her friends and family, and receives gifts at her
table of honor. The event, from Mass to meal to the party’s end in the mid- to late-
morning, is videorecorded.
A fiesta de quince años may, however, diverge substantially from this prototype
depending on economic resources and the desires of the quinceañera. A simple fiesta
might skip the Mass and have the party at home rather than in a rented or borrowed
venue. On the other hand, a more extravagant fiesta might include a chocolate fountain, a
variety show, a backlit stage, and professional dance accompaniment for the waltz, toast,
and surprise dances. Creative alternative quince años celebrations which were recounted
to me by interviewees include a costume party, a home-disco, and a club outing with
girlfriends. Paid social announcements in the newspapers and marketing materials show
even more variety, including the not-entirely-mythical club-quince, often talked about but
seldom seen by the middle classes. These much larger parties have a higher ratio of youth
or may even exclude adults, and closely imitate a club environment. For example,
bartenders may be hired to serve the underage revelers non-alcoholic, brightly colored
martini drinks.
13

Briefly, to give the reader an idea about the preparations for a quince años, let me
run through a list of things that need to be done by various parties. Find a place to have
the party, and make reservations for the place if it is a rental (a casino or salon). Choose
the temple where your religious service will be held, and reserve your date. Rent tables,

13
Not all quinceañeras celebrate their quince with a Mass and a big party. Celebrations
are limited by money, family circumstances, and the quinceañera’s wishes. Also, budgets
permitting, some quinceañeras are offered a big gift, like a car, or a trip to a foreign
country or another city in Mexico to celebrate their new degree of maturity.

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chairs, and other utilities if they are not part of the location rental. Hire musical group(s)
for party and Mass. Choose a color and/or a theme. Look at magazines, tv shows, or go to
the Expo Quinceañera for ideas. Contract and plan food service. Look for sponsors to
help with paying for parts of the party and to participate in the ceremony. Shop for a
dress design in the downtown or Chapultepec bridal districts. Buy a dress, or find a dress
maker to copy or create your design. Choose and ask friends, family members, and
friends of family members to be damas and chambelanes. Choose and reserve dresses
and tuxedos for the court members. Find and hire a choreographer. Take dance lessons.
Practice group choreographies. Pick out decorations. Make decorations. Diet and
exercise. Contract a photographer for quinceañera portraits, and one for the night of the
party. Contract a videographer to make a video documentary of the quinceañera’s life to
be shown at the party, and a video documentary of the party to be edited for later
viewing. Find a hair stylist, cosmetician, and nail decorator. Choose a park or other
beautiful place for photo and video shoots. Get a facial. Have nail extensions attached
and decorated. Have hair and make-up done for a professional photo and/or video shoot
to display portraits and videos at the party. Put on a ball gown and spend half a day
taking pictures in the park. Hire or find volunteers to help set up and clean up at the party.
Rent or borrow a special car for transportation. Get hair and make-up styled. Get dressed.
The above list gives an idea of how big, and potentially expensive, an affair the
fiesta de quince años is. It is often, and I think fairly, compared to a wedding. This list
also hints at how beautification is a major part of the process of becoming a quinceañera.

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Beautification in the Fiesta de Quince Años
Beautification is very important to the fiesta de quince años. When asked the most
important times to dress up and look nice, interviewees almost universally replied that it
was for family events and/or fiestas. Being both a family event and a fiesta, it is doubly
important for all attendees and participants to dress nicely for a quince. Fiestas are
usually held for major life and family events, such as baptisms, first communions, fiestas
de quince años, graduations, weddings, and momentous anniversaries. Other birthdays
also often warrant fiestas with a rented salon, musical group, or catering, but rarely on the
scale of the other fiestas. Fiestas are family events, but interviewees often also mentioned
weekly Sunday meals with family and other social visits with family as important times
to dress up.
Otherwise, interviewees answered “all the time” or “every day” as the most
important times to look good. When pressed, a few of these agreed that one gets more
dressed up for a fiesta, but many held on to their belief that looking good is always very
important. The key for these youth, then, is that looking good is based on being
appropriately dressed and beautifully appointed, whatever the situation. As one
interviewee put it, “It depends a lot on the occasion. A get-together with friends: dress
fashionably, nicely, well of course, fashionably, with fashionable accessories. A family
get-together: something more reserved, something more classic, I don’t know, a button-
up shirt, dress pants. A party: … we go pretty elegantly, just a little. And then in parties
that are more elegant, the men wear tuxedos (smoking).”
14

14
Participant quotes are based on the author’s translations.

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So, the fiesta de quince años is among one of the most important moments of life,
for the quinceañera as well as attendees, for looking good. The quinceañera is involved
in a process, usually spanning some months, of preparing for her grand entrance. Damas
and chambelanes spend less time planning their performance, but often spend a couple of
months learning their dances, and considerable attention to their personal beautification
as well. Attendees feel that a fiesta de quince años is one of the few events that warrant
their most thoughtful and beautiful presentation. Quinceañera beauty standards can
therefore be seen as both an expression of general standards of beauty and beautification,
but also as an exaggeration or intensification of beauty standards and practices. That is to
say, the fiesta de quince años includes a very important production of beauty that both
reflects and exaggerates society-wide standards.

Normalization versus Particularization
Standards of beauty and beautification are not universal in fiestas de quince años
because of some tensions over standards and practices of beauty and because
beautification plays two important identity-defining roles. On the one hand, the fiesta is a
traditional affair, with standards of presentation that are widely assumed as prototypical,
especially by celebrants’ parents. Additionally, the fiesta is a social event that calls upon
celebrants, participants, and attendees, to dress appropriately in order to maximize their
social identification. On the other hand, the fiesta is organized around celebrating the
youth and increasing agency of a fifteen-year old. The fifteen-year-olds have different
ideas from their parents about what is beautiful and appropriate. Furthermore, youth

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universally express their desires to be unique and original, and thus expressing their
uniqueness and originality, through their sartorial displays. As a result, there is plenty of
conflict and negotiation over how original and particular to make a traditional, social
event.
A generational conflict comes up because there is tension between conservative
tastes of tradition and the parents’ and sponsors’ purse strings and the quinceañera’s
desire to personalize and make original her quince años. This tension between youth and
adult standards of presentation is illustrated in the generational changes in dress design
and beautification standards in the fiesta de quince años. For instance, parents’
generations, from the 1960s to the 1980s, all wore less form-fitting dresses with sleeves
and higher collars. Few wore makeup, and if they did it was a little bit of blusher and/or
lipstick. Their daughters, however, are accustomed to strapless corset bodices as the
norm. Many mothers expressed discomfort with or surrender to the strapless gown, and at
least insist on a wrap for the church service. But a quinceañera wants to personalize her
dress. She may want to personalize by adding sleeves, but on the other hand she may
want to make the ball gown skirt slimmer, the collar lower, and the color a dark red or
black. This becomes a generational fashion dilemma that is negotiated and worked out
over time between the quinceañera and her parents and sponsors. The result is something
of compromise, one in which the “tradition” is balanced with the tastes of a quinceañera.
The generational tension is also illustrated by attendees’ dress. Interviewees
universally responded that a fiesta de quince años is an important event, one at which
personal presentation is especially important. Indeed, fiestas are the major social events

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for adolescent youth. This means that attendees will wear their newest, most fashionable
clothing for the fiesta. And yet, adult interviewees consistently complain that their
children’s friends wear inappropriate attire, including denim blue jeans, low-cut blouses,
and “even tennis shoes.” And it is quite true that a quinceañera’s friends will go decked
out in their best blue jeans. To be sure, degrees of formality vary, usually depending on
how close the attendee is to the celebrant, and whether an attendee’s family is also in
attendance. But the result is that parties are often full of adolescent attendees that dress
fashionably according to their taste and social groups. By parents’ standards, these
fashions are considered too casual, sloppy, and not fixed-up. With their dress slacks or
jeans, girls might wear a provocative top and boys a Polo-style or button-up short sleeve
shirt. Depending on their style, girls or boys might wear name-brand sneakers or cowboy-
style boots or high heels. And so, although all parties feel it is important to be well fixed-
up for a fiesta, there are significant generational differences in what that means.
The tension over particularization versus normalization is not only generational; it
is also a tension between being unique and social identification. The prototypical
presentation of the quinceañera in 2006 and 2007 includes a pastel gown with a full, long
skirt and a strapless corset bodice. It includes mainstream hair and make-up design.
Being fixed up appropriately for an event and seeking social acceptance by looking good
are extremely important to youth in their search for social identification (see below). The
quinceañeras, however, also yearn to express their originality and to make their special
day “theirs.”

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The desire for originality was expressed in reference to beautification in the
fiestas de quince años and in everyday life. Despite what I describe as an emerging global
body politics on the ground in Guadalajara, youth participants self-reported their
participation in beautification regimes as a practice in originality and uniqueness. Some
participants allow that others may be conformist to a popular ideal, but all expressed
themselves as having a unique, personalized perspective on their likes and dislikes,
potentially negating my claims that there are prototypes of beauty, standards of
beautification, and that there are notable gendered and racialized trends within these.
Asked whether her views on beauty applied to other people, one young woman clearly
stated, “’No,’ that’s the way I am…I see myself as a person who exercises to keep in
shape.” A self-identified fresa, when asked whether she was a fan of RBD, one of the
most popular music groups of the time, responded with a forceful negative and
proclaimed “One has to be original…one has to be original, and they are way over.” This
young woman had been a big fan of the group; at another time, she had revealed to me
that she had copied their lead singer Dulce María’s red hair in the past. Many young
women like to be original through dying their hair different colors. The universal desire
to be and be seen as original and unique is very palpable with these adolescents. Beauty
and fashion are an important part of how youth identify themselves as unique.
The former Dulce María fan illustrates one of the ways that youth experiment and
display their uniqueness: through changing tastes rapidly. Dulce María and her red hair
were still a popular trend at the time of this interview in 2006, but this participant had
already moved on to find something more original. In 2007, this teen had again changed

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her style so dramatically she was no longer a fresa. Another participant went from being
a disaffected, video-game-playing, populist to a brand-name-only, club-going, devout
Catholic in the short time I knew him. The rapid pace at which teens adopt and drop
tastes would make any researcher dizzy. After my initial frustration with trying to pin
down some of “their” styles, I accepted that the search for new styles that could balance
their need for social identification and differentiation was a bigger part of their style than
any particular trend.
The impulse to be unique and on the cutting edge, liking what is new and not
what is out or old, is a strong feature of youth culture in Guadalajara, and it lends insight
into the impetus behind the spread of global trends, as well as a problem for overcoming
the widespread gendering and racializing of youth’s bodies. As expressed by the young
woman who rejected one popular rock band because they were “over,” adolescents in
Guadalajara are searching for the new and the unique. They are also very competitive
with each other for originality, as exemplified by the young women who search
ceaselessly until they find a dress for their fiesta de quince años that is unique from all of
the ones they have seen before, and watch their peers afterwards to make sure that their
own uniqueness holds up over time. This rush to originality inspires many youth to look
to mass media and marketing for ideas. Quince magazines, the Expo Quinceañera,
fashion and celebrity magazines become important in the process of informing a youth’s
search for her unique style. She might even actively seek out a style that is unique from
what is considered “Mexican.” For example, one young woman has chosen her fiesta
dress design from a drawing of a Japanese cartoon character that “isn’t available here in

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Mexico.” A boy liked to find images of and imitate the styles of pop stars from England,
like Robbie Williams.
The quinceañera is therefore a prism through which to see the construction of
gendered beauty, including the dynamics of normalization and personalization. In the
following section I describe how feminine and masculine norms for looking good are
achieved in the quince, and how these relate to broader trends in popular youth culture. I
then explore how these trends are both gendered and racialized. Following the discussion
of race and gender in the production of looking good in a fiesta de quince años, I link
these trends to globalization through extending into the historical and global context of
youth beauty-making, using Peterson’s framework of reproductive, productive and virtual
global economies. Finally, I conclude that globalization is shaping beautification in the
quince, and that beautification in the quince is likewise shaping globalization.

Looking Good
Looking good for youth in Guadalajara, in addition to balancing their desires to be
normal and to be unique, has two distinct, very different dimensions. On the one hand,
when asked about their own beauty practices and standards, interviewees repeatedly
referred “fixing oneself up” or “arreglandose” as the true measure of looking good. As
one interviewee explained, one doesn’t have to be particularly beautiful (bonita), but
being well fixed up (bien arreglada) looks good and makes you attractive (guapa). As
another explained when asked why it was important for her to look good, “A person
should always look fixed up in order to, I don’t know. The more fixed up you are, I feel

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like, the more you have. More people will like you.” Young men are equally concerned
with looking good, especially on special occasions like family events. The basic
dimensions of arreglandose for girls, in addition to dress, are, as one interviewee put it,
“como se maquillan, como caminan, como se peinan,” or cosmetics, walk, and hairstyle.
For boys, being fixed up includes being well dressed and well coiffed. Often secretly, it
also means having a “cuerpo de futbolista” or a soccer-player’s body.
On the other hand, there are some general beauty ideals underlying many of the
youth’s beauty ideals and belied by some of their practices, if not their words. These
ideals include a set of norms based on imagined ideals of beauty like pale skin, long pale
hair, blue or green eyes, 90cm-60cm-90cm measurements and thinness for girls, and
tallness and soccer-players’ bodies for boys.
In the following I discuss the standards of beautification or arreglandose as well
as the underlying beauty ideals for the quince años and how they fit into youth’s general
set of beauty standards in five categories: cosmetics, hairstyles, dress, comportment, and
body shaping.

Cosmetics
For a quinceañera, cosmetics are important, and heavily applied. Most of my
participants had their make-up applied professionally or semi-professionally for their
quince años. Quinceañeras gave numerous reasons for using make-up artists. Some did it
“just because,” while others did it in order to feel special and pampered, others because a
family member of friend offered to do it, and finally because they did not know how to

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apply it themselves. The quince is often the first time a girl will wear make-up, so she
often does not know how to use and apply it.
Typical make-up application for a quinceañera looks something like stage or
fashion make-up in Mexico. Watching the news or a telenovela, one sees this type of
make-up application on the female protagonists. For a quinceañera, it includes bright
eyeshadow colors that match the color of the quinceañera’s dress, dark and thick
eyeliner, extensive use of shadow-coloring on the eyelid, eyebrow shaping, eyebrow
color definition, and false eyelashes and/or mascara, all to make the eye look bigger and
more pronounced. A more professional make-up artist might use color shading on the
face to make cheeks look more hollow, nose bridges more straight, chins thinner,
foreheads less prominent, or to otherwise “fix” imperfections of the facial features. Any
cosmetician will use facial foundation to make the color of a quinceañera’s skin more
even and cheek blush to give a rosy color back to the face and to make the cheekbones
more prominent. She, because the cosmetician is almost universally a woman, will also
use lip liner, lip color, and a lip gloss to give a lasting, rosy, shiny and sparkly pout to the
quinceañera.
Make-up in the quince años reflects the importance of make-up to youth, but also
exaggerates it. Girls this age are just learning to wear make-up, and experimenting with
whether and how much they want to use it. Many of the interviewees were allowed to
wear make-up for the first time when they turned fifteen years old. With four
interviewees, this new privilege was not seen as particularly enticing, and they continued
to wear little or no make-up. Others experimented with different amounts of make-up. A

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number of others, however, took full advantage of their privilege, and wore foundation,
eyeliner, mascara, color-coordinated eye shadows, blush, and colored lip gloss. Make-up
for the fourteen-to-sixteen-year-old crowd is often prohibited at school. Some girls will
put on make-up during their last class at school, for their walk out and for hanging out
after school. Trading school uniforms for stylish clothes, girls will match their eyeshadow
to their blouse-and-jeans outfit. The three female interviewees who did not attend school
wore make-up from morning to night. While the quinceañeras almost universally apply
fingernail extensions with rhinestones and little, color-coordinated drawings, for their big
party, very few will wear false nails daily, and none wore false eyelashes or eyelash
extensions daily. Male participants did not wear makeup, and its use is believed to be
outside the norm for a masculine boy (see below).

Hairstyles
The norm for quinceañera hairstyles is fixed “up.” A chongo, or updo, is almost
mandatory, as I never saw a quinceañera, live or in video, wear her hair loose and down.
These hairstyles are based on a number of processes. First, clean hair is processed with
some hair products to make it smoother and either a blow dryer, hair curler, or hair
straightener to make its shape more uniform. During or after this process, all or most of
the hair is gathered toward the crown of the head, making a sort of modern beehive that
makes the hair look like mounds of curls or mounds of straight but stylistically separated
locks of hair sprouting out of the crown, falling forward over the top of the head, and
falling down or streaming down the quinceañera’s neck and back. The new hair shapes

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are held in place with bobby pins, hair clips, gel, and hairspray. A variation on this might
include a faux-hawk, where the hair on the top of the head is distressed or “ratted” until
puffy, some straight hairs are smoothed over the “rat’s nest,” hair on the sides of the head
is smoothed back, and the girl is left with a hairdo that is raised on the top of her head
and slick on the sides. A less radical variation, a rising trend in 2007, uses the same
techniques as the fauxhawk except it adds volume to the top of the head in a round, head-
shaped, form instead of in a mohawk shape. From this mound of voluminous hair, locks
appear to fall loosely in curls or waves or straight. In reality, the hair is not loose even the
“loose” hair styles because it is styled with so many products to keep the hair in place. In
addition to her up-do, a quinceañera will wear a crown or a hairpiece of flowers and
glittery things.
Amazingly, variations of these almost supernatural hairstyles are often seen in the
street on schooldays and in the fashionable stores. Not all girls wear these styles, and not
all wear them daily, but in the beauty industries, fashion shows, and among the
fashionistas on the street, it is not uncommon to see a faux-hawk with straight hair falling
down her back. What is most common is some form of hair modification, be it curly hair
that is straightened, straight hair that is curled with a curling iron, or molded with a blow
dryer, or hair of any style that is drenched in gel to give it a “wet” look that stays in place.
The important thing with hair is to modify it to some degree from its natural state. As one
informant explained, “since I have straight hair, I curl it or make it wavy.”
As with make-up, many quinceañeras are just beginning to experiment with hair
styling and hair modifications. Highlights and hair dyes are prohibited in some schools.

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But some quinceañeras will get their hair highlighted for their party, or, as with one
group of friends, a quinceañera will get highlights and then her friends, one by one, will
try it out.
Boys’ hairstyles are shorter, and so generally less styled. The standard for a boy is
to have a short haircut and to wear his hair styled with gel and a comb. As one participant
informed me: “I think gel is my most important fashion accessory, because that is what I
use to style my hair.” This type of styling often has a “wet” look, and is usually firmly
put, so that no hair falls out of place and the locks are hard to the touch. Despite their
simple styling procedure, boys’ hairstyles can still be rather supernatural. This includes a
faux-hawk made with short hairs and gel, highlights, short spiky ‘dos, and lots of soccer-
inspired styles. One interviewee who was also a semi-professional performer and dancer
reported styling his curly, longish, hair with a straightening iron, and I also saw this used
on all of the male participants at a coed adolescent beauty pageant. Still, in mainstream
styles it is highly rarified that a boy will go beyond the use of gel and a comb for styling.
I observed it among those boys who would be going on stage.
15

15
It is worth noting that at the end of my research period, the “emo” style was
increasingly popularized. In March 2008, while I was visiting friends in Guadalajara, I
had the opportunity to witness a street demonstration of emos asking to be treated with
respect and protected from discrimination. During this month, fighting between emos and
other subcultures reached a crescendo and filled the national news as emos were attacked,
some physically, for having poor taste or for being unauthentic “posers.” Emo boys do
make use of the hair straightener in order to make their hair fall in their face. During 2008
and 2009, the emo style has become common and normalized.

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Dress
Quinceañera dress, or The Dress, is one of the most important aspects of
celebrating the quince años. For the quinceañera, the chance to dress up for a quince may
be one of her main motivations in having the party… Not having the chance to dress up
for one’s own quince can also be a sore spot. When asked whether she regretted not
having celebrated her quince años, one sixteen-year-old girl responded that she only
regretted not having had the chance to dress up. Another interviewee first discounted her
own quince, saying that she hadn’t had one. Upon further questioning, it became clear
that she had had a special party, one like no other year, carefully planned with her
mother’s help. Only she did not, at first, feel comfortable telling me it was her quince
because she hadn’t had the opportunity to dress up in a princess dress. She did, however,
put on her nicest and most favored dress pants and blouse, color-combined accessories
and cosmetics.
Even if a quinceañera doesn’t feel personally the urge to dress up like a princess
or a movie star, family and peer pressure to do so is powerful. In this sense, the quince is
sometimes used as a chance to intervene on a young girl’s sense of style. One interviewee
was sent to beauty school, against her initial wishes, as part of her transformation.
Another, highly resistant to allowing herself to be beautified by her mother, eventually
negotiated and submitted to professional hairstyling as appeasement for the dramatic
liberties she was taking with her quince – no princess dress, no waltz, and no damas or
chambelanes. To be sure, there are plenty of ways to celebrate a quince, and plenty of

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ways to dress. One participant who celebrated with a club outing with girlfriends chose a
special cocktail dress.
Still, the most popular of the quinces, the prototype so to speak, is based around a
beautiful ball gown. Planning or remembering their quince, almost all interviewees start
with their dress. Imagining, designing, shopping for, ordering, and fitting the dress is one
of the most central aspects to the fiesta de quince años, and is often the starting point for
planning the event, anywhere from one month to a year ahead of time.
The dress, as it is marketed in quince magazines, the Expo Quince, marketing
materials, and on television, is basically a ball gown with a tight bodice and a very ample
skirt. Still, the most important aspect of dress selection is making sure it is unique, and
uniquely suited to the quinceañera’s taste. This paradox first struck me in an early
interview when, being shown a quince portrait of a quinceañera in her pastel green,
strapless, corset bodice, full-skirted dress, the quinceañera herself proudly reported to me
that she was really happy with her quince años because she had had an original dress, it
wasn’t like all the others. Responding to my gaze, possibly portraying my slight
puzzlement, she explained that she had looked a long time for this dress because she
wanted it to be different, and it wasn’t like all the others, and she had not seen anyone
else with this dress. “Still,” she said, “to this day I haven’t seen anyone with a dress like
this.” I left still puzzled as to why a dress that to me appeared to fit the prototype
perfectly was so unique, but I came to find that all the quinceañeras had a similar
understanding of their dress as uniquely theirs. Some were more divergent from others,

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they mostly all looked very similar to me, but all the dresses were seen to be reflective of
a girl’s personal taste, personality, and style.
One fourteen-year-old, with little idea about her future quince, had her dress
design imagined, based on an image of a dress in a Japanese cartoon. Another dreamed
about a black gown, even as she doubted that her mother would permit her to wear a
black gown. She wanted to wear black, or maybe red or wine if her mother would allow,
because it would be unique. In the case of a fifteen-year-old who traveled from California
to Guadalajara expressly to celebrate her quince and the Christmas holidays with
extended family, The Dress was found through browsing in the popular downtown quince
and bridal dress district, finding a designer in her price range that she liked, drawing what
she wanted with the help of her designer, picking out a fabric color that would be unique
and “close” to her preference for black, having her measurements taken, and waiting for
the designer, who probably used a dressmaker, to fulfill her order. She debuted her co-
creation, a dark brownish-red with even darker highlights, strapless, corset-bodice, cake-
topper dress and matching shawl and headpiece in less than a month.
In terms of dress, the most important rule is color matching. As one participant
explained:
When you are going to get dressed, the clothing has to be matching nicely. If you
are going to wear pink clothing, it should all match from the shoes to the
accessories: pink. The makeup… yep, also. Since you are wearing pink, you
should wear pink eye shadow. Everything should match, even the rubber bands in
your hair should match what you are going to wear, they should be the same color
pink.

One group of friends has a rule that they wear a maximum of three colors at a time. As
my interviewee informed me:

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You can wear a maximum of three colors. If you are going to wear blue, it has to
be a color blue that matches with something. It could be white or pink or if you
are going to wear orange it has to match with some other color. It could be blue,
orange, and white, or if you want to wear black, it can be all black or black
combined with two other colors, but those three colors have to look good
together.

Wearing more than three colors, she said, looks disorderly, unkempt, or gypsy-like. Girls
tend to have “their” colors, my interviewees reported such colors as pink, lavender, red,
purple, and black.
Strict color combination and color limitation is especially true for the fresa, or
strawberry girls. A fresa at school is likely to be considered the most popular with the
boys, the best dressed, and the target of other girls’ jealousy. The term fresa has come to
mean many things, and can be insulting in some contexts, but is generally regarded as the
well-dressed, well-regarded, privileged, snobbish adolescent girls. To be a fresa, a
teenager has to be dressed in color-combined clothing, preferably by brand-name makers.
The fresa prototype is based on when the term referred to the privileged girls who
“had everything.” For example, a fresa has the money to color-coordinate all of her
outfits so that her accessories, her shoes and her make-up match a two- or three-color
scheme every day. The fresa girl also not so subtly favors European beauty standards as
well because the privileged classes have historically been descendents from the area’s
Spanish, French and other European colonials. Today, the fresa prototype has filtered
into popular society, and represents the most popular beauty/fashion standard for youth in
Guadalajara.
As the term has filtered down from the truly privileged to be a social phenomenon
among youth, youth have developed new words to distinguish “true fresas,” or truly

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privileged youth, from all of the “fresas.” During the time of my research, the word
pepón, referring to a big, sparkly doll, came to be used to refer to the really rich, as
opposed to their many imitators. The word was so new that my friends at the licenciatura
(Bachelors) level in university had not heard it, and most of my personal beauty class was
stumped when I told them it was a new word that I had learned. Still, it was used in
several interviews with aplomb. In another case, one participant explained to me that she
and her friends are cerezas or cherries, because cherries are even more expensive than
strawberries.
The opposite of fresa is naco(a). Naca(o) is a derogatory term used to mean many
things, but generally refers to poor people with little education in the manners and tastes
of high society. Nacos are therefore understood to wear miss-matching colors and
patterns; loud and ostentatious colors, patterns, and accessories; and over-done hair and
make-up. A comedic parody of naca adolescents on a popular television show has the
nacas chewing gum loudly and wearing tight, bright, multi-patterned, multi-colored
clothing with numerous glittery accessories and gelled-down hair. In different skits they
are servants in a big house, unemployed, and street vendors, and they exhibit their
ignorance of grammar and good manners at every chance.
Unmatching colors and prints are not just a question of economic and social class,
i.e. being a naca, there is also an ethnic dimension to the ridicule of the lack of color
coordination. There is an unmistakable correlation between being naca, being poor, and
having darker skin, because indigenous and black people historically have held the least
paid and least skilled jobs. Still, a naca is not an indigenous person per se. So, the insult

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that someone is naca is a reference to social class more than race or ethnicity, but with
clear racial and ethnic implications. What is more, the many indigenous groups in the
area who dress in a manner that identifies them as ethnically indigenous also use bright,
multiply colored ensembles. The preference for wildly contrasting colors and patterns is
stunningly beautiful to this researcher, but either seen as outside of local social norms or
derided by youth. The great majority of interviewees did not include indigenous groups in
their definitions of Mexicanness
16
or in their analyses of beauty. When pressed, a number
of interviewees begged ignorance, others specified that indigenous people are not the
same as Mexicans, and others dismissed indigenous dress and beauty with words like
sucios (dirty), fodonga (sloppy or un-cared-for), fachosa (weirdly costumed) and feos
(ugly). Other prejudices against indigenous beauty can be seen in the prejudice against
short stature, especially for men, the prejudices against dark skin, large facial features, a
hooked nose, and natural hair. As is, I would argue, the distaste for mismatching colors a
disregard for or rejection of the various indigenous styles that use color contrast.
I found through observation that color coordination is the general standard for
arreglandose in Guadalajara. Most subculture aficionados, including emo, punk,
metalero and rock, choose color coordination. Psychos define themselves partly as
countercultural through their use of mis-matched colors.
Color combination is nowhere more visually conspicuous than in a fiesta de
quince años. Choosing her color may be one of the first things a quinceañera does, along

16
This discursive separation of “Mexicans” from “indigenous” is also material. In the 29
months I have lived in Guadalajara, my only interaction with ethnically identifiable
minority groups has been in markets. Despite my efforts to know Guadalajarans from
diverse backgrounds, I never was introduced to anyone of an ethnic minority.

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with choosing her dress. In the quince años, the dress color not only matches the
quinceañera’s eye shadow, fingernail polish, hairpiece, earrings, necklace, bracelet, ring,
shawl, purse, and shoes. The dress also matches in color and shade the bouquet(s), the
cummerbunds, waistcoats, and neckties on the chambelanes’ tuxedos (smoking), flower
arrangements, bows on dining chairs, centerpieces, streamers, party favors, and other
types of decorations. Color combining, always important, is even more so at the fiesta de
quince años.
Men’s dress in the quince años also reflects the imperative to color-combine.
Chambelanes’ rented tuxedos, the most common chambelan attire, vary according to
period themes. Smoking rental shops offer ten to fifteen styles of suits. One might be
fashioned around a mandarin collar with a frock-length coat, another based on a military-
style coat with tails, double-breasted. Each style cites a period or a theme, which is
chosen to match the theme of the party, the dance, or the quinceañera’s dress. All
smokings generally incorporate a touch of color to match the quinceañera’s dress. As
rentals, these suits are made with the simplest of tailoring, and just a hint of style.
At the Expo Quince, an expo that serves the more extravagant spenders as well as
many browsers, vendors exhibit more elaborate chambelan attire worn by hired
chambelanes who are semi-professional dancers. Some of these styles include formal
British Palace Guard attire, Napoleonic military wear, or Disney Prince costumes. Quince
magazines also illustrate these types of extravagant displays with Disney character,
popular Hollywood character, or military, costumes for chambelanes.

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Comportment
Another extremely important part of beautification for a fiesta de quince años is
learning to dance the waltz and surprise dances. Historically the quinceañera celebrated
her new social status as a young woman by dancing a waltz with her father or with her
escort, or both. This tradition has evolved into one of the most important parts of the
production and the most anxiety-producing: the waltz and the surprise dance(s). Dance
choreography, lessons and practice is often the most time-consuming and engaging aspect
of the quince años. It is often looked forward to. One interviewee planned not to
celebrate her quince with a party because she did not want to make a dance performance.
Another recalled that her only regret was not having danced a surprise dance, out of fear.
She only managed the courage to dance the waltz at the time, but looking back wished
she had done both.
The choreographed waltzes that I watched or was told about were danced with
between two and eight chambelanes, or male escorts. Chambelanes are frequently hired
from dance schools or dance companies or chambelan agencies for the waltz, but they are
also often brothers, cousins, nephews, and friends. The non-family member boys that get
asked the most are the ones that the girls have a crush on, the tall ones, and the ones who
know how to dance. This means that certain guys get picked a lot. For example, two
interviewees who are friends shared a leading man.
The waltz begins as a dance with the quinceañera’s father, followed by a dance
with her chambelan-de-honor. The dance with her father, sometimes foregone and

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sometimes expanded to include dances with uncles, grandparents, godparents and
sponsors of the event, is usually unchoreographed and danced in closed embrace.
The second waltz, with her chambelan-de-honor, is usually choreographed to
include her court of damas and chambelanes. These waltzes are based on a very simple
set of steps. The main movement is back and forth, like a step forward on one count, step
backward on the second count, or a step sideways on one count, and step back on the
second count. The dances are choreographed for simplicity and visual impact. There is
very little partner dancing in embrace, and much more theatrical use of space. The courts
will fill up the dance floor and, walking around to the slow beat, use simple turns and
back-and-forth movements to emphasize the quinceañera’s star quality. If a quinceañera
dances with multiple chambelanes and no damas, she generally dances for a short bit
with each boy, perhaps being invited to dance on one knee, having him turn her and
promenade her to dance with her next partner. The quinceañera and her court will then
dance a less complicated number called the brindis, or toast, in which the chambelan-de-
honor hands the quinceañera a champagne glass and the court as a whole begins the
party by leading the room in a ceremonial, non-verbal, toast tuned to her dance music.
Following the formal waltz and toast, the quinceañera will disappear for a
moment to change her outfit for the surprise dance. The surprise dance is a dance of the
quinceañera’s choosing, danced alone or with either friends or chambelanes after the
waltz. It is not really a surprise anymore, because although it is considered optional, it
runs against the norm to not perform one. The surprise, if there is one, is what type of
dance the quinceañera chooses as her second dance. The surprise dance is a very recent

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feature of the quinceañera tradition. The youngest mother interviewee celebrated quince
años in 1989, and had never seen or heard of the surprise dance. It is mentioned in a 2007
memoir/documentary of the quince años in the Latin American diaspora in the USA
(Álvarez 2007), but otherwise the literature is silent on the surprise dance.
The dance showcases the quinceañera’s dancing skills and interests, usually
based on either classes that she takes or a choreographed dance that she learned for the
event. One interviewee showed her extensive belly dancing training with a couple of solo
numbers, and one accompanied by classmates. Another showed her skills in Tahitian and
Hawaiian dances. Some learned partner dances and danced choreographed tango or salsa
numbers. A number danced hip-hop, pop rock or jazz dances, also choreographed by their
regular teachers and accompanied by their classmates or teachers and other professionals.
In the surprise dances, girls have much more extensive experience, because boys are
more timid when it comes to learning and dancing these varied rhythms. The
choreographed waltz, based on a forward and a backward step and some simple turns and
some walking, is significantly easier to learn than the other, more stylized and faster
dances. Also, once one waltz is learned, it is even easier to do it again, and the traditional
waltz is repeated at party after party, making it easier to make a repeat chambelan
performance in the waltz. The other rhythms, on the other hand, are personalized to the
tastes, and oftentimes-extensive training, of the quinceañera, and so it is not as easy for
her to find male accompaniment among her friends and family. Furthermore, the
costumes for the surprise dance, perhaps in particular for Arabic, Hawaiian, and Tahitian
dancing, are intimidating for young performers. As one interviewee replied when asked

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whether she danced her surprise Tahitian dance alone or with her chambelanes, “I did it
myself, I don’t think they would have wanted to put on the loincloth.” And so,
accompaniment in the surprise dance is usually made by girl friends, dance class peers,
dance teachers, and hired, professional dancing, chambelanes.
When the quinceañera returns to the dance stage for her surprise dance, she is
usually wearing one of two outfits. One outfit is a shorter and sexier version of her ball
gown. It is common for her dressmaker to include a mini skirt under or separate from her
ball skirt, so the quinceañera removes the full skirt and puts on a puffy short skirt that
matches her corset. In this, she can dance many numbers, like salsa or rock. The other
outfit is a costume based on the dance, for instance a clingy black or red dress for tango, a
shiny, flouncy dress for salsa, jean miniskirts and midriff-baring shirts for rock and hip
hop, 50’s style skirts for a retro rock-and-roll reproduction, chiffon skirts and brassieres
for belly dancing, and grass skirts and a coconut shell brassiere top for Hawaiian dancing.

Diets, Exercise and Body Shape
A final area of beautification for the quince años has to do with body shape. Boys
did not report any type of body modifications in preparation for quince celebrations.
Quinceañeras and young girls, on the other hand, often discussed body ideals and how to
achieve them. The most important body-shaping exercise for the quinceañera is the use
of the corset. The corset, in combination with a puffy skirt, forces a girl’s mid-riff into a
curve and creates or accentuates an hourglass shape. As one interviewee recounted, even
a chubby girl can feel beautiful in a corset. This birthday girl was very happy with her

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photos and her presentation on the day of her quince años because of the thin waist that
her dress gave her, but also expressed to me that she could “hardly breathe” and it was
difficult for her to move. This was not the norm among interviewees, but all of them did
achieve a fairy-tale waist and hourglass figure with their dresses.
A couple of girls expressed their preference for an A-line or sheath skirt, although
they did not connect their preference for a more form-fitting dress with their size or
shape. One thought an A-line would be more elegant and less ostentatious, and another
thought it would be more elegant and sexy. I would argue, however, that these girls
would have chosen a slimmer profile partly because they were thin. This is because
beauty ideals for these adolescents, more than anything, emphasize both thinness and
hourglass proportions. This is true not just in the quince celebration but also in everyday
life. Consistently, the conspicuously serious moments in interviews with adolescent girls
came when we talked about weight and wanting to be thinner. As one interviewee told
me as she choked up with anger, “your skin can be purple, but you have to be thin.”
Therefore, a girl who is already thin has the luxury of wearing a sheath gown or a smooth
A-line and still showing off her thin, hourglass proportions. Another girl, however, will
jump at the chance to be cinched into a corset and a full ball gown skirt.
Besides corsets, many interviewees, of all sizes, reported using diet and exercise
to get their bodies in beautiful shape before their quince. Echoing the sentiments of a
number of interviewees, one answered that “lose some kilos, that is the only thing I
would change.” A small number put themselves on diets to lose weight, however most
reported trying to eat a “balanced diet” all the time. This was the most common response

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to questioning about diet and weight. Much more common was the use of exercise to
improve body shape and slim down. This includes most often body-part specific
exercises, such as leg lifts to “lift the butt”, spinning classes to lose weight, slim legs and
“lift the butt,” Pilates home videos to stay slim, abdominal exercises to slim the waist,
and stationary-bicycle riding, kickboxing and running to lose weight.
Despite some special preparations for fiestas de quince años, the preference for
the slim, hourglass figure is not exclusive to the quince. Indeed, preoccupation with
weight and shape is common even among the youth who do not or who have already
celebrated their quince. One young interviewee repeatedly expressed distaste for
prototypical beauty norms, the traditional quince años, and the social pressure on her to
be thin and made up. She was the interviewee that most made me question the
generalizations I was making in my research. Still, when discussing her sister’s perfection
in all things, calling her a superwoman, she qualified it by pointing out that the only thing
her sister lacked was a body “like that.”
This is not to say that interviewees were lying to me or that their informal
conversations were more real, more honest, or revealed their true feelings. What is
informative about the discussions about weight and body shape is that they were almost
always very contradictory, both within interviews and between interviews and hanging
out. Almost all interviewees stated that their own standards for beauty are based on
personality and qualities of “internal beauty.” Otherwise, they stated an oft-heard phrase
that “no woman is ugly.” Interviewees, particularly girls, repeatedly denied that they
judge women by a set of beauty ideals. But on the other hand these interviewees will

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easily explain how other people - by most estimations, everyone else but they themselves
- judge women’s beauty. Thus there is a strong disinclination to judge women, especially
other women, on their physical characteristics. At the same time, there was plenty of
recognition that women are indeed criticized for their physical attributes according to
society-wide standards. There was even the occasional slippage when a girl denied
holding ideals of beauty for others but spent considerable time exercising to lose weight
before her quince or when she rejected society’s standards in an interview but expressed
them informally.
For one participant who wanted to be either a plastic surgeon or a fashion
designer for fuller-figured women, this contradiction was especially strong. Her desire to
be a fashion designer was motivated by wanting to help women look and feel beautiful
despite social pressures to be thinner. Her desire to be a plastic surgeon was also
motivated by the desire to raise women’s self-esteem. But she saw being a fashion
designer as thumbing her nose at social pressures, and plastic surgery as succumbing to
them. She was not sure what she wanted to do. The contradictions that these participants
expressed and exhibited to me lead me to a general, underlying contradiction between
wanting to escape, even deny, social pressures to be thin and the real pressure that they
feel and may even perpetuate. This phenomenon of both rejecting and succumbing to
society’s pressures suggests a number of things.
First, the contradictions illustrate that girls, are informed about adults’ concerns
for their health and well being, especially around weight. “Balanced diet” has become
somewhat of a code for “diet” these days as fad diet foods announce that they are “part of

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a balanced diet” and girls deny any weight loss measures “except for a balanced diet.” A
few girls anticipated my questions by denying any sort of eating disorders before I asked
about them, even though it was not my intention to ask. Essentially, girls know that they
and their body image are of central concern to researchers and adults, and they were
reticent to share them, or more than willing to refute medical and feminist discourses
about them. They know what a healthy body image is, and they repeatedly demonstrated
that. Second, these contradictions suggest that, in addition to knowing what a healthy
body image is, some of them still struggle with attaining it.

Gendered and Racialized Adolescent Beautification in Guadalajara

Looking at the beautification practices and beauty ideals expressed in the quince
años and by adolescents who participate in them, some gender and racial body politics
become clear. For one, the use of beautification practices and beauty ideals is gendered in
a way that emphasizes women’s role as fashion consumers, as physically weaker, as
being in need of improvement, and as sexually provocative. In addition, beauty ideals and
beautification practices reveal racial hierarchies that favor Anglo-American bodies. These
racialized ideals affect boys as well as girls in Guadalajara. Below I discuss the gendered
and racialized aspects of beautification and beauty ideals, including reference to everyday
practices.
The adoption of beauty trends and practices is highly gendered first because the
degree of involvement and time committed to beautification is more visible among girls
than boys. As the star of the show, the quinceañera understandably puts much more time
and effort into quince preparations. Still, the beautifications techniques used by the

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chambelanes, who are playing the role of a typical “fantasy man” or “prince charming”
appear to be, by comparison, prescribed and even hidden. There is little room for
creativity and investment in personal style or beauty for males. Interviewees who had
performed as chambelanes explained their beautification process as nothing especially
profound or involving. Boys’ beautification processes are still present, but their
prescribed and invisible nature make the gendering of boys’ style based on their
embodiment of a default, uninvested, natural look.
The suit uniform takes the personal investment and the outward signs of
investment out of the chambelan dressing process, simplifying his beautification process
with a social prescription. This does not mean that the decision to wear a suit is not laden
with importance. A chambelane’s first concern was often the price of buying or renting a
suit. This led more than one potential chambelan to decline a request to perform, because
he could not afford a suit. If he agrees to perform, his suit styling will be chosen to match
the quinceañera’s dress and tastes, again circumscribing his investment in the
beautification process.
When asked what they had done to look good for their performances, boys almost
universally indicated ignorance or indifference. Sometimes with prodding from the
interviewer, some reported shaving their facial hair, and styling their hair with gel and a
comb. A couple experimented with plucking some eyebrow hair, and one with
straightening his hair. I never learned of a young man curling his hair. But the majority of
boys found their fixing up as almost entirely unremarkable and “normal.” They
presented themselves as uninvested and uninterested in the topic of fashion. This also

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made it difficult to recruit male participants because, they told me, they were just not
interested or felt they had nothing to offer on the topic.
Boys’ curious silence about beautification should not be mistaken as a lack of
investment in fixing themselves up. Rather, there are roughly two groups of boys: those
who will share about their interest and experimentation with beautification techniques,
and those who will not. What I quickly discovered was that boys’ interest in looking good
was a cause for parents’ concern and for friends and family to question their masculinity
and their sexual orientation. Two of the three study participants who spoke freely about
their interest in fashion also had their sexuality and masculinity questioned by a parent or
friend, to me. At first I took this as merely an uncomfortable moment, since I never
intended to discuss teenage sexuality with the teens or their parents or friends. But later I
came to see this as a risk that boys run. If they are too interested in or too open about
their interest in fashion and looking good, they are likely to have their masculinity and
their sexual orientation questioned.
The most obvious investment boys made in their quince preparations is in dance
practices. The court often meets once or twice a week for one to three months, and every
day for a week or two before the event to learn and practice their choreographies. This
was another one of the major concerns for boys when they were asked to perform as a
chambelan, due to the time commitment and the fear of dancing. Dance practice is clearly
fun time to socialize with peers, but it is also no small task in terms of time commitment

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and courage to learn and perform dances for a 100-300-person audience.
17
In addition,
the leader’s role in partner dancing requires a lot of practice, memorization, and focus to
perform. In social dancing, dancing a lead is actually more difficult than a follow.
The lopsided visibility of investment in beauty and beautification is equally if not
more true in everyday life. A number of boys and only one girl reported that their
appearance did not matter much to them or that they spent little time “fixing themselves
up.” As one young man put it, he only tries to look good when he does something special,
like going to visit family. In his everyday life, it does not make sense to him to fix
himself up, because he goes out clean and comes home dirty from playing soccer or
riding his bicycle or other outdoor activities. Most of the young men do care a
considerable amount about their personal appearance, they often say that it is important to
look good every day and that it is important to wear brand-name clothing, but even so
they spend less time directly fixing themselves up, and employ fewer visible techniques.
Additionally, appearance-making is gendered in the techniques and styles
employed by youth. Many of the masculine techniques of appearance-making emphasize
masculine power: piercings, and athletic clothes and accessories are the commonly
employed techniques of beautification used by boys in my study.
Both young men and women have piercings, a visible sign of subcultural group
belonging and often defiance of authority, but there are some notable gendered
differences. Eyebrow piercings are very popular among the young men of this age group,
and seem to project, in contrast to the delicate adornments of the girls’, a rugged strength,

17
Some fiestas de quince años are even bigger than this, but this researcher did not have
the privilege see one first hand.

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in addition to defiance. One youth proudly rejected his piercing as a question of fashion,
saying instead that he “just did it.” He had literally just done it, having a friend of his
pierce it for him once, removing it on parental orders, and doing it himself a second time.
To this young man, the pain was inconsequential, it literally didn’t hurt, he told me. On
the other hand, young women talking about piercings often mention the pain as a factor to
consider.
18
Another difference in men’s and women’s piercings is often size, where men
will use a larger barbell or a spikier spike, women will often choose a smaller barbell or
ring.
Finally, athletic clothing and accessories, like baseball caps and bracelets that
proclaim soccer team loyalties, are so ubiquitous as to almost appear universal among the
young men of Guadalajara. Major sports brands like Nike and Puma are highly regarded,
and athletic-branded and –inspired clothing and shoes are commonly used by fashionable
young men at young-people’s special events, like parties and going to the movies. In
2005, plastic bracelets popularized by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong bracelet was the
popular trend among young men. In 2006 and 2007, I saw more young men with cloth
bracelets with soccer team colors and names woven into their fabric.
Young women’s beautification employs much less in terms of athletic-inspired
style and their techniques focus to a greater degree on skin, hair, make-up, tight clothing,
and color-combination. Skin care products are not exclusively used by young women, but
it is far more common for women to use more than a skin lotion, more than one product,
and to be conscientious about their products’ brands.

18
While virtually all young women have pierced ears, it is a ritual they endure as infants.
See also Guttmann 2007.

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Make-up among interviewees appears to be exclusively the domain of the women,
although one mother expressed concern to me that her son was so concerned with looks
these days and new fashions that he was even talking about using make-up. Another
mother feared that her son’s use of black clothing was leading him to be a depressive
person, and that he might take up the use of black eyeliner. This was clearly expressed as
a disturbing idea to these mothers, and a sign of loss of order and tradition. Make-up
among young men is used by the most fringe subculture, the Goths, a subculture that
makes parents nervous, or by transgender youth, another subculture that makes parents
nervous. Make-up among young men in Guadalajara is a highly rebellious, counter-
culture undertaking; the norm is for women to wear make-up and for men not to.
It is rare to see a young man without a hairstyle that involves at least hair gel, but
usually they make use of little else. Daily, and for special occasions, a young man will
comb his hair into a shape using hair gel while his hair is wet from a shower, and let it
dry. Young women’s hair is treated as a labor-intensive project, requiring many
implements and products, time, and creativity to create new hairstyles on a regular basis.
Daily, straight-haired and curly-haired women straighten or curl their hair with hair irons
and hair dryers and use clips and braids and rubber bands to put their hair in different
shapes. For special occasions, a young woman will spend even more time and energy
producing a unique hairstyle, have a friend or family-member style it, or even go to a
salon to have their hair professionally styled. For example, preparing for a special event, I
spent 45 minutes curling my straight hair with hot rollers, mousse and hairspray, to arrive
at a participants’ house about 45 minutes late but to great enthusiasm for my hairstyle.

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After we swept and mopped and did the dishes, the participant straightened her sister’s
wavy hair with a hair iron and smoothing cream, after which I began to straighten the
participants’ wavy hair. We were about an hour and a half late, due to a combination of
hairstyle production and household chores.
In women’s dress as in other areas of beautification, gendered influences are also
evident. The norm for young women is to wear very tight, form-fitting clothes that make
them look thinner and/or closer to the 90-60-90 (cm) ideal feminine curvature.
19
Young
women’s color-coordination is much more exaggerated than boys’, because they match
colors on shoes, socks, pants, blouses, jackets, and jewelry, always using some color
combination of these items to convey that they are well-dressed.
Beautification practices are further gendered by the sources of media and
marketing to young people. Young women use more sources of information and more
often to gather inspiration for their “looks.” They collect and share magazines, enter
online chats on beauty, share information with their friends, all at a higher rate than the
young men. Of media sources, men cited two magazines and the Internet as sources
within which they might find beauty information. Women cited the Internet, numerous
clothing, shoe and make-up catalogs, numerous television stations and specific shows,
and eleven magazines. In addition, ostensibly gender-neutral media targets women as
consumers of beauty information much more commonly than men. For instance, Por Ti, a
youth pop culture magazine for young men and women, offers articles on pop stars and
pop culture, and sections on beauty and fashion that are directed to the women.

19
90-60-90 centimeters refers to bust, waist and hip measurements, respectively, and
converts roughly to 36-24-36 inches.

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In summary, beauty production and consumption is highly gendered among the
youth of Guadalajara, meaning that young men’s production and consumption of beauty
produces a markedly masculine body, while young women’s production and consumption
of beauty produces a body that is recognizably feminine. The masculine body is notably
stronger, more athletic, un-produced appearing, and less directly visible, and the feminine
body is more directly visible through tight clothing, as well as visibly altered and
produced through techniques of hair, skin and make-up.

Beauty Consumption and Production is Racialized
One of the most interesting and challenging results from this research concerns
youth’s perspectives on race and beauty. Few youth explicitly expressed a preference for
racialized beauty, although a majority defined prototypical beauty ideals among their
peers in terms of “fine features,” light eyes, light hair, thinness, hourglass curves for
women, and broad shoulders and slim hips for men. Very few considered beauty to be a
question of skin color, although to those for whom it was an issue, lighter skin was the
preference. As with beauty in general, youth were disinclined to make judgmental
comments about their peers and themselves based on racialized assumptions.
Among those few who did discuss racialized ideals for beauty, three were young
men who evidenced as much or more concern with racialized ideals of beauty as the one
young woman who expressed her desire for lighter skin. To the extent that these
mainstream, fresa, boys, freely discussed their concern for looking good, their concerns
revolved around looking wealthy and looking Whiter, bigger, stronger, and more fine-

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featured. This suggests that the articulation of gendered body politics in Guadalajara is
different from that in the US or Western Europe due to race and the place of Guadalajara
in global flows of products, practices and ideas. Whereas in feminist studies of
disciplinary beautification in the United States scholars focus on how beautification both
reflects and reinscribes gendered power relations, and intersects with race to differentiate
women of color’s experiences from those of white women, looking at ideals of beauty in
a non-Western context highlights how gendered and racialized ideals affect men
profoundly.
As a caveat, it is important to note that Anglo-American or Western ideals of
beauty are not totalizing in Guadalajara. In preparing to investigate the politics of
beautification among Mexican youth, even preparing to enter the field without
prejudgments, I had much overestimated the degree to which Anglo-American norms
would hold sway over ideas and ideals of beauty. In actuality, youth had a wide range of
reactions to global flows of beauty products, practices, and ideas. One young man
rejected buying imported fashion, a high-value commodity, out of patriotism. One young
woman sought out advice on how to fix herself up through chat rooms from young
women in South America and other parts of Mexico. A young man and a young woman
who do not know each other both use the internet to learn about other countries’ styles.
The young man likes to adopt styles that are British; the young woman just likes to look.
The main activities on Metroflog, a popular youth networking website, is to put on
display pictures of oneself for viewing and to view pictures of friends and write
comments and leave a virtual signature on the photos viewed. Youth identified with

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different subcultures orient their fashion identification with global subcultures whose
creative centers are in Scandinavia, London, Germany, Israel, India (Goa) and Japan (See
chapter 6).
Still, the three young men who spoke freely about their interest and investment in
style spoke openly about their concern with racial or ethnic identifiers, and erasing them.
For themselves, the young men seek ways to erase signs of ethnicity to achieve their ideal
look. These young men reported trying to stay out of the sun to keep their skin from
darkening, using exercises to try to make them taller, and using a nasal prosthetic to make
a nose with a down-turned bridge appear to be upturned. One boy assured me that his
dark-skinned friend would not be able to accompany him to a fashionable nightclub
because his friend was too dark skinned. He considered the idea that his friend might be
able to dress like a very wealthy person in order to gain access, but was not convinced
this would work. Most older men interviewees did not report these types of
preoccupations, although one did recount how he had wished he were a tall blond, broad-
shouldered and thin-waisted man when he was a teen; he thought it would be easier to get
girls if he looked like a movie-star.
Of young women participants, only one reported concern for the color of her skin,
and used a skin-lightening cream and sunscreen combination to make her skin lighter.
Still, another young woman expressed dismay at her pallor, and says she tries to tan
sometimes. Some young women did, however, poke fun at young indigenous women, or
women with “Oaxacan faces” as being particularly out of fashion. One mother laughed at
the efforts of indigenous girls downtown who try to dress in a modern way, “you know,

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the ones who sell potato chips downtown and they try to change their clothes to fit in?,”
and saying that they could change their clothes but they still looked the same.
The diminishing or erasing of ethnic identifiers through bodily modification
brings to mind the body politics as described by conventional feminist theories of body
politics: it is the modification of difference, in this case defined as ethnicity, toward a
normalizing ideal. In this way, skin lightening, heightening exercises, nose realignment,
and even dress modifications, can be read as acts of conforming to regulatory ideals of
race and gender. To be attractive, these young men feel strongly that they should be tall,
broad-shouldered, and with upturned noses and fair skin. Indeed, these young men take
up the task of their racialized bodies in order to produce their ideal of masculinity, much
in the way young women take up their bodies as tasks to produce themselves as
recognizably feminine.
This evidence suggests that young Mexican men may experience the racialized
aspects of globalizing beauty ideals as powerfully, or more so, as young women. It raises
the question of whether, in a non-Western context, and in the context of globalization,
body politics are as much or more about race than they are about gender. I would suggest
that these body politics are right at the intersection of race and gender. It appears to be
through racial transformation that some young Mexican men seek to achieve a more
powerful masculinity.
So far in this chapter I have argued that the consumption and production of beauty
ideals among quinceañeras in Guadalajara are gendered and racialized. I began by
suggesting that these gendered and racial dimensions may have something to do with

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globalization. How, though, are the processes of quinceañera beautification, and its
gendered and racialized dynamics, linked to globalization? To link Guadalajara’s local
body politics to globalization, I apply Peterson’s mapping of the inextricable and
intertwining global reproductive, productive and virtual economies to the process of
production of the beautiful quinceañera. In the rest of the chapter, I link the production of
the feminine body of the quinceañera to the reproductive, productive, and virtual
economies. I use the dress, cosmetic beautification, and dance, as windows on the how
beautification in the quince años is globalized and is influenced by globalization. In
chapter four, I elaborate on the politics of the reproductive economy of beauty in the
quince, in chapter five I elaborate on the politics of the productive economy of cosmetics,
and in chapter six, I elaborate on the politics of the virtual economy of beauty.

The Reproductive, Productive, and Virtual Economies and the Quinceañera
The influences of globalization on the production of the feminine body of the
quinceañera can be read as illustrative of the intersection of the globalized reproductive,
productive, and virtual economies. In the productive economy, the dimensions that are
most intimately tied to the production of the recognizably feminine body are those which
are most globalized. The reproductive economy of the quince años is intimately tied to
the global economy of beauty because the reproductive economy teaches beauty practices
and shapes the consumption of beauty products and information. The global virtual
economy is extremely influential in the production of the quince años through
commodification of quince “traditions,” media, marketing, and advertising. The

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production of the quinceañera illustrates how closely intertwined the reproductive,
productive and virtual economies are.
According to the RPV framing, globalization must be understood in terms of the
intersections and interdependencies of the reproductive, productive, and virtual
economies. The three dimensions of the global economy are heuristically distinguished,
but as Peterson argues and this case illustrates, they are, practically speaking, inseparable.
The productive economy is that dimension of globalization most treated by
mainstream economics and IR scholarship; it represents the monetarized aspects of the
global economy. The productive economy under globalization has undergone rapid
transformation since the 1970s resulting in a globalization of chains of production,
flexibilization and informalization of production, and rough convergence of national
policies toward a neoliberal capitalist model. Feminist scholars have consistently
critiqued mainstream economics and IPE for ignoring how the productive economy is
gendered and has uneven gendered effects. In the quince años, the global productive
economy can be seen in the industry supplying goods and services toward the party’s
execution.
Scholars in the humanities and social sciences, especially postcolonial critics,
have consistently critiqued mainstream accounts of globalization for not considering the
social and cultural dimensions of globalization, most notably the information and
technological revolutions, global migrations and the global media. In remedy, Peterson
(2003) suggests that the productive economy can be viewed as inextricably intertwined
with the reproductive economy and the virtual economy.

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The reproductive economy is the non-monetarized economy of biological and
social reproduction. According to Peterson, “the reproductive economy is the economy of
families and the private sphere – where human life is generated, daily life maintained,
and socialization produced” (2003: 79). The reproductive economy therefore includes
both biological and social reproduction, key elements to the reproduction of the global
political economy. It includes social institutions such as the family, language, culture,
education, religions, and legal institutions. The reproductive economy is key to
reproducing and naturalizing hierarchy, including gender, race and class hierarchies.
The virtual economy, Peterson asserts, is made up of “the exchange of symbols:
primarily money in the contest of global financial markets; but also information…; and
‘signs’ (Peterson 2003: 113). The virtual economy is globalized through information
technology, which has made the exchange of symbols rapid and global in scale. It is also
uneven in its operation because “the resources … required for advanced technologies are
unevenly distributed, managed and controlled” and because “the information, images and
ideologies circulating in the global economy are selective” (118).
The productive economy of the quince años is immense. As listed in a guide to
quince preparation, a preparant will engage in various aspects of the productive economy:
catalogs and magazines; paid church services; party venue rentals; dresses; beauty salon
services; dance choreography; accessories; shoes; video and photography; music;
invitations; decorations; transportation; food, drink, and cake; and the “last doll.” Not
mentioned in the magazine’s guide is the attire for the chambelanes and a growing
industry in “extras” marketed to make a celebration “unique.” There are zones in the

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downtown business district dedicated to dress vendors; fabric shops; stationary printing;
accessories; dolls; and party decorations that specialize in quinceañeras or quinceañeras
and novias (brides). Beauticians, dance teachers and choreographers, videographers,
photographers, suit rentals, party venues and caterers are geographically dispersed
throughout the city. It is difficult to overemphasize the size of the industry and the
number of market dimensions to the production of the quinceañera. It is often and fairly
compared to the wedding industry.
The role of the reproductive economy in the quinceañera is also considerable (see
chapter four). The religious service reinforces the religious institution and hierarchy, and
goes as far as asking the participant to reaffirm her faith and commitment to the church.
The social role is also important, as friends, extended family, and family-members’
friends are customarily invited, reinforcing social bonds and social status. The use of
padrinos or sponsors for various aspects of the party reinforces social networks. While
not all participants felt that they “knew” what the tradition of the quince años meant, they
all maintained that spending time with family and friends was of utmost importance to
them, uniting families across the city and across borders in the event. The preparation and
execution of the event is a process engaged in by daughter and mother primarily, a
process that teaches girls skills of budgeting, priority-setting, and negotiation (Stewart
2004; Davalos 1996).
The virtual economy is also deeply tied to the quinceañera through the images
and ideas presented to celebrants in television, print media, street-level marketing and
through social networks. Television talk shows often incorporate qiunce-related content.

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An MTV show has replicated the success of My Super Sweet Sixteen with Quiero Mis
Quince, a show that shadows celebrants in preparations and executions of their “dream”
parties. Print media include weekly social column announcements, media directed at
quince preparation, and popular print media that young people use to get information
about beauty and fashion. The local industry is large and offers a substantial amount of
street level marketing. And there are party seasons when a young girl will be invited to
one or more quinceañeras per weekend for several months.
In the following I will highlight three aspects of quince preparation that are most
tied to the feminine gendering of the body: the dress, cosmetic beautification, and dance,
in order to show how they are related to the intertwining reproductive, productive and
virtual economies. These three aspects of the quince are also coincidentally the most
globalized aspects of the fiesta. The dress, beautification practices, and dance
choreographies will be used to illustrate the simultaneity of the reproductive, productive
and virtual economies.

The Dress
The dress industry is the most obvious aspect of the quince productive economy
to a casual observer, as offerings are made in almost every business district, and there are
well-known dress districts in the city center that attract customers from all parts of the
city and from surrounding rural towns. While not all of the sixteen interviewees who had
already procured their dress purchased it in the city center, all but three went to the
downtown quinceañera/novia district to try on the dresses. Two of the celebrants who did

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not travel downtown to look at the dresses defined their quince celebrations as
nontraditional partly because they did not buy the typical princess dress and because they
did not rent event salons. However, one did head downtown and to the malls to look at
evening gowns, eventually choosing a cocktail dress from a popular chain store. The
other wore some of her favorite clothes. The third quinceañera borrowed a dress.
Among those fourteen celebrants who viewed their quince as a more traditional
endeavor, eleven bought their dresses downtown, and three chose a style at a store or out
of a magazine and chose a seamstress to reproduce their desired style at a lower cost.
After much searching, one participant found a dress in a shop in Tonolá, one of the
municipalities on the Eastern side of the Guadalajara metropolitan zone, and had it
reproduced by a seamstress who was a friend of her mother’s. Dress copying is so
common that dress shop managers will not allow photographs of their product and will
not allow known seamstresses into their shops. One celebrant’s aunt sewed her dress, and
they went downtown to one of the big fabric stores to pick out the fabric and design. She
chose her dress design based on a composite of an evening dress she had worn before as a
model and a corset (“which is the kind of thing used for the quince”), and, per her aunt’s
insistence, made it more modest for going to church.
The production of the quinceañera dress operates in close connection with the
global reproductive, productive and virtual economies. They are produced as part of the
informal, flexible, or factory-based, and always-feminized dressmaking industry, or by
female relatives. Their design is closely tied to the global virtual economy of signs.

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The downtown district for quince dresses is divided roughly into two types of
dress vendors: resellers of mass-production dresses and independent designers. The
independent designers, more likely to be located in the upscale Chapultepec zone, offer
personally designed dresses in the 5000+ peso ($500+) category. These high-end stores
also sell name brand designer dresses imported from the US, Europe, or Mexico City.
The personal creations will be designed with the girl and her designer and usually her
mother to satisfy the youth’s desire to have a unique dress that expresses her personal
style. Asked whether she had seen changes in the industry in the last ten years, a personal
designer responded (from my field notes):
(Emphatically) Yes, yes, many changes. The girls have become very daring and
they no longer want a pastel gown with a large puffy skirt, they want black, red,
they want it short, they want it daring and baring lots of skin, they like lots of
dark colors and lots of contrast, red and black, white and fuchsia, fuchsia and
blue, things like that. They no longer come in and mom says, my daughter, put
this on, wear this. Now, they come in and the daughter says: “No, I don’t like it. I
want it like this and like this” and they have ideas from the centers of fashion,
Hollywood, many Hollywood stars, New York, Europe. They find pictures in
magazines, on the internet, and they say: I want this. She mentioned Penelope
Cruz, Salma Hayek, Avril Lavigne, and the Cure as influences she has seen
among her clients.

Thus a designer explained to me that she will sit down with a client and her family with
photos from international fashion magazines such as Hola (Spain) or quince magazines
from Mexico City or Guadalajara, or a picture of a dress worn by a celebrity and
published in magazines or on the internet, and balance those desires with budgets and
parents’ requisites regarding fashion. From my field notes:
She often negotiates with her client, as do the parents, to find something that the
parents find acceptable and that she as a designer sees as fit for the figure and
coloring of her client. She tells a story of a client who wanted an Avril Lavigne
outfit, with a red skirt, white corset, and a small black jacket. The black was no

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good because the client had very dark skin, the parents didn’t like the outfit
anyway, so they put tulle under the skirt to make it more puffy and traditional,
used fabric with black and white windowpane (cuadrada) and another white with
black polka dots for the top, and dropped the black jacket.

The dress may be made by the designer, but a secret of the industry is that the designer-
made dresses are often actually subcontracted to seamstresses who sew for much less
than the designer, or are even subcontracted to the very same factories that mass-produce
the copies (see below).
The other main source for dresses is the dress shops that carry facsimiles of
designer dresses. While their merchandise is jealously guarded from independent
seamstresses who make copies in home workshops, these shops sell mass-produced
dresses that replicate designer styles in quince magazines and the Expo Quinceañera.
These copy dresses typically sell at between 2,000 and 4,000 Mexican pesos, and are sold
in dozens of shops at the heart of downtown. Shops don’t sell the exact same dresses, but
they are supplied by two main manufacturers in nearby Lagos de Moreno. These two
manufacturers produce simplified copies of dresses that are featured in designer
advertisements or magazines, and sell models to the downtown vendors. Vendors can
also special-order models with variations and in different colors, making the dresses more
customized. These dresses exhibit the same color trends that the designers use, although
with less dramatic effects, for example a single strong color. Although I often heard
quinceañeras express their desire for black and red dresses, I only saw one almost-black
dress hanging up, and never saw one on display. I did see some red dresses for sale,
although not in the main displays. I never saw red or black dresses being used myself,

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although a friend saw a red quinceañera dress on a celebrant taking pictures in the park.
Mothers tend to disapprove of red and black dresses.
The designer and the copy dresses have been produced through a feminized and
globalized chain of production that includes the virtual economy of signs including
fashion magazines, Japanese cartoons, the internet, Hollywood celebrities, and
international music stars. The abundant offerings within this market can be read as the
result of the shift in the Mexican economy toward specialization in certain industries, one
of which is garment manufacture, since the 1960s (Fernandez-Kelly 1983). Part of the
success of the shift toward garment manufacture, and the reason for the industry’s
feminization, has to do with the low value given to women’s reproductive labor in
clothesmaking (Mies 1986; Enloe 2004; see chapter four).
The production of the dresses cannot, however, be separated from the market that
they serve: a demanding, informed base of youth. The desire for uniqueness is universal
among interviewees and is reflected in advertising and sales pitches made by dress
designers. Exclusivity of design is the thrust of designers’ sales pitches. It is what their
clients are looking for. Clients also bring with them images, literal and imaginary, of
what they want, based on information they gather through media and marketing in
magazines, television, and the Expo. The result is that now, as youth’s access to
information informs their search for unique expressions of their identities, the global
virtual economy of signs informs their dress production.

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Makeovers
Beauty salon services employed typically include a hairstyle and a make-up
session, acrylic fingernail fashions, and often hair coloring or highlights. Only the two
quinceañeras who identified themselves as having a “nontraditional” party, did not have
their hair and make-up done by a professional. The other fourteen quinceañeras who had
completed their fiesta received the professional services of a female relative or friend of
the family, a beautician in their neighborhood, or in the case of one, a beautician near her
mother’s place of work. Almost every neighborhood in the city, except a few very
exclusive well-to-do neighborhoods, have at least one but usually a handful of beauty
service providers within a short walking distance, operating out of homes, small salons,
or malls.
The beauty industry that serves the quinceañera is also directly implicated in
globalization. The heavy employment of women in the beauty industry is part of the
global trend toward flexibilization and feminization of labor markets, a product of the
inextricable productive and reproductive economies (see chapter four). As women enter
into the labor market, they enter it based on gendered cultural expectations as well as
gendered demands on their time. These factors make working in beauty services an
attractive option because it uses skills that they have developed through learning about
becoming a beautiful woman in their personal lives, it gives them added cultural cache as
an expert in beautification (a highly prized quality in Guadalajara), and it allows flexible
work options that allow them to fulfill family obligations. Indeed, the most common type
of beauty salon in Guadalajara is run out of a beautician’s home.

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Additionally, the majority of interviewees purchase at least some of their beauty
products from friends and relatives selling as network distributors: Avon, Jafra, Fuller,
and Mary Kay beauty products. Network marketing is being intensified, and successfully,
in the Mexican market for health and beauty products. This increase in network
marketing should be seen as a further flexibilization of the health and beauty industries,
and a new, gendered type of “functional flexibility” through which international
companies take advantage of women’s supposedly “free time” to sell products for
commission only.
The growth in the beauty services industry cannot, however, be understood
without also referencing the virtual economy. The financial sector motivates and shapes
the growth of emerging markets and youth markets. The ideas about women that make
beauty services or network marketing a good, even a “natural” option for women are
implicated in the global exchange of signs. Most clearly, the exponential growth in
beautification techniques and products is propelled by global marketing and media,
leading women to seek more and more expertise, their own or others,’ in order to
successfully achieve a feminine gendered body. Likewise, the exponential growth in
beautification techniques propels women to seek more products, and the spending money
to buy them or the discount associated with being a “distributor.” In sum, the beauty
services and products industries are directly linked to both globalization and the
production of the gendered body.

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Dance
Historically the quinceañera celebrated her new social status as a young woman
by dancing a waltz with her father or with her escort, or both. This tradition has evolved
into one of the most important parts of the production and the most anxiety-producing:
the waltz and the surprise dance. Ten of the girls used dance instructors to help them
choreograph a waltz, and seven of these also choreographed one or more “surprise
dance(es).” The choreographed waltz in all participants’ cases was danced with between
four and eight chambelanes, or male escorts. Chambelanes are frequently hired from
dance schools or dance companies for the waltz. A surprise dance is a dance of the girl’s
choosing, often danced with friends or chambelanes, that follows the waltz. In fiestas that
I witnessed live or in video or in photographs, quinceañeras danced tango,
Hawaiian/Tahitian, Arabic, salsa, hip-hop, reggaeton, Grease, and jazz dances for their
“surprise” dance.
The waltz is very important part of the reproductive sphere through its role in
performing and reproducing ideals of familial, gender, and sexual relations. The dance
reinforces familial hierarchy as she dances her last dance as a girl with her father and her
father inducts her into womanhood by placing her in high heels, and in the arms of her
chambelan-de-honor. The dance also plays a symbolic role in her induction into
heterosexual coupling as she dances with her chambelanes (Cantú 1999).
The productive economy of dances is very local because many teens already
attend their local dance school. They often hire their dance teacher as a choreographer, or
they get recommendations from someone about a dance school or choreographer. Dance

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teachers have plenty of former students and friends to hire as chambelanes. Alternatively,
professional chambelan agencies advertise at the Expo Quince or through word-of-
mouth. Finally, celebrants may purchase special clothing or costumes for the surprise
dances, anywhere between denim skirts and tank tops to belly dance or Hawaiian
costumes.
The global political economy of dance is very global, though, through its links to
the reproductive and, especially, virtual economies. One surprisingly global aspect to the
dances is the varied dance styles and their execution. Waltzes tend to be more
conservative, reiterating themes of colonial Spain and English and French aristocracy.
Still, more and more the urge to express originality in the quince is leading to a
diversification of waltz styles. Some of the old standards for quince waltzes are Sobre las
Olas (Juventino Rosas 1884), a traditional first wedding waltz, De Niña a Mujer (Julio
Iglesias 1981), and Tiempo de Vals (Chayanne 1990) since 1990. Chayanne’s classic is
still heard probably every weekend at a fiesta in Guadalajara, but more and more youth
are choosing unconventional music from popular culture to choreograph their waltzes. I
saw or heard about Disney themes, pirates, and Arabian nights danced to film scores,
Whitney Houston, and Paris Hilton. They dance still plays out a prince and princess
theme and reinforce classical ideas about gender roles: a beautiful dance partner with a
corseted waist, taking dainty, controlled steps.
Surprise dances are relatively new phenomena. They are identified as special and
exciting because they reflect the “unique desires” of quinceañeras and are used to show
off their personal style and skills. One mother complained that, during the season her

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daughter’s friends were turning fifteen and they were attending many fiestas, they had to
stop attending them because they would get so bored with seeing one surprise dance
follow another, and the party’s dancing wouldn’t start sometimes until after midnight.
While the youth’s claims to originality may be in question, the surprise dances are
important to the girls as sources of personal expression. It is in these that one can see the
global virtual economy of signs best. Here, dances imitate popstars like Shakira and
Beyonce and groups like Vaselina, and achieve a striking similarity to the pop culture
music video form. They also commonly celebrate classic Latin American dance forms
like Tango and Salsa. And they often pick up on the Arabian and Hawaiian/Tahitian
dance forms popularized by Shakira. The surprise dances, often danced alone or with a
group of girlfriends and sometimes with male escorts, offer a very different picture of the
quinceañera. In these dances, she may play the solo star, or a member of a group of
booty-shaking divas, or the lead dancer in a hip-hop dance troupe. In these types of
dances, she dances solo and usually in a highly sexualized manner.
As we can see from these three aspects of quince preparation, how young women
dress, modify, improve and move their bodies is tied to globalization. Not necessarily
every aspect of the beautification of the quinceañera is global, but through the linking of
the reproductive, productive, and virtual economies, we see that the beautification is
indeed very closely linked to the global. The dress shop downtown is local, but the
Hollywood imaginary and the European monarchies that inspire its style are part of the
global virtual economy of signs. Likewise the global gendered division of labor, the
restructuring of state policies, and the reorientation of national economic strategies that

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encouraged the feminization of dress manufacturing, the production of cheap cloth and
the brand piracy industry link the production of the dress to changes in the reproductive
sphere.
The significance of the relationship between globalization and the bodily
modifications and comportment of young girls in Guadalajara is twofold. First, it is
important because it illustrates a diversifying of expressions of gender in Guadalajara at
the same time that traditional unequal gender relations are being reinforced.
The relationship of globalization to the gendering of the feminine body is
complicated because it is at least partly through the gendering of the feminine body that
globalization operates and reproduces existing inequalities. This can be seen through the
operation of the reproductive, productive and virtual economies in the quince años.
Through gendered bodies, the productive economy relies on and supplies the
reproductive economy and meets gendered consumer demands. This very process cannot
help but reproduce those gendered divisions. For example, we see the increasing
popularity of the quinceañera that gives form to strict gendered ideas about women’s
relationship to the church, the family, their bodies, and sexuality. At the same time,
however, the tradition is quickly evolving to incorporate new ways of “being new” for
the girls. In their dances, this includes exaggerated sexuality, autonomy, and personal
freedom. In their dresses, it means bright colors and black or red as increasingly common
symbols of youthful femininity as opposed to white and pastels. In terms of
beautification, their mothers’ and fathers’ ideals of a “natural feminine beauty” have
given way to increasingly alienesque, un-natural, and supernatural styles and the

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extensive consumption of beauty products. In short, while reproducing strict archaic
gender norms, globalization is also undermining them, making them less natural, and
creating more diversity among the young women of Guadalajara.
Secondly, it illustrates how the feminine gendering of the body can be seen as an
engine of globalization. As postcolonial and postmodern feminists have noted, totalizing
accounts of globalization as corporate capitalism writ large, including feminist ones,
underestimate the power and participation of non-hegemonic forces in globalization
(Gibson-Graham 1996; Chang and Ling 2000; Freeman 2001; Bergeron 2001). By
focusing on the role of gendering of the body in generating globalization, I hope to show
that globalization cannot be conceived as a totalizing or all-encompassing power. Rather,
it must be understood as deeply intimate, indeed feeding into and being generated by all
of our bodies. Following Enloe’s paraphrase of a feminist adage, the personal is political,
the personal is economic, and the personal is international (Enloe 1989). In addition, I
hope to stress that in this case at least, it appears to be producing diversity, albeit within a
conformist imperative.

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Chapter 4: The Beautiful Quinceañera and the Global Reproductive
Economy of Beauty

Hostess Table Etiquette
1. Act sweetly, delicately, we are the hostesses.
2. Know how to chew delicately, without talking with a full mouth.
3. Know how to use the flatware, how to sit, how to use napkins.
4. Know how to converse.

Above are the major areas of social etiquette expertise, according to a beauty and
personal development class at one of the major beauty schools in Guadalajara. To follow
all of the rules and advice on how to be a good hostess in our daily lives would appear
outlandish in Guadalajara (I have never seen a base plate), but the spirit of the advice is
highly valued here: being a good host is a highly valued social skill, as are table manners
and good conversation. And much of the advice from this class has served me well:
letting my partner walk to the restaurant table ahead of me gives him time to pull out my
chair for me, telling my guests the hour that the meal will be served puts them at ease.
But most of the advice is based on social etiquette that we learn through the reproductive
economy: families teach table manners, who pulls out the chair, and how to converse in a
ladylike fashion. This class on social etiquette brings into relief two things. First, social
etiquette, or norms of appropriate behavior, are not natural, but taught, learned, and
practiced. Second, the class illustrates a trend toward commercializing formerly unpaid

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reproductive labor; classes on beauty, manners, and comportment are now widely
available in Guadalajara.
These two phenomenon, the teaching of social norms and the commercialization of
reproductive labor, are key elements to the role of the reproductive economy in the global
circulation of beauty products, as seen through the fiesta de quince años. The
characteristics of the reproductive economy in the beautification of the quinceañera
illustrate the importance of the reproductive economy to the global political economy of
beauty. The reproductive economy also illustrates some of the identities, ideologies, and
institutions that are privileged in the production of beauty.
This chapter centers on four questions: What role does the reproductive economy
play in the global circulation of beauty products, as seen through the fiesta de quince
años? What are the effects of the reproductive sphere on youth beauty making? What
identities, ideologies, and institutions are privileged through the production of the
beautiful quinceañera? And finally, what are responses by youth to the reproductive
economy of beauty?
In answering these questions, I argue that the key role of the reproductive economy
in the fiesta de quince años illustrates the centrality of the reproductive economy to the
global political economy of beauty. The reproductive economy shapes the use of beauty
products, the consumption of beauty information, and the formation of ideas about what
is beautiful. Through its links to the global productive economy and the global virtual
economy, the reproduction of gendered norms of beauty in the fiesta de quince años is
increasingly tied to globalization. The intersection of globalization with the reproduction

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of beauty in the quince has meant that reproductive labor is increasingly called upon, as
both a source of income and as free labor when demands for beautification, beauty
products, and beauty services rise. The intensification of demands on reproductive labor,
the increasing commercialization of reproductive labor, and the role of the quince in the
construction of social norms, means that the reproductive economy of beauty in the
quince plays a part in reproducing social hierarchies. Structures of hierarchy in the global
reproductive economy of beauty privilege masculinities and momentarily, if at all,
achievable ideals of femininity, the institutions of gender difference, marriage, family and
church, and the ideologies of patriarchy, racism, capital commercialization and individual
consumption. Competition between parents and adolescents, interestingly, adds a twist to
the reproduction of social norms, and shows one avenue through which change in the
privileged institutions, ideologies, and identities of the fiesta de quince años may be
occurring.
In the following I describe the role that the reproductive economy plays in
producing the beautiful quinceañera. I extend this argument to the global political
economy of beauty, arguing that reproductive labor in the fiesta de quince años is central
to the global political economy of beauty through its links to the productive and virtual
economies. I then describe how demands on reproductive labor in the quince have
changed since the 1960s, arguing that the global political economy of beauty has seen
increased commercialization of reproductive labor and increased demands on unpaid
reproductive labor. Finally, I describe how the global political economy of beauty,
through the quince, reproduces social norms and social hierarchies.

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Reproducing Beauty, Reproducing Gender in the Fiesta de Quince Años
The fiesta de quince años is produced through intense reproductive labor, and
itself plays a significant role in communicating and teaching social norms. The quince is
both a product of the reproductive economy and an input into the reproductive economy.
The importance of reproductive labor in the production of the quince años is nowhere
more clear than in the process of producing the beautiful quinceañera. Family and friend
mentors, word of mouth, and contracted service labor teach quinceañeras about beauty
production and consumption. Ideas about what is beautiful, what products to use, and
how to get beautiful, are also passed through family and friends, word of mouth, and
people in beauty services and product distribution. The result has been a dramatic
increase in reproductive labor, both commercial and unpaid, dedicated to making
quinceañeras beautiful.
The reproductive economy is important to the quince because orchestrating a
Mass and a party is a lot of work and/or money. The amount of work and expense can be
prohibitive for some potential celebrants. If a family cannot afford the expense, they
might be able to make up the difference through calling on social networks and extended
family to contribute their labor, gifts in kind, and money. One saw it as worth the effort
because
I would see my friends before their quince, I helped them get ready and
everything, and I saw that they had to go rehearse with their chambelanes, that
they had to go to find the dress, then the cake, then the invitees, then the dinner,
then something else, ugh, they were left with no, they didn’t have time to do
anything. But in the end I saw them and I saw that they were happy.

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Just taking care of the basic elements of a party takes a lot of time for the quinceañera
and those who help her.
Another quinceañera decided that a quince would not be worth the effort because
she always saw people talking behind a quinceañera’s back about something gone wrong
after all her work.
The fiestas are a lot of trouble because you have to be rehearsing a waltz, a surprise
dance, take care of the dress, shoes, you fix up everything and it never comes out
anything like you want or what you expect, and you can’t please all the guests, there
is always someone who leaves talking bad, or I don’t know, that is what I have
always seen.

The fiesta de quince años takes a lot of money and reproductive labor, and the
contentment of a quinceañera and her family is closely tied to the successful completion
of the reproductive work and the concomitant social approval.
Extended families and friends, especially female, contribute a large part of the
labor to make a quince possible. One of the major conduits for contributions is through
the solicitation and participation of padrinos, or godparents/sponsors. A girl’s baptismal
godparents, or padrinos de bautizo, will often participate with a monetary contribution,
and godparents will hold a position of honor at the party and be announced by an emcee.
The padrino (godfather) will often dance a special dance with the quinceañera after she
dances with her father.
Depending on a girl’s economic resources and her social resourcefulness, she may
have many more padrinos for her quince años. One of the major developments in the
practice of the quince años is the emergence of the use of sponsors to make the party
accessible to aspiring middle class families. As one father recounted the differences

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between quinceañeras in his time, in the mid-1960s, and those of his children, “Yes, they
are different I think because of the simple fact that before a quinceañera just stood up
with her godparents and her parents at the Church to give thanks and now, now I see that
there are even ‘cake’ godparents, ‘dress’ godparents, godparents for everything.” A girl
complained to me that she did not want to celebrate the relatively new tradition of giving
the celebrant her “last doll,” saying that “it doesn’t agree with me, like, you know that
there are a lot of madrinas, for example for the cushion, for the drinks, for the ring, for
everything. I would like to have one for the cushion, for the drinks, for the bible, for the
album,…for the cake server and the knife, but not the doll, that doesn’t agree with me so
much.” Many people contribute without being padrinos or madrinas, as well. A party
might be held in the home of a friend of the family, or the party salon owned by a
parent’s work colleague. All of these sponsors/godparents, and more, contribute a portion
of the expense and labor to create a party full of details and increasingly numerous
traditions.
The cooperative nature of paying for a quince makes the overall cost difficult to
estimate. One quinceañera borrowed a dress, and another used clothing she already had.
It is more difficult to assess the cost of the less expensive celebrations because there are
more sponsors and more gifts in kind, such as beauty makeover services, borrowed
transportation, potluck, and borrowed event locations. A meal and party at home for a girl
and her friends may cost as little as 500 pesos. With the help of a brother of one
quinceañera, I estimated one simple and low-cost quince to have cost about 8,000 pesos
among the various contributors. On the higher end, a quinceañera bought a designer

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dress, hired professional chambelanes, rented a limousine, hired a musical variety show, a
disc jockey, and a mariachi band, and rented one of the more expensive dance halls and
church halls, for a party that I estimate cost over 130,000 pesos (13,000 USD), in
addition to the cost of flying for numerous family members from the United States. These
costs are not, and are not expected to be, recuperated in gifts to the quinceañera.
Quince preparation involves a lot of cooperative effort, but when it comes to the
beautification, it is female family members and friends all the way down, from
recommendations to applications. Personal relationships, word of mouth and close
proximity are the keys to who ends up dressing and “fixing up” the quinceañera. A dress
was made by the friend of a mother, a sister’s friend did the quinceañera’s makeup and
nails, a mother found a salon recommended by a friend at work. A quinceañera’s sisters
helped her design her dress, and one of them paid for it. One quinceañera’s cousin
donated her skills that she was learning in beauty school, and another’s cousin hired her
own cosmetician for the quinceañera. The cosmetician brought a hairdresser that she
works with. Another quinceañera went to the makeup artist, nail artist, and hair stylist
that her sister recommended, a place by their house. Another had her makeover done by
an older sister, a professional cosmetician. A quinceañera borrowed her green jewelry to
match her green dress from a cousin who had also worn green, although of a different
shade. Friends and family members gift and loan jewelry, makeup applications, hair
styling, dress design, dress manufacture, shoes, flowers, dance classes, and all of the
other elements of a party. When a cosmetician is contracted, it is without fail through a
personal recommendation or through a beautician’s salon in the neighborhood. All of this

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service labor involved in teaching beautification and comportment is essential to the
production of the beautiful quinceañera, who is inexperienced in such things.
Mothers are, almost without exception, the central influence on a quinceañera’s
preparation. The refrain, “my mom told me” or “my mom said” is sprinkled through
discussions of quince preparation, dress shopping, makeup, and hair. As one interviewee
recounted, “at first I said ‘no,’ that I didn’t want one, that I would prefer if they gave me
money, but my mom said ‘no,’ that she wanted to give me a party.” I came to find out
that at least two quinceañeras celebrated only under intense pressure from their mothers,
while many more experienced their mother’s desire to celebrate as merely one among
many motivations.
One of the areas over which mothers exercise heavy influence is the dress.
Mothers are the primary shopping partners for dress shopping, as clearly visible in the
downtown quince shopping districts. The three girls who wanted black dresses did not get
them or did not think they would get them because of their mother’s protest. A mother
convinced her daughter to choose a pastel green dress over the girl’s favorite color
because the pastel green “made her shine.” One “nontraditional” quinceañera’s mother
picked out her dress for her.
Chambelanes also contribute significantly to the reproductive economy of the
quince años, playing the very important role of Prince Charming in the party, but also as
supportive friend through the preparations and at the party. One chambelan who had
made two debuts and was planning on a third, explained that he likes to play chambelan
because “it is a nice thing, you know, because you make the quinceañera feel good, when

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she is having trouble doing a dance step, you support her and you tell her that she can
learn the dance step, because it is true, the majority can learn the step, why can’t she?
Taking it easier and practicing more you can do it. It feels nice to me.” This
chambelane’s sentiments, while articulated better than some others, are not uncommon.
The boys dedicate many afternoons to repetitive dance rehearsals, hours and hours of
flirting and making the quinceañera feel special. At rehearsal after rehearsal I witnessed
considerate and patient chambelanes encouraging the quinceañera, trying to increase her
confidence, and teaching choreographies to newly added members of the court or to ones
falling behind.
Friends are also a significant source of information and help in the preparatory
stages. One quinceañera reported her first motivation to have a party based on her
friends’ encouragement. Another went from a basic, simple party to a theme-driven, all-
the-bells-and-whistles party after she went with friends to the Expo Quince and they
egged each other on. Most celebrants choose their choreographer from a dance school
near their house, one where they already take classes. Others, however, find them through
their friends who have hired choreographers or through parents talking at quince años
parties. For example, one celebrant hired her choreographer through word of mouth when
she attended a friend’s quince años with her mother, and her mother picked up the name
of the choreographer from another mother at their table who had hired the choreographer
for her own daughter. In another case, a chambelan had contacts with choreographers
from a previous quince años, and when his quinceañera and her court became

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disillusioned with their choreographer and dance instructor, he used his contacts to rehire
someone from the dance company that had trained him at the earlier quinceañera.
This type of word of mouth and friends-and-family approach to making the
quinceañera beautiful hit home when, as my attendance at a beauty school became
known, my services were sought to make up and style hair for an interviewee at her
beauty contests. Then, at the big event, I quickly became a last-minute helper for other
contestants who had not contracted professional services. Nervous and hesitant about my
own skills, I was reassured by my young participant that she knew nothing about makeup
and hair, so anything would be fine.
Cosmeticians, hired, family members, or even acquaintances, play an important
role in choosing styles and teaching inexperienced girls about makeup, hair styling and
nail application. As one girl explained about her salon experience:
Actually, I didn’t do anything. In the salon, they plucked my eyebrows, they fixed
me up in the salon, they did everything for me. They did my makeup, they did my
hair, they plucked my eyebrows. I chose the hairstyle. The makeup too, but that
was more her idea than mine. The hairstyle I did pick out, something out of the
ordinary. There are always up-do’s, I said no, I told her that I wanted something
like that, but original and pretty, something that was like a little ponytail, a half-
ponytail, but the other half of the hair down. I was walking and I saw the salon
and I went in, I went in and I asked…I was looking for a good service,
economical, and to see how the place was, because if it was like an ugly place,
well, no.

As an assistant to the beauty pageant contestant, I even got to help the interviewee
practice her modeling walk so that she looked more comfortable and confident in high
heels that her friend loaned her, two sizes too small. I shared with her what I learned in
beauty class: hold shoulders back, but not too far back, steady, but not tense. Let arms
drape down naturally, and then swing just the forearm below the elbow, each arm

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synchronized with the opposite leg. Look forward and maintain a gaze that shows that
you are not worried about your feet or worried about your arms or worried about falling.
Place heels first, then toes. Walk with confidence and a steady gait, not too fast, and not
too slow.
Ideas about what is beautiful, what products to use, and how to get beautiful, are
also heavily influenced by the reproductive economy, passed as they are through family
and friends, by word of mouth, and by people in beauty services, dressmaking, and
beauty product distribution. Through personal recommendations and services performed
by sisters and mothers, word of mouth plays an important role in informing quinceañeras
about practices and ideals of beauty. Sisters are especially important. As one fourteen
year old put it, “Like, it is like…’wow, look, how pretty that looks, I want to put on
makeup, too’…so for, well, I don’t know, my sister, sometimes she tells me ‘oh, I am
going to put this on you,’ and she puts it on me. Or I say ‘ oh, look, let me make up my
eyes.’ Sisters are responsible for checking a quinceañera’s clothes before she leaves the
house, sharing her fashion magazines, her clothes, her makeup, her exercise DVDs, and
most importantly, her advice.
Quinceañeras also exchange a significant amount of information between them.
“…for example my friends were the ones who got me to do it, they told me ‘you know
what, pluck your eyebrows, do your makeup like this, dress like this.’ …yes, they taught
me makeup and now I am all made up, to pluck my eyebrows, they taught me a lot of
things, even how to hook up with boys…” Another recounted how her cousin, also her
best friend, told her to pluck her eyebrows and sat her down and did it for her, and taught

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her makeup and fashion. This young woman had not worn high heels, either, and her
cousin showed her how. One quinceañera shared information among friends through
another friend, who sold clothes and shoes by catalog. The girls look at catalogs but they
also buy because “ that is what [she] works in, that is why we buy.”
The influence of network marketing on spreading information and advice is not
small. Out of twenty-eight girl interviewees, twelve mentioned, in interviews or outside,
or had mentioned by an older adult in their family, the use of network marketing as a
source of beauty and fashion products, from Herbalife to Avon to Fuller to Flexy shoes.
Among twelve boy interviewees, only two connections to network marketing were
revealed to me, one by the mother of a boy whose sister sells makeup, and one by another
boy whose sister sells Avon. I am not convinced that these were the only participants who
use or sell beauty and fashion through network marketing, because it was not a specific
line of questioning, but rather emerged as a consistent pattern in interviews and field
notes. The overwhelming majority of network marketers are friends, family, and friends
of family. Only one participant sold through network marketing herself, but many
immediate family members did. Only one interviewee explained that she bought her
makeup from an Avon vendor who sold door-to-door. This girl is in a position of
privilege among her peers, because Avon and Mary Kay brands are prestige brands
among middle class youth.
The reproductive economy in beauty information is not exclusive to
quinceañeras. Boys and girls find fashion by seeing what other youth are wearing, as
expressed by one girl who said “I don’t know, I see people here and there and I get

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ideas.” Boys also borrow hairstyles from their friends and cousins and people in the
street. As one said: “I hardly look at magazines, I see them maybe when my friends or
my cousins have them.” And another reported that he borrows ideas “like the hairstyle
that my cousins had, I say ‘wow, that looks cool, you know, and I try to do the hairstyle
and if I like how it looks on me I keep using that hairstyle.” Where boys differ is in the
degree of services and products that they employ. All boys use hair gel, but beyond that,
very few use more styling products, and they rarely get their hair done by a professional.
The only times I heard of a boy in my set of interviewees using beauty services beyond a
hair cut was when one was going to perform a dance show, and an experienced friend
straightened his hair. I also witnessed professional stylists straightening and styling all
boys’ hair in the beauty contest that I helped with and another modeling show that I
witnessed. Therefore, their sources of information are less centered in the beauty services
industry, and their efforts at beautification remain less visible.
In sum, the reproductive economy shapes the use of beauty products, the
consumption of beauty information, and the formation of ideas about what is beautiful in
fiestas de quince años and among quinceañeras and their contemporaries. Family
members, friends, people in the street, and network marketers play a central role in the
provision of advice, information, services, and products. The role of the reproductive
economy in beauty production shows that beauty consumption, beauty ideals, and beauty
production are not naturally occurring, but rather produced through teaching, advice, and
practice in the reproductive economy.

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The Changing Role of the Reproductive Economy
The imperative to be beautiful puts a premium on reproductive labor necessary to
produce the beautiful quinceañera. But it has not always been this way. The historical
changes in the celebration of the quince años are illustrative of the major changes going
on in the reproductive economy of beauty. As the extravagant quince has become
popularized, there has been a concomitant commercialization of services and
commodification of products to make the quince special and the quinceañera beautiful.
Likewise, there has been increasing demand on reproductive labor to make up the
difference between family economic resources and the demands of an extravagant quince.
There are three types of fiestas de quince años described by parents who reached
fifteen between the early 1960s and the early 1980s: the big debut, the party in the streets,
and the family and godparents going to Mass and sharing a meal at home. The practice of
the big debut was reserved for those with significant economic resources. This
“presentation to society” was practiced by the upper classes, included fourteen damas and
fourteen chambelanes, and was highly esteemed though seldom seen. One parent from a
relatively well-off family had attended such a debut in her youth, but otherwise
interviewees saw these debuts only from a distance. They were known to occur, but their
practice would not even have occurred to one mother, was the envy of another, and was
simply outside of the social circles of the rest.
As the big party has been popularized, the upper classes have practiced it less.
Older adults often refer to the practice as having been one of the upper social classes,
who now often eschew the practice as below them, preferring instead a vacation or a car.

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One mother, a high school teacher, described the difference through seeing her students
in a well-off school ridicule the practice as vulgar or cheesy, and her students in a public
school dream about their quince años with anticipation.
The party in the streets was practiced in villages and in some residential
neighborhoods of the city. This second type of party is associated with rural tradition, and
continues to be practiced on the outskirts of the city and in the villages that form a web
around the metropolitan district. In this type of quince, a family closes off the street in
front of their house and invites everyone in the neighborhood or the village to the party.
Some families offered a meal, similar to the rural style wedding, of a typical food such as
birria or mole, and everyone was invited to eat and then dance. If there wasn’t money for
a meal, family members pitched in for sodas or aguas frescas and the neighborhood
danced. Music might be provided by a local mariachi band or by a stereo. In these parties,
the dancing was less formal, although the quinceañera started the dancing by being
invited by a local boy or by her father.
The final style of quince celebration, according to one mother much more
common in the 1960s than any type of quince celebration now, is attendance at Mass and
a family meal. In these cases, a quinceañera gives thanks to God and renews her faith in
the presence of her parents and godparents, and the family has a meal and maybe dancing
at home, among family. Then as now, dancing is a major measure of success of a party.
As one quinceañera put it “It would be really cool if everyone would dance…if everyone
sitting down, instead of being, like, ‘oh look at that,’ would say more like ‘I want to
dance, too’.”

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The major change in celebrating the quince over the last fifty years has been the
popularization of the big, extravagant quince. Among youth interviewees, the big debut-
style quince años is seen as the “traditional” quince años, the prototype against which
their quince dreams and desires are measured. As discussed above, the presentation to
society is understood to be an antiquated meaning, although it is fun to imitate. The big
party is, rather, a big party, a lot of fun, a moment, and a chance to be a princess or star.
The differences between parents’ quince practices and those of their children
illustrate how the role of the reproductive economy in the globalization of beauty
products and practices is changing. First, there is a premium on all of the reproductive
labor required to pull off the popularized big celebration. Second, the premium on
reproductive labor has led to two trends: as reproductive labor is increasingly
commercialized in the service of quinceañera production, and as there is an increase in
unpaid reproductive work dedicated to celebrating the extravagant quince.
The first trend is toward increasing commercialization of reproductive labor.
Peterson refers to this as informalization, where reproductive labor is increasingly turned
into a form of income production, often in the informal or semi-formal markets.
Examples of the trend toward reproductive labor turning into commercial informal labor
are housework (Mies 1986, Prugl 1999), domestic labor for hire (Pettman 1996, Chin
1998), international sex services (Pettman 1996, Agathangelou 2004), and international
marriage markets. Informalization includes the search by corporations for cheaper labor
through using flexible work arrangements like homework, piecework. It also includes the
trend toward commercializing previously unpaid reproductive labor, like sex and house

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cleaning. In the global political economy of beauty, we can see increasing
commercialization of reproductive labor in dressmaking, makeup application, hair
styling, and dance.
In the global political economy of beauty, there is heavy commercialization,
including commodification of previously uncommodified articles and the
commercialization of formerly unpaid reproductive labor, as well as informalization of
product distribution by large corporations. The “commodification of everything”
(Wallerstein 1995) in the beauty market includes creams that replace homemade food-
and plant- based treatments, makeup that replaces charcoal and berries, and a huge
arsenal of invented necessities such as hair, nail and eyelash extensions. I call the trend
toward income generation through beautification services commercialization of beauty
because it is service labor that was previously not performed or performed in the private,
unpaid economy. For example, at least three mothers who were interviewed learned to be
seamstresses as young women. One mother learned as a young girl in the 1960s and
worked as a seamstress and housemaid for rich relatives in exchange for room and board
in the city, until she met her husband. She made her daughters’ dresses for special events
until her youngest daughter, a participant in this study, turned fifteen, and the family sent
the dress to be made by a professional seamstress. Another learned in the 1970s because
her husband’s family would not allow her to continue studying toward a medicine degree
in the university. Her adopted family allowed her to study sewing and cosmetology,
which she did in order to keep her mind occupied and to feel useful. She did not sew her
daughter’s dress, but another daughter who also studied cosmetology did donate her

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services. A third mother learned her seamstress skills in the 1980s, to earn money on the
side in order to help her family. She also hired a seamstress to sew her daughter’s dress.
What these stories illustrate is the transition from homemade dresses to the commercial
use of sewing skills to earn income, formally or informally, and the purchase of
commercially manufactured dresses. Not one of my interviewees had a homemade dress,
although their mothers often wore homemade dresses daily.
Beauty services likewise illustrate this movement from homemade treatments and
makeup and long, undone hair, to the application of all kinds of extensions, corrector
creams, foundation, at least three colors of eyeshadow, face shading powders, eyeliners,
mascaras, blushes, lip liners, lipsticks and lip glosses, hair sprays, hair gels, hair creams,
flat irons, curling irons, and all manners of lifting and shaping hair. The explosion in
beautification practices entails both the commodification of previously non-commodified
products and the commercialization of services, such as beauty classes, makeup
application, hair styling, nail application and nail decoration.
Dancing is also now both commodified and commercialized, as young people take
classes from professional dancers instead of learning from their mothers and fathers, hire
professional dance accompaniment, and buy special outfits to make their dance stand out.
In sum, the types of labor that is historically performed in the reproductive economy, is
increasingly commodified and commercialized as people, mostly women, develop their
labor as entrepreneurs.
The second trend in the reproductive economy of beauty is the increase in
reproductive labor, illustrated by an increase in unpaid reproductive work dedicated to

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making quinceañeras beautiful. The amount of reproductive labor dedicated to making
the quinceañera beautiful generally increases in inverse proportionality to the celebrant’s
family economic resources. The increased investment of unpaid reproductive labor in
beautification makes the celebration possible, or possible on a grander scale, despite
limited economic resources. “They couldn’t give me the waltz, the dress, the Mass, I tried
to understand it because it was my dream. My siblings talked to me, they told me ‘look,
there isn’t any way right now to do the fiesta, how would you like it if you invite a friend,
and we make a meal?’ And we did make a meal, we danced the waltz, my brothers and I,
my mom. But it was really nice that day I remember…they made a sacrifice to make me
feel special, so yeah, sometimes it doesn’t matter if you get a fiesta in a rental hall, but
what matters really is the love.”
As an opportunity to participate in an expensive endeavor, a lot of families and
extended networks are making up for the lack of financial resources by donating
reproductive labor. This makes reproductive work the bridge between feeling poor and
feeling able to celebrate the quince. So, for some poorer families, the reproductive work
is not only a source of income, but also a source of displaying upward mobility.
In sum, the role that the reproductive economy plays in the economy of beauty is
central. Reproductive labor teaches beauty. Reproductive labor in beautification is also
increasingly a source of income generation through its commercialization and higher
demand for beauty services. And finally, reproductive labor is increasingly called upon to
make up the difference between family economic resources and youth’s middle-class
social demands.

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Is the Reproductive Economy of Beauty Global?
The question still remains as to how the reproductive economy plays a role in the
global economy of beauty. At first glance, the reproductive economy of beauty in the
fiesta de quince años appears to be highly local. The transformations in the reproductive
economy of beauty over the last fifty years, however, indicate otherwise. The
reproductive economy is responsible for teaching quinceañeras about beauty ideals,
practices, and consumption. And beauty ideals, practices and consumption have changed
dramatically in the last fifty years. These changes result from and contribute to the
changing global political economy of beauty. The links between the reproductive,
productive and virtual political economies illustrate how the local reproductive economy
and the global political economy of beauty are intertwining and inextricable.
The links between the reproductive, productive and virtual political economies
make clear the essential role that the reproductive economy plays in the global political
economy of beauty. The reproductive economy is increasingly tied to the productive
economy through the trend toward commercialization of reproductive labor, the trend
toward commodification of formerly homemade goods, and the efforts by families to use
reproductive labor to make up the gap between economic resources and social desires.
The reproductive economy is closely tied to the global virtual economy because it is the
medium through which information is gathered and passed on.

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The Quince Constructs Social Norms
The fiesta de quince años and the beauty in it is not just a product of reproductive
labor, but is also an important part of the reproduction of social norms. There are times of
life, for both youth and parents, when they will attend fiestas de quince años almost every
weekend for months. The fiestas play an important role in communicating ideals of
gendered adolescence.
One important norm that is reproduced through the quince is the idea of
adolescence. Adolescence in the quince is framed as a privileged time of life, as the apex
of beauty, and the time to find a partner. The meaning of the celebration, almost
universally for youth, and also consistently for adults, is to celebrate achieving
adolescence. Youth are hesitant to say that they are becoming women, and more likely to
describe the passage to fifteen years as a celebration for having made it to fifteen, as just
a great party in which they are the star, and as a recognition of their status as adolescents.
As one quinceañera put it, “it’s when you, when supposedly before fifteen you’re a girl
and so when you turn fifteen you’re an adolescent.” And as another said, “it is like
starting to be less of a girl or a kid and more like you can be crazy and sort of, I mean,
within reason of course...” A real life transition for her would be more likely to occur at
18, she says. Others refer to the time as becoming a “señorita” or a “Miss.” One girl
started out by saying that people say that it is a change from girl to woman, but finished
by saying that really it is a change from a girl to “a young person, a señorita.” Parents
also consistently identify the quince as marking the entrance to adolescence, rather than
adulthood, as one parent said “you aren’t a girl anymore, you are an adolescent.”

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The celebration is about enjoying adolescence. Time after time, interviewees cited
the trite “because you will never be fifteen again” as a reason they ultimately decided to
celebrate their quince with a big party, despite the cost in time and money. The phrase
has the ring of a marketing jingle, but I came to see it as important because it is repeated
so often. Not only is it a repetitive citation of fifteen as a great, one-of-a-time experience,
it reflects an orientation toward enjoying adolescence. When asked whether the ceremony
and fiesta had a more religious or social meaning, one interviewee explained the
sentiments of many: “Yeah, it is the tradition and everything, but for me that isn’t so
important. It’s more to say that I am growing now, well just the party. The Mass is to
give thanks to god that He let me live more time, that is the significance that I see, give
thanks to God and celebrate that I am fifteen.” Another described it as celebrating her
entrance into “a better stage of life.” She went on to clarify, however, that you don’t need
a fiesta for that, so it is really just to have fun and party with friends.
The fun of adolescence is partly about being with friends, family, and being a star
or a princess. Celebrants generally reported that fun with their friends was one of the
primary pleasures of having had a quince, or one of the primary reasons to have one. One
interviewee decided to postpone her quince in hopes of having more friends with whom
to celebrate it the following year, when she expected to be in High School. Junior High
was a painful time for her, in terms of making good and supportive friendships, and she
hoped High School would be better in that respect.
Chambelanes participate out of a desire to be a good friend. One repeat
chambelan took his role very seriously as being a supportive friend and defending the

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quinceañera against negative attitudes and criticism from peers. Boys and girls alike take
pleasure in performing for an audience, as well. As one interviewee said he likes to
perform the role of chambelan because it is fun, “because I don’t see it as difficult, I like
to dance, I like people to watch me dance, I don’t know why, I like when people clap.”
Even one quinceañera who was hesitant to celebrate her quince because she feared the
dancing part later regretted not having performed her surprise dance at the last minute. It
was her one regret, again because it ended up being fun.
The stage of adolescence is identified as one of more liberties, changing bodies,
and dating. The liberties include being allowed to go out with friends alone more, being
allowed to talk to boys, date, or even have a boyfriend, and to wear makeup and more
provocative clothing. Girls are allowed more freedom to spend unsupervised time with
friends, to walk outside with friends on the streets, and to associate with male friends. As
an interviewee explained, “you have more rights to have friends, to have a boyfriend, to
go out and hang out.”
Changing relationships with boys are very important. One girl explained the
meaning of the quince as based on the changing relationships with boys: “They say that
‘that girl that we had is going through changes now,’ like even in school and everything,
there are different ways of getting along with guy friends at school.” One interviewee
giggled and said “don’t ask me”, not knowing what the Mass is for, but says that she
thinks, based on the Masses that she has attended, that it is a chance for the father to
recognize them and “give them his point of view that they shouldn’t sleep around, that
they should choose their guy friends carefully and all that.”

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Through beauty classes, salon visits, and preparations with family members and
friends, young girls learn about makeup application and the extra things they can do to
make themselves beautiful. Through dance classes, choreographies, and practices,
quinceañeras and their friends learn how to dance. Through motherly guidance, girls
learn how to be a gracious hostess, how to network, and how to negotiate with her
sponsors.
In effect, the fiesta de quince años is an opportunity for a quinceañera to learn
and practice her social skills, including appropriate dress, beauty, and comportment that
put a gendered adolescence on display. The production and display at the quince años
then feeds into the quinceañera machine where guests pick up recommendations, ideas
about traditions to adopt, and ideas about what they do not want to do in order to make
their own party unique.
The fiesta de quince años, centered as it is on the girl star, could be construed as
simply the teaching of feminine norms. This, however, would be wrong. First, there are
plenty of opportunities for socialization of boys, as well. It is a family event, and cousins
and brothers and uncles and nephews play roles as chambelanes, drivers, set-up, ushers,
and emcees. This is a gendered division of reproductive labor that is nowhere more clear
than among the chambelanes. The chambelanes, playing the role of Prince Charming, are
inducted into the masculine side of heterosexual romance and sexual relationships just as
quinceañeras are taught about the feminine side. Prince Charming learns how to dance,
how to lead, how to treat his princess as a precious treasure. He learns how to defend her
honor to her nitpicking peers, and how to make her look good in front of an audience.

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Even more important than the direct socialization of boys who participate in the
quince, the celebration contributes to the construction of masculine identities through the
construction of gender as a system of difference. Recalling that gender is a social
construction of difference built around the dichotomy of masculinity and femininity, the
fiesta de quince años plays an important role in socializing appropriate masculinity
through what it is not.
Rather, reproductive economy of the quince años is responsible for constructing a
gendered adolescence. The fiesta marks a celebrant’s transition to being a young lady, a
señorita. The graces that the quinceañera learns, practices, and puts on display at the
fiesta, such as beautification, hostessing, dancing, and networking, are the talents that are
socially valued for women. Interviewees, asked about the ideals for feminine behavior,
stated them to be friendliness, the ability to converse easily, the ability to listen well,
studiousness, cleverness, good speaking abilities, good manners, and good advice-giving.
Dancing is also a highly valued social ability. These behaviors and comportments are on
full display at the quince, as a quinceañera asks family and friends to become sponsors,
arranges guest lists, makes invitations, makes her debut, greets guests, poses for photos,
receives gifts, and dances with her invitees.
One male interviewee could imagine a boy celebrating a quince años type thing,
but only for a young boy who wanted to change his sex and be presented as a woman, he
said, then it would make sense. An effeminate boy could become another sex, and
therefore be presented to society as a young lady at a quince celebration. But a masculine
boy, on the other hand, would not have a quince celebration, because it is about becoming

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a woman. This young interviewee explained that he does not discriminate because being
born another sex could happen to anyone, it isn’t their fault, it is their hormones. This
interviewee’s non-foundational idea about sex and gender was the most clearly
articulated, but the idea that only an effeminate boy would have a quince años came up
repeatedly in interviews. Most commonly, boys and girls and their parents simply
responded that boys do not celebrate their quince años or their transition to adolescence.
Boys just don’t do it, it is not for boys. When asked if there should be a recognition,
public or not, of boys’ maturation, most demurred, repeating that that stuff is for girls.
Boys are more likely to point to eighteen as a more important life turning point, because
they achieve more legal rights and responsibilities or they finish high school.
The Mass is also seen as a gendered obligation, because “women have to give
more thanks to God and to their parents. A man is very different.” The Mass serves as a
vehicle for a woman’s obligation to be grateful to her parents and to God. The
quinceañera gives thanks publicly and before God, and then renews her commitment to
be religious and pure in a series of promises to the Father. She finishes the ceremony by
offering a bouquet to the Virgin Mary, a further sign of her commitment to be obedient
and virginal before God.
The production of gendered social norms is not accidental. In addition to religious
leaders, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, and friends take an active interest in
teaching their daughters how to be women. One older sister made it a point to use the
quince años as a medium for teaching her sister about makeup and making herself
beautiful, even gifting her with a personal beauty, manners, and comportment class. A

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good number of mothers, conservative and liberal, report trying to teach their daughters
about sex and/or the value of virginity, and use the fiesta de quince años to try to instill a
sense of worth in their daughters so that they don’t just get involved with any boy. The
teaching opportunities and interests are not uniform, but they are all teaching about how
to be a good woman.
Finally, the fiesta de quince años contributes to the construction of norms of
beauty for the quinceañeras. Just as the reproductive labor invested in the quince teaches
beauty ideals, beauty production and beauty consumption, the quince itself plays a role in
communicating those ideals and practices. Family and guests learn about the quince
traditions, like the dress, the dances, and the beautification, through their participation
and their attendance. They develop ideas about what they find a valuable tradition, what
they find over-the-top, and come up with ideas to put their original touch into their future
quince años. It is not uncommon to hear jokes in the street about quinceañeras being
attractive and beautiful. Women are, indeed, treated as the most beautiful and precious in
the quince stage of adolescence.

Structures of Privilege in the Reproductive Economy of the Quince
Both through its reliance on reproductive labor and through its role in
constructing social norms, the reproductive economy of the quince also plays an
important role in reproducing axes of social hierarchy. Structures of privilege in the
reproductive economy of beauty privilege masculinities and momentarily, if at all,
achievable ideals of femininity. The reproductive economy also privileges the institutions

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of gender difference, marriage, family and church, and the ideologies of patriarchy,
racism, capital commercialization and individual consumption. The age of adolescence
can be seen to hold a certain amount of privilege that, intersecting with structures of
hierarchy, lead to contestation and change of some norms.

Privileged Identities
The RPV framework builds on feminist scholarship that argues that the privileged
identities in the global reproductive economy are the masculine breadwinner and the
Northern consumer. The masculine breadwinner identity, usually held by men, is valued
for his work and his time through higher monetary rewards, jobs of higher prestige, and
authority in the household. The less privileged, in this case, is the housewife whose work
is not recognized, monetarily or otherwise, as critical to the global political economy. The
Northern consumer is a privileged identity through their purchasing power, to which
developing countries must appeal to earn foreign exchange. The appeal to the Northern
consumer often puts women in the position of selling their domestic, sexual, or service
labor in order to make ends meet, while consumers enjoy the privilege of being courted
and enjoying the fruits of low-paid reproductive labor.
The privileged identities in the fiesta de quince años reflect somewhat these
generalizations of the RPV framework. The breadwinner masculinity is privileged in the
fiesta de quince años, in as much as fathers and the patriarchal family (see below) are
privileged. Interestingly, another type of masculinity, the fashionable, cosmopolitan,

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metrosexual, is also present as a model of privileged masculinity. The most valued
femininities, in the beauty industry, are based on fleeting beauty standards.
At first glance, the reproductive economy of beauty appears to privilege some
women, some of the time. Women are the beauty experts, holding positions of influence
through their knowledge about beauty products and practices and sharing informed
opinions. Women are most often the teachers of quinceañeras, both within the family and
through professional beauty services. They are also most often the entrepreneurs in
commercializing reproductive labor. Through employing their skills learned in the
reproductive economy, they become income earners and help their families.
Women also express a sense of well-being and empowerment that they achieve
through beautification. When asked why they fix themselves up, the most common
response was to explain that it feels good and that it makes them feel good about
themselves. Whether they saw getting fixed up as a question of personal satisfaction,
social necessity, or both, was often unclear or contradictory in the interviews. But in the
end, all of the respondents saw getting fixed up as a way to make themselves feel better.
Some took it further than just feeling better, as one identified it with increasing her self-
esteem, and one identified it as a mask that she uses to protect herself from criticisms by
her peers. Looking good, in effect, presents an opportunity for women and girls to
improve their social status, as girls can increase their social standing and their sense of
self-worth through fixing themselves up.
There is evidence that beauty is helpful in finding employment, and this seems to
be true in Guadalajara, as well. A few of my interviewees took great pride in their looks

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and their ability to get fixed up because it allowed them to participate in the large
industry of models and edecanes. Models and edecanes work at Expos or other
commercial events as product promoters, wearing the exaggerated stage makeup of a
quinceañera or a telenovela actress and wearing a sexually provocative uniform with the
product logo. They are usually in their late teens or early twenties, and their thin
hourglass figures, smooth skin, youthful faces, fancy hairstyles and skillful application of
makeup put them at the pinnacle of beauty among young people in Guadalajara.
Apart from these three girls, working interviewees did not invest much in fixing
themselves up for work because their work was in family businesses or in the home. Yet,
as they grow into the labor market, they will find that employment announcements often
list “good presentation” as a work requirement, along with age range and background
requirements. The requirement for good personal presentation is especially high in the
female-dominated employment sectors of fashion retail sales and beauty services.
In sum, the reproductive economy of beauty in the quince and among
quinceañeras privileges the women and girls who have knowledge of beauty products
and applications, women and girls who are good at fixing themselves up, and women and
girls who are considered beautiful: the fashionistas. In the quince celebration, the
beautiful quinceañera plays the star role, that of fashionista, inhabiting her role through
contracting beauty services, having a dress made for her, and becoming the star of the
show as her beauty and grace become the center of attention. As she embodies the ideals
of beautiful and graceful feminine adolescence, she embodies the ideal of Mexican
womanhood.

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Beyond the immediate reproductive economy of beauty in the quince, however,
there are larger structures of hierarchy that make beautiful girls and beauty experts’
apparent privilege and empowerment in the beauty industry less certain. To be sure, signs
of gendered inequalities are noticeable even in the interviews. One quinceañera had gone
to a male stylist who was supposed to be good because, “you know, they say, like, the
gays are supposed to be good.” As a friend who was opening a beauty salon explained to
me, and a high-paid male stylist corroborated, men are supposed to have “buen mano” or
naturally gifted hands when it comes to beauty services. The high-paid stylist complained
to me that they are considered to be not only better, but also gay.
Looking at the industry from a wider perspective, these signs of privileged status,
seemingly paradoxical, show their roots. Men in beauty services, while few by
comparison, feature prominently in the industry. Men are considered to be the best hair
stylists. The most prestigious hair salon and hair styling academy in the city, Patrice, is
populated by a dramatically higher proportion of male hair stylists than the more typical
neighborhood salons. Likewise, the beauty school that a participant and a friend called
the most prestigious modeling and beauty school in the city, Clase y Estilo (Class and
Style), is run by Aurelio Lozano, a locally renowned makeup artist who also has a
newspaper column, radio show, and television show. Despite their virtual absence in
neighborhood salons, male aestheticians are often interviewed as stylists and makeup
artists in the pages of national and international beauty magazines.
These positions of prestige and expertise, disproportionately occupied by men,
also carry greater economic reward. Alejandro L’Occoco, a successful hair stylist, has

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parlayed his success with celebrities and in national and international competitions into
the city’s other name-brand salon, a successful beauty academy, salon franchise, and
name brand products. The difference between a haircut with a hairstylist at Patrice cost
me 450 pesos, a hair cut at a L’Occoco salon around 300, a haircut at a fresa salon of
some prestige, 250, and a haircut in my downtown neighborhood, 100 pesos. In the
aspiring-middle-class suburbs of town, 100 pesos is a lot to pay for a hair cut. This is not
to say that male Patrice stylists are only being paid for their gender, but rather that the
industry suffers from vertical segregation, where men and women self-select and are
channeled into differently-valued positions, and that men’s and women’s work is valued
differently.
There is also an element to national hierarchy evident in the beauty services
industries, where Europe, particularly France, and the USA are privileged sources of
expertise and talent. Patrice Mulard, founder of Patrice salons and academy, is French by
birth and was educated in France. Aurelio Lozano, the renowned makeup artist who runs
an expensive beauty school, was educated by “European teachers” (Lozano 2008).
International training, competitions, and exhibitions are constantly cited as sources of
prestige and legitimacy in promotional materials and print media. Among the beauty
academies peppered throughout the city, titles that include references to Europe, France
and Madrid are popular. The global centers of the fashion industry remain centered in
Western Europe and New York, and Spain retains a special status as the source of
Mexico’s colonial aristocracy.

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In sum, the local, middle-class, reproductive economy of the beauty industries
privileges beauty and the ability to fix up, but in global perspective is at the bottom of a
long chain of vertical segregation. The higher the degree of prestige and economic return
associated with beauty services, the higher likelihood there is that a man performing
them, or that they are associated with Europe and the USA.

Privileged Ideologies
The RPV framework identifies patriarchy, racism, and capitalism as the privileged
ideologies in the reproductive sphere. For example, patriarchy as an ideology protects the
patriarchal family, traditional heterosexual marriage, and gender difference as
institutions. Patriarchy as an ideology protects the privilege of masculine identities. In the
case of beauty production in the quince años, the ideologies of patriarchy, capitalism, and
racism are manifest in small ways.
Patriarchy, or the ideology of masculine power and privilege, is manifest through
family reliance on women’s reproductive labor to cover the labor and expense of the
fiesta and through the wedding-like presentation of the girl by her father to her
chambelan-de-honor. Through its reliance on and commercialization of reproductive
labor, the reproductive economy of beauty in the quince privileges the ideologies of
capitalist commercialization, unpaid reproductive work, and individual consumption.
Racism, in subtle ways, manifests through the reproduction of a gendered beauty
norm based on monarchic beauty ideals: the Venetian Waltz, the Buckingham Palace
guards, the dainty-waisted Tudor princess. These Old European princesses, knights,

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soldiers, and Disney and Hollywood fairytales evidence a long-standing tradition, dating
to colonial times, of racial preference for and privilege given to European aristocracy,
Europeans and European-descendent Mexicans.

Privileged Institutions
The privileged institution in the global reproductive economy is, according to the
RPV framework, the family. The family is the institution to which service and sacrifice in
the reproductive economy is made; the institution that reinforces the separation between
productive, breadwinner work, and reproductive, housewife work; and the first institution
that socializes children into structures of hierarchy such as patriarchy and racism. In the
reproductive economy of the quince años, the institution of family is clearly favored, as
are two institutions that play a traditional role in the family: institutions of gender
difference and heterosexual marriage. Finally, the Church also occupies a place of honor
in the quince tradition, although its influence is fading.
The institutional privilege of the family in the reproductive economy of the quince
is clearly evident, as it is in the name of family that the quince is carried out in the way
that it is carried out. Getting family together is also one of the primary reasons for
celebrating the quince. The family reproductive economy is largely responsible for the
investment of money and labor in the quince. As discussed above, the traditions used to
indicate a quinceañera’s changes to womanhood reinforce the hierarchy of a patriarchal
family. Family networks are strengthened through sponsorship and involvement in the

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quince, and family members’ ideas and desires for the quinceañera are important. The
result is that the family as an institution is reinforced.
In addition to the family, the reproductive economy of beauty in the quince also
privileges the institutions of gender difference and heterosexual marriage. Each of these
institutions is foundational to any conception of a quince celebration. Gender difference,
as discussed above, is one of the ideas framing who celebrates a quince, and how.
Therefore, the princess dress, the Prince Charming dance partners, and the hostessing all
provide a heavy investment, both in preparation and in execution, in teaching and
practicing gender difference. Gender difference, through this practice as well as others,
becomes naturalized and assumed, much as the tradition of the quince años is assumed, to
have lasted forever.
The institution of heterosexual marriage is also privileged in the reproductive
economy of the quince. The assumption that the quince is a debut of a girl of dating age
is now antiquated. Still, the assumption remains that a quinceañera who celebrates a ball-
style quince is to begin dating. She dances a sort of last dance with her father, who often
ceremoniously gives her a pair of high heels before she begins to dance with her
chambelan-de-honor. De Niña a Mujer, a popular song played at a fiesta de quince años,
sometimes during the father-daughter dance, recounts a father’s sadness because he is
going to lose his daughter, presumably as she replaces him with a male partner.
The church is also a privileged institution in the quince, but there is evidence that
it is losing its place. It is virtually unheard of to celebrate a big debut-style quince without
having the Mass first. The one-time tradition of celebrating a quince just by attending a

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Mass with parents and godparents, however, is also virtually unheard of today. Also,
despite the fanfare invested in the Mass, more and more invitees attend only the party. In
the United States, this shift has led to Church leaders refusing to perform quinceañera
services or requiring religious classes of quinceañeras in order to qualify for services. I
never heard of this trend in Mexico until the aunt of a quinceañera complained to me
about the mettlesome Fathers in the United States who insist on religious classes in
exchange for quinceañera Masses. In her opinion, it was a reason to celebrate her niece’s
quince in Guadalajara rather than California.
In sum, the quince años celebration illustrates how the reproductive economy in
action reinforces itself through reinforcing the institution of family, but also through the
naturalized institutions of gender difference and heterosexual marriage that underwrite
the institution of religious matrimony.

Highly Valued… Reproductive
Identities Breadwinner,
metrosexual
masculinities,
fashionable consumer,
quinceañera/fashionista,
beautiful
Ideologies Patriarchy, individual
consumption, capitalist
commercialization,
racism
Institutions Family, gender
difference, church
Table 3: Summary of highly valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the reproductive
economy of beauty.

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The age of adolescence, however, is a final category of identity, and perhaps also
an institution, that could be construed as holding a certain amount of privilege in the
quince economy. Adolescence is, after all, one of the primary points of celebration, and
the quinceañera’s desires are central to the celebration. As discussed in chapter three,
youth’s desires can differ dramatically from parents’. Tensions between parents’ and
youth’s desires can be seen through, for example, the traditional Waltz and the Surprise
Dance and the Dress and the Surprise Dance Outfit. Differences of opinion over dresses,
colors, and sexiness, among other things, result in challenges to conservative gender
norms of circumspection, modesty and piousness. The hip-hop Surprise dances draw
heavily on Black American and Caribbean culture, and the popularity of Beyonce, Tyra
Banks, and Latina Hollywood celebrities has made an historically racist and White-
dominated media landscape more diverse. The center of attention is shifting away from
the Mass toward the ever-more-complicated, choreographed, and dramatic dances.
Necklines are dropping, corsets are popping, and short skirts are coming out from under
the ball gowns. The net effect is that, in comparison to quince celebrations forty years
ago, the metrosexual masculinities are showing more visibility vis-à-vis breadwinner
masculinities, fashionistas are replacing debutantes as the teen dream, consumption and
commercialization have subsumed once-hidden reproductive labor, the Church is losing
prestige and the family is struggling to maintain control over teenage sexuality and
individualism.
The apparent privilege of adolescence, however, is complicated by the heavy
investment that the celebration makes in the institution of the hierarchical family and

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other traditional, or conservative, resistant-to-change institutions, identities, and
ideologies. Notably, gender difference as an institution, while showing some cracks,
remains resistant to change even among the minds of counter-hegemonic youth (see
Chapter 6). In fact, the quince celebration, in as much as it favors “tradition,” favors
conservative social institutions, such as gender difference, marriage, family and the
church. In as much as the celebration and its traditions are contested and changed by
youth, the quince is an instrument of upsetting and undermining social institutions and
their norms.

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Chapter 5: The Beautiful Quinceañera and the Global Productive
Economy of Beauty

This chapter extends out from the site of the production of the beautiful
quinceañera into the global productive economy of beauty. The global productive
economy is the dimension of the global economy responsible for paid labor in the process
of producing and selling beauty products such as cosmetics, hair products, and clothing
fashions. The productive economy of the quince años is very big. This chapter looks at
just a slice of the global productive economy that contributes significantly to the quince
años: the global cosmetics industry. Cosmetic modification is an important part of the
beautification process in the fiesta de quince años. This chapter addresses two questions
that are central to this dissertation: How do cosmetic beauty products circulate between
the global economy and quinceañeras in Guadalajara, Mexico? Is the beauty industry in
Guadalajara privileging groups by race, class, gender, and nation?
I argue that the service industry, from branding and marketing to consultation and
make-up application, plays an increasingly important role in the global productive
economy of beauty. In addition, the rapidly expanding direct-selling industry is an
overwhelming player in the global cosmetics industry, evident both among quinceañeras
and regional and global data on cosmetic sales. I argue that the global productive
economy of beauty is gendered in a way that provides opportunities to some women, but
at the expense of others. The beautifying industries provide some women with

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opportunities to “empower” themselves, but through traditional channels that funnel their
efforts into a highly hierarchical structure of gender, race and class inequality.
Finally, I argue that the global political economy of cosmetics illustrates well how
the global reproductive, productive, and virtual economies are intimately interdependent.
Employment patterns in the productive economy are heavily shaped by dynamics in the
reproductive economy: the gendered division of labor, assumptions about caring labor,
and assumptions about women’s time. Success in the productive economy of cosmetics is
highly dependent on the exchange of virtual signs through marketing and media, as well
as the successful performance of privileged identities such as “fashionista,” or the
knowledgeable fashion consumer. Most clearly, the exponential growth in beautification
techniques and products is propelled by global marketing and media, leading women to
seek more and more beautification expertise, beauty products, and the money to spend on
them, in order to achieve successfully a feminine gendered body. In sum, through
woman-centric employment, selling, advertising, and consumption, the beauty industry is
a through-and-through example of how the reproductive, productive, and virtual
economies are inextricably linked. The beauty industry is also extremely gendered,
making it absolutely central to the reproduction of femininities. From paid work to semi-
informal direct sales, to the home, the market, and the body, femininities are being
produced in the beauty industry.
The chapter begins by analyzing the productive side of the industry, heuristically
isolated from its reproductive and virtual dimensions. The chapter ends by arguing that
Peterson’s conceptualization of global political economy as intertwining reproductive,

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productive, and virtual economies is indispensable for understanding the politics of the
globalizing beauty industry. The politics of the global productive economy of beauty
cannot be understood without reference to how it is shaped by the reproductive and
virtual economies.
First, I identify the trends of globalization in the productive economy in Mexico.
Then I use Peterson’s conceptualization of the globalizing productive economy to
discover how beauty products circulate between the global economy and Guadalajara,
what the key identities, ideologies and institutions are, and how structural inequalities are
manifested in these global flows. I then argue that in order to understand the politics of
beauty industry globalization in the productive economy, one must take into account not
just the productive economy, but also the reproductive and virtual economies.

Globalizing Productive Economy in Mexico
There are three major forces behind the globalization of the productive economy:
a shift toward information-based production, flexibilization of production, and
neoliberalism as the predominant ideology. The patterns of the global productive
economy in general are observable in contemporary economic history in Mexico, and
illustrate in more depth Peterson’s framework, as well as reveal both the dynamics of
globalization in the beauty industry and its most pronounced inequalities.
Recent Mexican economic history is marked by market-led economic strategies,
begun in the 1980s after a period of failed “indebted industrialization” (Frieden 1981;
Pastor 1998: 122-123), and deepened in 1991 with the passage of the North American

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Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the USA and Canada (Wise 1998). In combination
with a retreat of state service provision, Mexican neoliberalism led to a decline in the
traditional industrial sector and agricultural and primary production, a rise in
maquiladora or bond industrial labor, wealth polarization, stagnating employment and
wages, and the emergence of the informal market as the “workplace for the poor” (Dussel
Peters 1998; Pastor and Wise 1998: 59).
This assessment of Mexican neoliberalism illustrates well the global
transformations in the productive economy as outlined by Peterson. The general trend
away from material-based toward information-based production is characterized by a
decline in primary production and a devaluation of industrial manufacturing. In primary
goods producing countries, declining terms of trade and lower demand for primary
products motivated a shift to debt-financed, export-oriented industrial or value-added
production (Peterson 2003: 49-50). In industrialized countries, there was a shift toward
service and unskilled jobs, and away from traditional skilled industrial jobs. What has
been called “cheapened” labor came to be seen by many countries as a comparative
advantage.
20
This shift toward cheapened labor inputs and toward the flexibilization of
production are both illustrated in the case of Mexico by a shift toward the maquiladora or
bond sector, which takes advantage of Mexico’s cheapened labor by sourcing low-skilled
assembly line production for US multinationals near the USA/Mexico border (Fernández-
Kelly 1983, Tiano 1994).

20
Enloe argues that supposedly “cheap labor” is not inherently so, but is actually cheapened
through government policies and social expectations that frame women’s labor as unskilled,
supplementary, temporary, and compulsory for a “good daughter” (Enloe 2004).

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The shift toward services, low-skilled, less-secure, and less-remunerated labor is
also illustrated by the informalization of the labor market. Informal market labor
participation is notoriously difficult to calculate, however according to Pastor and Wise’s
assessment of Mexico in 1998, “between 25 and 40 percent of the country’s economically
active population of 24.1 million has sought refuge in the informal economy. In the urban
areas, the typical informal venture is a micro-level business operating in sectors where
the entry barriers and infrastructure needs are low, such as commerce and services…”
(59). In the second trimesters of 2006 and 2007, the Sistema Estatal de Información
Jalisco (SEIJAL) reported that 28.31 and 27.11 percent, respectively, of the economically
active population in the state of Jalisco was active in the informal sector (SEIJAL 2007).
Finally, all of these features, particularly the mass entrance into the informal
economy, illustrate the effects of a neoliberal ideology that reproduces and exacerbates
income polarization, makes the economy more vulnerable to global economic
repercussions, and cuts back on state provision of services, leading people to pursue
alternative strategies of survival (Peterson 2003: Ch. 3). Dussel-Peters (2000) has
extensively documented the polarizing effects of liberalization in Mexico. The 1994 peso
devaluation, Mexican vulnerability to global financial crises, and continued dependence
of the Mexican market on the US market are evidence of the vulnerability of the Mexican
economy to global economic fluctuations. The reduction in state services and
privatization of government-held industries has led to consolidation of wealth in the
hands of a few and the search for alternative strategies for economic survival (Chant
1991; Gonzalez de la Rocha 1994).

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Structural Inequalities
Structural inequalities in Mexico are manifest in numerous ways through the
process of globalization in the productive economy. As noted above, economic
polarization is a clear example of a structural inequality exacerbated by neoliberal
globalization. Other axes of structural inequalities, such as gender, race, and nation,
however, have also been put under stress.
Scholars have noted that the economic pressures of neoliberal globalization have
led to the unprecedented and overwhelming entrance of women into the productive labor
force, also called the feminization of the labor force (Standing 1989). This phenomenon
has been driven by both economic necessity and recruitment of women into the labor
force by companies and states. Some argue that women’s entrance into the labor market
leads to overall improvement in women’s lives and empowerment (e.g. Gray et al 2006).
This is an argument of liberal feminist theory, which posits that women’s equality can be
achieved through legal and formal institutional equality (Tong 1998).
Socialist, postcolonial, postmodern and critical feminist scholars argue that deep
social inequalities exclude the possibility of achieving gender equality through simple
legal or institutional equality. Therefore these scholars, including Peterson, are skeptical
of a fundamental change in gender inequality due to women’s increased labor market
participation. These feminists argue that recruitment into the productive economy has
been premised on gendered social expectations that funnel women into jobs with low pay,
fewer benefits, and higher insecurity (Elson and Pearson 1981; Safa 1981; Nash and
Fernández-Kelly 1983; Enloe 1995, 2004 [2000]). As demonstrated by Parrado and

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Zenteno, these conditions in Mexico have indeed facilitated a pattern of women’s
entrance into the formal labor market, and in particular into “less skilled and more
flexible types of jobs” (2001: 474). In particular, women’s widespread recruitment into
the low-paying maquiladora industry has been a prominent trend resulting from gendered
expectations about women as docile workers who can be paid little (Fernandez-Kelly
1983, Tiano 1994).
In addition, feminists argue that entrance into the labor market leads to a double
or even triple workday. After labor market entry, women work in the productive
economy, but also remain largely responsible for caring labor and subsistence living. In
addition, economic pressures add to the load of caring and subsistence work, where the
burden of structural adjustments is carried. Finally, many feminists argue that the stress
of economic pressures puts stress on emotional relationships in households, leading to
extra emotional work or even domestic violence (Hochschild 1997, Gonzalez de la Rocha
1994, Chant 1991). In short, women’s widespread entrance into the labor market in
Mexico is not a case of women achieving economic or social parity with men, but rather
a restructuring of women’s activities and obligations, often characterized by an increase
in workload and a decrease in economic security.
In Mexico, racial, ethnic, and national identity inequalities have also been put
under stress due to globalization. For example, the 1994 armed uprising of indigenous
farmers in Chiapas on January 1, the day the NAFTA was implemented, is widely
considered to have been a revolt against the economic, social, political and territorial
polarization experienced through and exacerbated by neoliberal globalization. It is,

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however, important to take these structural inequalities as intersecting, not additive. For
instance, not all women who enter into the labor market are experiencing higher
workloads and economic insecurity. Those among the wealthiest benefit from income
polarization, and enjoy hired domestic labor and access to professional employment.
Their employment terms are, therefore, more favorable, and their reproductive workload
is reduced through the work of domestic service employees. In addition, many women
experience the financial rewards of income-earning as empowering vis-à-vis their
husbands, or as women-headed households (Chant 1991). On the other hand, indigenous
Mexican women are more likely to be employed in low-paid domestic service where their
gender and ethnic background makes them more desirable employees and inhibits their
upward mobility (Castellanos 2007). In sum, the structures of inequality discussed above
– gender, race, ethnicity and nation – are simultaneously put under stress due to
globalization, but the categories must be taken, as the three “economies,” as
intersectional.
Together, these trends form the context for the productive economy dynamics of
the beauty industry in Mexico. In the next section, I use Peterson’s conceptualization of
the productive economy in order to picture the globalization of beauty products in
Mexico, what the key identities, ideologies and institutions are, and how structural
inequalities are manifested in these global flows. I then argue that the case of the beauty
industry illustrates why and how the reproductive, productive and virtual economies must
be taken as intertwining in order to understand the politics of the globalization of beauty
products. Peterson’s conceptual mapping helps to better understand the politics of

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globalization in the beauty industry, and the beauty industry’s globalization helps to
explain the necessity of a comprehensive framework like Peterson’s.

Globalizing Productive Economy in the Beauty Industry
In the beauty industry
21
in Mexico, one can begin to see how the productive
economy operates more clearly by seeing what types of economic activity are taking
place and what types of employment it offers. Employment patterns also illustrate some
of the structural inequalities. We can also begin to see more clearly how inextricable the
productive economy is from the reproductive and virtual economies.
Consistent with patterns in the global economy more generally, economic activity
in the productive economy of beauty is concentrated in the services sector. Due to global
corporate strategies, research, design, and marketing are more important than production.
Due to the flexibilization of production, production does not have to be carried out in
Mexico for products to be sold in Mexican markets, and Mexico is used as a
manufacturing platform for other markets. Production activity is dwarfed by distributive
and personal services activity.
Due to corporate strategies in the beauty industry, primary producers and
manufacturers are losing importance relative to professional services. Industry analysts
argue that, due to corporate consolidation, primary material providers and independent
manufacturers’ bargaining power with the corporations “ranges from low to medium,”

21
While the beauty industry is diverse, for the time being this paper focuses on the cosmetics and
toiletries slice of the industry because it has the most easily accessible, well-documented and
comparable data sources.

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(Kumar et al 2006: 300). This move toward monopolization puts downward pressure on
suppliers’ terms, and puts more economic power in the hands of global corporate leaders.
As consolidation continues through acquisitions and centralizing design and marketing
strategies, independent producers’ bargaining power will only decrease (Kumar et al
2006).
The eight cosmetics and toiletries (C&T) companies with the largest market share
in Mexico hold a combined 68.2% of the Mexican C&T market (see Figure 1). Four of
these eight (Avon, Mary Kay, Vorwerck, and Tupperware) are manufacturers that
distribute directly through direct sales networks (GMID 2008). Avon’s Mexico
manufacturing is used as a platform for the Latin American market. Vorwerck’s
manufacturing in Mexico serves as a platform for Latin American and North American
markets. Of the top eight companies, all but Vorwerck’s Jafra Cosmetics and
Tupperware’s House of Fuller cosmetics are considered within the trade press to use a
global branding strategy (Kumar et al 2006, GMID 2008). They all use a global supply
chain to source, manufacture and distribute cosmetics in Mexico and Latin America.
These corporate strategies, as in other industries, increasingly consolidate power in the
services sectors of research, design and marketing, and distribution.
An added dimension in the beauty industry – the short product life cycle – makes
innovation in marketing, design, and formulas, an increasingly important part of the
political economy of beauty products. The short product life cycle is highly manufactured
by the fashion industry in order to keep sales high. Through magazine advertising,
“editorials” in beauty magazines, in-store displays, and incessant new product launches,

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the cosmetics industry maintains a high demand for its “new” products, even if they are
only marginally new (Gavenas 2002). This high demand for new innovation or new
fashion leads to a heavy emphasis on design, marketing, and collaboration with news and
beauty editors at magazines. In order to maintain sales momentum and growth, the
industry is increasingly relying on professional services in the fields of research, design,
and marketing.

Figure 1: Top Company Shares, Cosmetics and Toiletries, Mexico 2007. Source: Global Market
Information Database, Euromonitor International, 2008.

The increasing importance of services in relation to production is not only evident
at the corporate level. A 2006 survey of businesses in the cosmetics and toiletries
industry chamber of commerce returned a distribution of 51% industrial producers, 43%

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distributors, 17% maquiladoras, and 14% primary producers (CANIPEC 2006: 61).
22

The percentages equal more than 100% because some companies engage in more than
one activity; production and distribution is the most common double dedication
(CANIPEC 2006: 62). The CANIPEC survey also attempts to account for the informal
market, a serious concern to CANIPEC members (see below). Measured in sales, it
accounted for 3.8% of the market in 2006 (CANIPEC 2006). The informal industry is
overwhelmingly made up of retail distribution services (Pastor and Wise 1998). This
information, however, clearly does not take into account large parts of the cosmetics and
toiletries industry: direct sales and personal services.
First, clearly it does not take into account the very large distribution machine that
is the direct sales force. Complete employment data for the industry of cosmetics and
toiletries industry is not available, however the CANIPEC survey is illustrative. The 34
surveyed businesses reported 20,843 workers. 17% were in administration; 18% were
subcontracted through employment agencies; 28% in production; and 31% in sales. Apart
from these numbers, CANIPEC reports 722,728 independent representative employees,
mostly in direct sales. Figure 2 graphs the relative employment patterns described by
these data. The direct sales force clearly swamps every other category of worker, and all
categories combined. The direct sales force is even more important in urban areas like
Guadalajara, because approximately 78% of direct sales representatives are in urban areas
(AMVD 2008).

22
This survey is not a representative sample. The CANIPEC conducted a survey of its members,
but does not report its response rate, only that 34 companies responded, and 24 included sales
data. Still, it is the only national data, and is useful for a starting point.

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Figure 2: Relative employment patterns in Mexican cosmetics and toiletries industry, 2006.
Source: CANIPEC 2006.

Second, another area of high employment in the cosmetics and toiletries industry
that is not represented by CANIPEC is personal services. In Guadalajara, personal beauty
services include hair coloring, hair cutting, hair styling, false nail design and application,
manicures, pedicures, and makeup application. Special services might include facial
cleansing, false eyelash application, eyebrow shaping, or tattooing make-up. Spa
services, a growing niche market for the wealthy, offer a variety of services from
removing unwanted body hair to skin exfoliation to reducing the appearance of cellulite.
Personal services make up a large part of the industry through beauty salons and spas. In
interviews with forty-one lower-to-middle class teenage girls, all of them had patronized

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a neighborhood salon at least once or employed the professional beauty services of a
family member in the business. The preponderance of beauty salons is very evident in
urban areas such as Guadalajara, where beauty salons are found at least every couple of
blocks in every neighborhood of the city except for the two very wealthiest and some
new private planned communities. In addition, beauty services academies can be found in
every city sector and number in the tens in the city center. Finally, direct sellers take on a
combined role of distributor and personal service provider as they use demonstration
techniques in their quest to win clientele (Wilson 1999; Hennessy-Fiske 2008). By far the
largest employment in the market, therefore, is in distributive and personal services.
What this tells us about the beauty industry is fairly straightforward. First,
economic activity at the top rungs is increasingly research-, design- and marketing-
oriented. Production is losing economic relevance vis-à-vis professional services. Second,
the employment pattern is overwhelmingly reflected by service employment that is on the
lower end of the value scale in terms of pay, benefits and security.
If, following Peterson, we employ Singelmann’s typology of the services industry
that identifies four categories of service industry employment: distributive services,
personal services, producer services, and social services, some of the structures of
inequality become obvious. There are typically high skills and pay in social services, i.e.
health, education, and public administration. Additionally, producer services such as
financial services and consulting are typically highly valued and well remunerated
(Peterson 2003: 53). Personal services, such as personal beauty service, are generally
perceived as very low-skill and receive low remuneration. Distributive services include a

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broader range of employment, resulting in “a mix of skills and pay” (Peterson 2003: 53).
Therefore, the built-in inequalities within service sector employment have meant that the
increase in service-sector employment has had uneven development impacts. The service
sectors that make up the bulk of the beauty industry, direct sales distribution and personal
service, are typically the less valued service jobs.
These trends in the beauty industry, as in the global economy, tend to favor
certain identities, ideologies, and institutions (see Tables 4 and 5). Structural inequalities
of gender, race, ethnicity, class and nation shape the dynamics of inequality in these
sectors. This generally results in a privileging of masculinities and those privileged by
national status, social status, economic resources, and racial privilege. A closer look at
these service sectors reveals in more detail the global structural inequalities manifest in
the beauty industry.

Structural Inequalities
Gender is the most central dimension of inequality; women are most likely to be
employed in the least remunerative, most insecure jobs. Another axis of inequality is
social class status, where poorer and less educated women occupy the lower rungs of the
beauty industry. Another axis of inequality is national: the bottom of the employment
chain is held by Mexican nationals, while the bulk of assets are earned by foreign
multinationals.

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Valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Global corporate
professionals,
Upline
Sales entrepreneur,
Beauty expert,
Thrifty and savvy
consumer,
Superwoman
Fashionistas,
Celebrities
Ideologies Profit, Competition Patriarchy,
Capitalist
entrepreneurialism
Fashionable
consumption
Institutions Global Companies,
OECD states,
Emerging markets
Family Advertising firms,
Media
Table 4: Highly valued identities, ideologies, and institutions in the global cosmetics and
toiletries industry.

Not Valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Producers,
Downline
Unsuccessful,
Financially
insecure, Unkempt,
Poor, Narcissistic
Unfashionable,
Uninformed
Ideologies Sharing, Social
distribution
Feminism Subsistence
consumption, No
consumption
Institutions Undeveloping
states
Caring work Productive
institutions,
Political
institutions

Table 5: Less valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the cosmetics and toiletries industry.

A horizontal segregation by service sector, in which women tend to occupy jobs
in sectors identified with “women’s work,” is a gendered pattern in most sectors of the
productive economy. Gender segregation is very noticeable in the service sector, between
highly paid financial services providers and domestic personal service providers. In the

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service sectors of the beauty industry, we see even deeper patterns of inequality,
particularly due to the dynamics of the direct selling business.
Direct sales of beauty and fashion illustrate the importance of personal and
distributive services, as well as its stark inequalities. Recall that in Figure 2, 722,728
reported direct sales representatives were reported as opposed to 20,843 employees,
albeit roughly 3,752 of those are subcontracted.
23
This number would be less impressive
if one were to believe industry and popular arguments that direct selling is a hobby job,
or merely supplemental, part-time income earned in women’s free time. Direct sales
income is jealously guarded by direct selling companies, long under attack for
hoodwinking its sales force with unsubstantiated promises of easy wealth, and there are
no statistics on number of hours worked, however there are indicators that it is still the
major source of income and growth in the cosmetics and toiletries sector. Of C&T sales
in Mexico in 2004 and in 2006, the largest market share, 33% of sales, was in direct sales
(see Figure 3; CANIPEC 2006, 2008). In 2006, of the top eight C&T companies in
Mexico, four of them are based on direct sales networks (Vorwerck & Co, Avon,
Tupperware Brands, and Mary Kay), for a total of 22.9% of the market share. Clearly,
direct sales are a significant part of the beauty economy.

23
Subcontracted or “outsourcing” employees are contracted through an employment placement
agency, and therefore they hold a contract with the employment agency rather than the employer.
This arrangement is exemplary of the global trend toward flexibilization, which gives businesses
more flexibility and less responsibility vis-à-vis its workers.

210

Figure 3: Distribution Channels, Mexico 2004. Source: CANIPEC 2008.

The reverse is also true, as the direct sales industry in Mexico is overwhelmingly
constituted by the beauty industry (see Figure 4). Cosmetics make up 38% of sales, with
shoes and fashion together another 35%. Additionally, the 22% of sales in the
supplements sector includes the largest single distributor, Herbalife, a weight loss aid that
reached $373.2 million in sales in Mexico in 2006 (Dickerson and Yi 2007). The
Mexican Association of Direct Sales (AMVD) reports that total direct sales reached an
estimated $44,581 million pesos (over 4 billion USD) in 2007 and that approximately 1.9
million Mexicans are “related in some way to the Direct Sales industry” (AMVD 2008).
Direct sales are even more important in certain, more cosmetic, sectors of the
cosmetics and toiletries industry. A 2006 study by the cosmetics and toiletries chamber of

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commerce in Mexico (CANIPEC 2006) found that the perfumes & fragrances and color
makeup categories counted an estimated 77% and 72% of sales through direct sales
channels. On the other hand, oral hygiene, hair products, and hair color products, at 1%,
1%, and 15% had much lower percentages of direct sales. In sum, direct sales are of
paramount importance to the beauty industry in Guadalajara, just as the beauty industry is
central to the success of direct sales. Direct sales are also the major channel for the
circulation of beauty products between Guadalajara and the global economy.

Figure 4: Direct Sales by Product Category. Source: AMVD 2008.

The direct sales industry is doing very well in Mexico as in other parts of the
developing world, a quite easy extension of neoliberal globalization since the 1970s
(Wilson 1999). It is relatively more important in emerging or developing economies,

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where traditional retail distribution is not as competitive (compare Figure 3 with Figure
5). The main features of globalization, neoliberalism, deregulation, economic
liberalization, privatization, lower trade barriers, increasing communication technology,
and increasing travel infrastructure, all contribute to a direct-sales-friendly global
environment.

Figure 5: Global Distribution Channels – Cosmetics and Toiletries 2006. Source: Global Market
Information Database, Euromonitor International 2008.

The expansion of direct sales into emerging economies is both a strategy
increasingly recommended in the business press and pursued by global corporations.
According to the business press, while developed economies are saturated with retail
outlets and competition for a large consumer market, developing economies have large

213

untapped markets, fewer competitors, lack of retail and distributive infrastructure, and
higher levels of unemployed people needing extra income, making developing countries
well-suited to direct selling ventures (Wilkinson et al 2007: 23-24). Hammond and
Prahalad (2004) argue that direct sales are an opportunity to tap into the buying power
among the global poor. Direct sales can tap this “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” by
overcoming obstacles such as regulatory tape or incompetence, lack of infrastructure,
illiteracy to marketing, “tribal, racial, and religious tensions, as well as rampant crime,”
that make business operations risky (32). Hammond and Prahalad make a two-pronged
argument that direct sales are profitable for businesses and charitable to the poor by
“(e)nding the economic isolation of poor populations and bringing them within the formal
global economy [to] ensure that they also have the opportunity to benefit from
globalization” (37). Direct sales are, therefore, “the world's new entrepreneurial frontier”
(37). Wilson’s (1999) ethnographic and discourse analysis of the direct sales industry in
Thailand describes the spirit of such neoliberal discourse as the “logic which has
propelled the formation, growth and global expansion of the industry as a whole” (402).
In this discourse, Wilson argues, “the central figure of this logic, the direct sales
distributor, embodies and enacts two central axioms of contemporary economic logic:
entrepreneurship and decentralized distribution” (Wilson 1999: 402). The expansion of
the direct sales empire, then, can be read as part of neoliberal expansion that constructs
the seller as a capitalist entrepreneur.
Direct selling is not simply an expansion of global corporate power that creates
powerless subjects, however. It is also a strategy pursued by women in times of economic

214

hardship, as in the case of Argentina after the monetary crash in 1999, when
“unemployment climbed into double digits in 2001 and 2002, direct selling grew as
people sought other ways to make a living” (Ponder 2005 cited in Wilkinson et al 2007:
23). This widespread incorporation of women as entrepreneurs in the world of direct
selling, however, is still highly unequal in its processes and outcomes.
The success of direct sales is characterized by deep inequalities. While, according
to CANIPEC data, the direct sales force accounts for about 97% of the workforce in the
beauty industry, returns on that portion of the industry are at about 33%. This means that,
in terms of remuneration, direct selling is one of the least remunerative economic
activities in the beauty industry, despite its prevalence as a form of employment. Still,
one might point out that, according to company literature, direct sales are meant to be
supplementary income, a source for extra cash flow that does not require much time
investment (e.g. Avon 2008, AMVD 2008). According to this logic, the lower levels of
remuneration are justified. Data are not available to evaluate this claim thoroughly, but
signs indicate that the claim that direct selling is easy money on the side does not
withstand scrutiny. Feminist perspectives on reproductive labor lend insight into why
direct sales are not a wealth of easy money.
Direct selling is highly gendered. Its business is largely made up of selling
cosmetic, diet, and fashion goods to women (see above), it employs largely women, and a
large portion of economically active women are involved in direct sales. In 2004, 37.5%
of women, approximately 14,948,987, were economically active (INEGI 2004). A 2004
survey of direct sales representatives in Mexico estimated that 90% of approximately 1.9

215

million, about 1.7 million, representatives were women (AMVD 2008). These numbers
suggest that not only is the direct selling business largely selling beauty and fashion, it is
also largely populated by women representatives, and employs more than 10% of
economically active women.
The heavy employment of women in direct sales of and personal services in
beauty and fashion can be seen as part of the global trend toward flexibilization and
feminization of labor markets. Gendered network marketing involves a flexibilization of
the health and beauty industries, a gendered type of “functional flexibility” through
which international companies take advantage of women’s supposedly “free time” to sell
products for commission only. As women enter into the labor market, they enter it based
on gendered cultural expectations as well as gendered demands on their time. These
factors make working in beauty services or direct sales an attractive option because it
uses skills that they have developed through learning about becoming a beautiful woman
in their personal lives, it gives them added cultural cache as an expert in beautification (a
highly prized quality in Guadalajara), and it proclaims flexible work options that allow
them to fulfill their obligations to family, i.e. reproductive labor, as well as the
increasingly common second shift in the paid labor market.
24

The feminization of the direct sales industry also complicates women’s
relationship with globalization. Women are encouraged to be empowered by exploiting
other women in their “downline.” A downline is the string of saleswomen a saleswoman

24
This assertion is supported by the demographics of direct sellers, as well. The Ernst and Young
report on Mexican direct selling reported that 77% of sellers are married or live with a partner,
and 79% of sellers have three or more dependents (AMVD 2008).

216

recruits to make sales underneath her sponsorship. Depending on the corporation’s
pricing and incentives program, it is often actually more lucrative for a salesperson to
dedicate themselves to recruiting other sellers and skimming off a commission rather than
selling merchandise. These multi-level direct sales techniques exploit women’s social
networks in order to sustain profit, and implicate their saleswomen in a complex web of
exploitation among themselves. The direct sales downline is an example of how women
are integral to the growth in the global economy, not just as workers and not just as
consumers but also as complex intermediaries.

Productive, Reproductive and Virtual Dynamics
Looking at the above analysis of the productive economy of the beauty industry, it is
clear that the politics of the globalization of beauty products cannot be isolated in the
productive economy. The political economy of the beauty industry has reproductive,
productive, and virtual dimensions.
First, employment patterns are heavily shaped by the gendered division of labor,
assumptions about caring labor, and assumptions about women’s time. Women are
recruited into and seek out beauty and personal services as an extension of their personal
lives and skills. The work of direct sales is premised on the assumption that the time
women spend outside of paid employment is “free time” that can be put to more
productive use. Direct sales and the larger part of salon services are conducted out of
“private” spaces that blur the distinction between public and private work.

217

Second, the gendered division of labor, according to Peterson, is marked by men
being the usual beneficiaries of women’s personal services (55), however the beauty
industry is a case in which women are the primary beneficiaries of women’s personal
services. In addition, women are the primary consumers of beauty products. Using the
beauty industry as a lens on the global economy, it appears that there is a sector of
personal services wherein women are the primary workers and the primary clientele. The
sector is almost entirely feminized, although there is still marked vertical segregation
illustrated by the occupation of top positions by men both at the corporate level and in
beauty salon services. This is a highly gendered division of labor and division of
consumption that highlights the various positionalities of women in the global economy.
Third, in the case of the beauty industry, the privileged identities are not only the
capitalist entrepreneurs but also the informed fashionistas, the fashionable consumers.
25

The creation of these identities relies not only on access to products but also on
information and communication technologies, media sources, and advertising, as well as
access to catalogs, retail outlets, and audiences. This underlines the need to understand
how exchange of signs leads to the increased circulation of beauty products.
Fourth, the growth in the beauty services industry cannot be understood without
also referencing the virtual economy of signs. The ideas about women that make beauty
services or network marketing a good, even a “natural” option for women are implicated
in the global exchange of signs. Most clearly, the exponential growth in beautification

25
These supposedly privileged identities, however, have a built-in contradiction considering that
the model of empowerment as fashionable consumer is dubiously empowering.

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techniques and products is propelled by global marketing and media, leading women to
seek more and more expertise, their own or others,’ in order to successfully achieve a
feminine gendered body. Likewise, it leads them to seek more products, and the spending
money to buy them or the discount associated with being a direct sales distributor.
26

In sum, through woman-central selling, woman-central advertising, woman-
central consumption, the beauty industry is a through-and-through example of how the
reproductive, productive, and virtual economies are inextricably linked. The beauty
industry is also extremely gendered, making it absolutely central to the reproduction of
femininities. From paid work to semi-informal direct sales to the home, the market, and
the body, femininities are being reproduced. The beauty services and supply industry is
directly linked to both globalization and the production of the gendered body, illustrating
a mutually constitutive process whereby femininity and feminine roles in the global
economy are co-constituted.

26
AMVD reports that 25% of direct sales representatives make purchases for themselves. A high
rate of auto-consumption is also echoed in my field data.

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Chapter 6: Being Different: Contesting Gendered Norms Through the
Global Virtual Economy

It is about 11 am Saturday morning, and my excitement surges as I turn the street
corner and see a young adolescent, dressed mostly in black, walking in front of me. A
group of three teens heads the same direction on the sidewalk on the other side of the
street. I catch up to a group of three waiting to cross the street. One of them is carrying a
backpack made out of half of a bucket. Among us all, there is enough black cloth to build
our own dark room. We are headed to the Tianguis Cultural, the city’s hub of youth
counterculture. The tianguis, or flea market, is a weekly outdoor event set up in a small
plaza in downtown in Mexico’s second-largest metropolis, Guadalajara. Here, in what is
really an oversized street median, mostly young people converge every Saturday to sell
their wares, to browse, and just to meet up, hang out, and wait until the band starts at
around three o’clock. I love coming here because my research is on youth fashion culture
in Guadalajara, and I could not have asked for a more appropriate site of immersion. This
market is youth, fashion, and culture in Guadalajara. Ironically, it is like nothing I see all
week in the rest of the malls and plazas where youth gather, hang out, and shop for
fashion. Even a few blocks away, the streets look “normal,” but as I turn that street
corner, I can begin to feel the excitement as, seemingly from nowhere, young people in
outlandish fashions begin to emerge as if from thin air, multiply, converge, and liven up
this otherwise dreary and dangerous plaza downtown.

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The Tianguis Cultural in many respects is the epitome of the commodification of
culture, argued by many to be a hallmark of postmodern globalization. But as a case
study in cultural commodification, the Cultural and its subcultures illustrates that the
global politics of cultural consumption is more complex than the marketization and
depoliticization argued to be the effect of commodifying culture. To the contrary, I argue
that the cultures of style among youth in Guadalajara shed light on an aspect of global
politics that is often overlooked or undervalued: the globalization of diverse beauty and
fashion ideals. I argue that youth fashion subcultures exemplify a global political
economy of beauty and fashion that not only commodifies and markets a thin, white,
Anglo-American ideal, but also facilitates the broadcast of a diverse range of fashion and
beauty ideals. The virtual economy of beauty is so open and so diverse that it facilitates
the transformation of some social norms. I conclude that the intersection of globalization
with youth’s open yet resistant attitudes toward social norms opens up opportunities for
transformative change with respect to gendered norms of appropriateness.
This chapter extends Peterson’s concept of a global virtual economy to include
the global exchange of images and ideas about beauty. It illustrates the concept of the
global virtual economy, adds substance to the argument that the virtual economy is
intimately tied to the reproductive and productive dynamics of the global economy, and
takes the concept further to include the exchange of aesthetic ideals, and the politics
concomitant with exchanges of gendered and racialized aesthetic ideals.
This chapter also extends out from the ideals espoused by youth in Guadalajara to
the sources of information and aesthetic inspiration that they cite. These sources of

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information and ideas, undeniably global, evidence some striking structural inequalities.
Europe and the USA are favored and valued sources of images, information and ideas.
Within the mainstream, fresa, culture, thin, White, and slight-featured beauty ideals
dominate the virtual economy of beauty. Beauty advertising and images of beauty in
media favor a thin, White, ideal. In effect, cultural signs in the virtual economy of beauty
privilege an exclusive set of beauty standards that have been shaped by years of global
and regional racial and national privilege. In addition, production of those images is
disproportionately controlled by exclusive creative and professional classes in advanced
Western industrial countries. These phenomena are no doubt mutually reinforcing, where
privilege and access to media and marketing have contributed to the favoring of
particular looks of beauty in the virtual economy, and vice versa.
While on the one hand globalization is spreading images of
beauty/fashion/femininity that is disproportionately influenced by Anglo-American
norms of beauty, on the other hand it facilitates an increasing diversity of images and
ideas. A limitation of scholarship on beauty/fashion globalization is its focus on “beauty
pageant” or “fashion magazine” variety ideals. The focus on hegemonic beauty standards
conceals the otherwise diversifying effects of globalization in the global virtual economy
of beauty/fashion. In addition, it assumes an authentic, different, local context that is at
risk of homogenization and erosion. Therefore, I dedicate much of this chapter to the
beauty practices of youth outside of the mainstream. The subcultural focus provides a
look at more of the differences among groups, not just the most mainstream fashionistas.
Many youth are not adopting mainstream beauty standards, but their subcultures are

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equally if not more globalized. Subcultural globalization illustrates that beauty
globalization isn’t just happening among the mainstream, fashionable youth. In addition,
resistance to hegemonic norms isn’t just through transnational networks and organized
groups, it is also part of everyday life.
The case of the Tianguis Cultural illustrates that the commodification of culture
doesn’t necessarily depoliticize through promoting consumerism. Consumerism and the
diversity in consumer markets achieved through extensive cultural commodification also
help spread diversity. Still, even among subcultural groups, certain hegemonic ideas
about feminine appearances persist. This chapter, therefore, focuses on globalizations
outside of the mainstream, and in doing so illustrates some of the cracks in the idea of a
hegemonic globalization, some of the limitless opportunities for resistance, and some of
the social conventions most resistant to change.

Global Virtual Economy of Beauty
The virtual economy represents three “modes,” or areas of virtual exchange:
finance, information, and cultural signs. The global virtual economy encompasses the
exchange of symbols, including monetary, informational, and cultural, in the global
economy. These types of symbols are linked by their virtuality, which gives them
common characteristics; deterritorialized and dematerialized, the exchange of symbols is
extremely rapid and extensive, but also uneven and with unequal access.
The conceptualization of the virtual economy is developed based on critical and
cultural studies that argue that how we value symbols, for example money, is not

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objective or politically neutral. Rather, the values that we place on signs are highly
subjective, being shaped by cultural identities, institutions, and ideologies. The virtual
economy, therefore, is critical to political economy through shaping the use of money,
investments, technology, communication, and consumption. Indeed, “…globalization is
most visible when we consider the transborder flow of information, symbols, and
communication” (113). This is no less true for the globalization of the beauty industry.
Despite their visibility and its importance, global virtual exchanges are the least
integrated into analyses of global political economy. Virtual exchange in finance has
been the province of business and administration studies (c.f. Aitken 2007), aiding the
naturalization and depoliticization of international finance. The global exchange of signs,
including that of beauty/fashion signs, has been the province of the humanities,
particularly anthropology and literature studies. Global political economy, however, must
take global virtual exchange more seriously, and not leave analyses of virtual exchange
up to technocratic or literary study. Global political economy must take virtual exchange
into account, and “…analyses must acknowledge and address the nature of these
transactions and their effects on more conventional forms of exchange – and social
relations” (Peterson 2003: 113).
The three types of global virtual exchange are closely linked, however this
chapter focuses on the third type, the exchange of global cultural symbols/signs. It is this
mode of the global virtual economy, the exchange of signs, which is most central to the
functioning of the global virtual economy of beauty. Financial markets are undoubtedly
important to the management of the global beauty/fashion industry; financial markets

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shape investment in firms and business and consumer credit. They therefore shape
outcomes in the beauty/fashion industry, and are likewise shaped by trends in
consumption and production. The information economy has also been central to the
beauty/fashion industry, shaping new technologies for communication and marketing in
particular, and driving the trend in highly technologized techniques of bodily practices
(Balsamo 1995). But the exchange of signs is what is most central to the function of
fashion as a social process of identification and differentiation.
The virtual political economy of signs is based on two things: the consumer
economy and the political economy of “how power operates through symbols, signs, and
codes to determine meaning and hence value” (140). In effect, it is about how meaning
and value are infused into commodities, who sets the agenda, and who benefits. The
exchange of signs, being based on cultural meaning and aesthetics of consumer goods,
therefore links directly between the operations of the global virtual economy and the
social and identity-forming value of the fashion process.
Peterson, along with many scholars, includes fashion as an example of global
virtual exchange (140, 141), but does not elaborate on the particular political economy of
beauty/fashion. As discussed in chapter 2, the politics of beauty/fashion include group
membership, intersectional personal identities, and the construction of gender. For this
reason, it is necessary to elaborate on the politics of global virtual exchange of signs with
respect to the beauty/fashion industry. If signs of group membership, personal identities,
and gender, are being deterritorialized and dematerialized and exchanged in the global

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economy, what type of effect does this have on those group memberships, identities, and
genders?
The trends in the global virtual exchange of signs has been in two movements:
toward increasing commodification, or the fusion of culture and commodity through the
increasing importance of “signs” in marketing commodities globally, and toward the
production of increased consumer desire. The result is an increasingly consumer-based
global economy, characterized by classic inequalities of access to the global political
economy.
Globalizing fashions are an excellent example of the global exchange of signs. It
is through the increasing commodification of fashions, adornments and cosmetics that the
industry continues to grow. The commodification of fashion illustrates well how value
becomes less about the product and more about its cultural meaning, as “for example, it is
not the durability of the jeans but the visibility of the designer brand-name that matter”
(Peterson 2003: 141). It is through the cosmetics and fashion industries’ excellence at
producing desire for virtually identical but “new” products every season that it thrives
(Gavenas 2002), and does relatively well even in times of recession.
But the politics of the global exchange of fashion symbols does not stop here. For
one thing, mainstream beauty/fashion globalization is historically associated with the
diffusion of ideals of Whiteness, thinness, hourglass curves, and Anglo-American-
associated features. The promotion of White, especially Anglo-American, ideals of
beauty in Mexico dates at least to post-World War II advertising by major international
cosmetics companies when “US cosmetics companies used endorsements by white

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American celebrities to sell products” (Jones 2008: 141). Thin, White, and slight-featured
beauty ideals continue to dominate the virtual economy of beauty in Mexico, even when
the product’s association with the United States or Europe is only by advertising
association (Winders et al 2005).
Without doing justice to the variety of media and marketing available and seen by
youth in Guadalajara, I can point to a few indicators of this claim. Participants’ female
idols and symbols of beauty are largely international pop stars and movie stars from
North and South America. Some key names include (in no particular order) Shakira,
Fergie, Hanna Montana, Hillary Duff, Belinda, Belanova, RBD and its members Anahí,
Dulce María, and Maite, Aracely Arámbula, Beyonce, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan,
Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, Janis Joplin, Lucero and Jessica Simpson. Some of these
stars’ admirers described themselves as “odd” for their admiration, but none of them are
alone in their high regard for these very successful stars. What does appear unmistakable
with this group of beauty and fashion idols is that, as a group, they share a thin, hourglass
body, and pale skin, light hair and light eyes by comparison with the population of
Guadalajara. Male idols include Harry Potter, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Robbie Williams,
Chayanne, Ricky Martin, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck and Matt
Damon. These idols share the soccer-players body, thin features, and the admiration of
many women.
These idols also frequently grace the covers of the popular teen and fashion
magazines, and many of them perform in Mexican telenovelas. Curious about the
supernatural hairstyles advertised on beauty salon signage, I took photos of their graphics

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for a period of about three months, in every area of the ZMG. My survey surprised me
with another pattern: There were virtually no definitively Mexican hairstyle models. One
could say that the trend in beauty salon displays is to advertise “ethnically ambiguous”
hairstyles, but the term is misleading. Ethnically ambiguous suggests correctly that the
ethnicity of the model could potentially be Mexican, and that the true ethnicity of the
model cannot be deduced, a trend in modern advertising (LaFerla 2003). But the ethnic
ambiguity does not cover the fact that the model will not be mistaken for Asian, African,
or indigenous American. The ambiguity overwhelmingly favors the features, body and
hair seen among White Europeans and European-descendents. Most graphics featured
models with blond, platinum-blond or red hair.
27

Europe and the United States are overwhelmingly the sources of fresa fashion
inspiration. Participants occasionally cited Japanese cartoons and comics as fashion
icons, one participant loves Arabic-inspired fashion because she has Arabic ancestry and
takes Arabic dance classes. Otherwise, I had to go deep into the webs of subcultural
fashion commodity knowledge in order to find sources of inspiration outside of Western
Europe and the United States. US Brands and Western European brands dominate the
landscape. One good key to the popular brands is to see which brands are pirated and
copied most: Coach, Versace, Chanel, Converse, Levi’s, Diesel, Abercrombie and Fitch,
Hollister, OP, BEBE, Juicy Couture, and Baby Phat were some of the names I wrote
down in one jaunt through the tianguis of Santa Teresita, the most central “fashion”

27
One exception to this trend stood out: a picture of the Black American model and host
of “America’s Next Top Model” Tyra Banks.

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tianguis in the ZMG. In effect, US and Western European commodities, brand
commodities, and advertising dominate the mainstream virtual exchange of signs.
And yet, outside of the mainstream beauty and fashion industries, youth are
spreading ideas about appearance, dress and comportment that defy the supposed
limitations of commodification. To the contrary, youth use the information economy and
their own marketing and media skills to diffuse alternate visions of beauty, fashion, and
the values and belonging that they profess.
Therefore, it is necessary to elaborate Peterson’s conceptualization of the global
political economy of virtual exchange to include the politics specific to beauty and
fashion industries. I do this by simply elaborating on the social relations affected by
virtual exchange of signs in the sphere of beauty/fashion. Peterson characterizes the
movement to a consumption-based market and increasingly commodified cultures as
reinscription of structural hierarchies of access to and benefits from the global economy.
This argument also parallels the arguments made by scholars that see the globalization of
the beauty and fashion industries as homogenizing forces or as an industry which contests
or disrupts local, indigenous, and “authentic” cultural traditions.
If we conceptualize fashion as a social process of identification and
differentiation, however, it becomes clear that fashion, rather than homogenizing, is
always socially constructed based on social context, and also always indicates difference.
Therefore, it is less useful to think of globalization of beauty/fashion as a homogenizing
force and local context as contesting or local tradition being undermined. It is more
helpful to conceptualize the global beauty/fashion economy as a set of parallel

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globalizations competing for recognition and authenticity in local contexts. The key to
globalization in this case, then, is that the global productive economy of beauty and
fashion, the global informational economy, and mass media and marketing has changed
the social context within which the fashion process is articulated. For example, metaleros
now have to struggle to maintain their treasured sense of exclusivity because anyone can
get their music from the internet, rather than going through the laborious process of
sending away for international mail order cassette recordings or earning the privilege of
borrowing from a hard-won friend. One important result of the change in social context is
that the numbers and types of subcultures in Guadalajara are multiplying.

The Politics of a Fashion Consumption Economy
In the third mode of the virtual economy, the exchange of cultural symbols and
signs, the major transformations in the consumer economy have been the increased
attention to producing desire for consumption and the fusion of culture and commodity
through the increasing importance of signs in marketing commodities globally. Peterson
argues that the politics of the consumption economy are embodied in the naturalization
and depoliticization of consumption; the production of a sense of lack through media and
marketing; the investment of time, money and credit by consumers in the process of
consumption; and the commodification of culture. The Tianguis Cultural illustrates two
other politics of the consumption economy: the politicization of the cultural economy of
beauty/fashion, and the denaturalization of a single, hegemonic set of cultural norms.

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The global consumption economy is concentrated in urban and suburban zones
(Peterson 143) like the Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone (ZMG) which includes eight
physically continuous municipalities. Outside of the metropolitan zone, numerous towns
and villages contribute to the metropolitan economy. Guadalajara is the second largest
city in Mexico, boasting over 4 million habitants in the ZMG. The Tianguis Cultural is
the center of the regional subcultural economy, being a source for artisans to sell their
wares and wholesalers come to buy for resale in Guadalajara’s main resale market, San
Juan de Dios, and other mid-size cities such as Juarez, Durango, Queretaro, and
Monterrey.
Increasing consumer demand drives the global consumer economy. Increasing
consumer demand must be created, requiring heavy investment in marketing, or “the
production of tastes and desires in line with always changing commodities; it is a never-
ending, expensive, and elaborate project in which consumers variously collaborate”
(142). This helps explain why a private marketing research company like Euromonitor
has better, more detailed statistics on consumption than the Mexican government.
Companies like Euromonitor collect data from business associations, chambers of
commerce, published research, the government, and independent research, and compiles
them into systematic information on consumption patterns and behaviors to sell to
marketing companies.
The production of desire for consumption depoliticizes and naturalizes the
consumption economy, particularly through marketing campaigns and through the very
global medium of television. Peterson argues that “(a)dvertisements, news stories, and

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entertainment programs illustrate how contemporary western culture admires ‘the rich’”
(143). The flood of admiration for the lives, consumption, and look of the rich naturalizes
consumption for pleasure and status. Consumption becomes the natural source of wealth,
obscuring the politics of unequal access to and benefits from the consumer economy.
The production of consumerist desire involves “cultivating a consumerist
ideology and aesthetic, and in effect commodifying subjectivity itself. The “ideology of
consumption involved relentless subjection to media images, enticements, and directives,
all aimed at promoting consumption as a positive, vital, pleasurable, identity-conferring
and rewarding activity” (142). The Tianguis Cultural illustrates how in some markets,
both consumption and production are also politicized. The Cultural was instituted as a
market for artisans to earn fair prices for their work, circumventing resellers. It was
created to commodify culture, and yet it was created and has maintained a political
outlook on commodification. And, while consumption itself is naturalized, consumption
at the Cultural is not unpoliticized. Through the diffusion of countercultural beauty/
fashion ideals, the subcultures of the Cultural politicize cultural norms of
appropriateness.
Consider the metaleros. Like other subcultures in the Tianguis Cultural, the
metaleros profess a unique set of values, often expressed as moral and aesthetic
superiority, as a way of life. Metalero is a general term for someone who is a dedicated
fan of heavy metal music, but there are numerous distinctions among heavy metal lovers
that make them dark, goth, glam, death, vampiras, poser, or any combination like death-
glam or glam-death-vampira. I cannot make many of the distinctions myself, but with the

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help of a small group of metaleros I learn that there are insider signals that make a poser,
someone who is trying unsuccessfully to fit in, stand out from people with more
subculture credibility. And there are small signals that indicate one’s musical and
subcultural affinity. For instance, some metaleros wear white tennis shoes. Unbeknownst
to outsiders, white tennis shoes are worn by a couple of bands, so their fans have adopted
that style, making it a signal of knowledge about their favorite music and bands. Other
fashion signals include corsets and the details that they convey, such as which stall in the
Tianguis Cultural they are bought from and the style in which they are worn. For instance
a corset from one local designer carries a halter-top. Corsets from another local designer
use more lace. Before spending time among the metaleros they all looked very similar to
me, however it quickly became clear that there are many divisions among them over their
types of music and the specifics of their style.
The biggest signal to subculture insiders is the band t-shirt. The band t-shirt
announces a musical interest, and has grown into its own aesthetic. For metaleros, the
band t-shirt is screenprinted with elaborate, macabre aesthetics, on a black background.
Men wear their t-shirts loose and long. Women wear their t-shirts tighter and with more
design features, even tied up under a corset. In sum, the metaleros are just one example of
how the fashion process is at work creating group identification and differentiation. Their
symbols link affinities between people on the streets, in the Tianguis Cultural, and at
concerts.
Speaking to metaleros about their style, they characterize it as a global, highly
exclusive, way of life. They say it grew from bands in Scandinavia, but is now global,

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with many of their favorite bands local, from South America, and the USA. Their style is
very dark using a lot of black and the most common accent color is blood red. Prints on
their clothes often utilize symbols of religion and death. They see their tastes as so
specialized and so superior, that membership in their circle of friends is very exclusive.
They do not want to be associated with any poser, and often criticize other subcultural
groups for their taste in music and their way of life. For example, hippies, grunge, and
rastafaris are too dirty, too idealistic, and use drugs. Metaleros, by contrast, are clean,
realistic, and drink a lot of alcohol but disassociate themselves from the use of street
drugs. According to one, metaleros can be “any color” or from any country, but they have
to share some of the core values discussed here.
The metaleros express these differences from mainstream society and other
subcultures in part through their fashion and comportment. The more obscure a band, the
more exclusive the fashion process. They laugh among themselves as fashionistas buy
band t-shirts of bands they do not know just for the t-shirt design. One vendor in the
Tianguis Cultural, after admitting that exclusivity can be bad for business, recounts that
he allows himself to print a small set of limited edition band t-shirts in order to fulfill his
desire to maintain exclusivity. The rest, he produces according to demand. This
exclusivity is further maintained because metaleros do not like to share music. Perhaps as
a throwback to the days when purchasing new music was difficult, international mail
order unreliable, and local sources of music unsatisfactory, metaleros routinely express
their distaste for sharing new music, even with friends. Metaleros actually lament the

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information revolution for making their music accessible to anyone, so any little kid can
just download it and become a poser.
Other ways that metaleros symbolize their nonconformity are through tattoos, the
heavy use of black, jewelry, hair dye, and makeup. Tattoos and body adornments often
play tongue-in-cheek reference to religious symbols and death. The heavy use of black
and secondary use of red in clothing and hair dye stands out in Guadalajara, where vivid
colors or pastels, carefully combined in combinations of three colors or fewer, is the apex
of fashion. Metalero makeup could be described as severe; it features pale tones of facial
foundation and/or powder, and black eyeliner. Some of the metalero subcultures use
black lipstick, others red, others none. The metalero aesthetic is part of the nonconformist
values often espoused by metaleros. For metaleros, their subculture is not just a style, but
also a “way of life.” The bodily practices symbolize the belief that religion is a sham and
a system of social control that keeps people from thinking independently. Society is too
idealistic, so metaleros embrace death and pessimism. Their contrariness to social norms
means that it is more difficult for them to find employment, and that they find romantic
partners among similarly identified youth.
The metaleros are an example of the diverse subcultural trends in Guadalajara,
although not each subculture espouses the same set of values, and they express
themselves through fashion differently. For example, the skateboarder or skate style in
Guadalajara shares with the metaleros an affinity for black, tattoos, and religious
skepticism, but are distinguishable for their athleticism, piercings, and more colorful use

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of screen-printing and accessories. “Old-school” and “new-school” skateboard riders are
distinguishable by the style of their pants, the older style being looser.
As a market, the Cultural is the epitome of the commodification of culture,
widely argued to be a hallmark of postmodernity (Harvey 1989) and contemporary
globalization. Literally translatable to “cultural market,” the Cultural is where cool is for
sale, in the form of black vinyl corsets for metaleros and darks, deconstructed t-shirts for
punks and emos, second-hand vintage imports for alternative music lovers, neon bead
bracelets for psychos, tattoos and piercings for everyone, and the latest token of cool for
the fashionable set and tourists. The most successful market stalls have drawn out their
niche by offering exclusivity and authenticity of subcultural style to their clients. Clients
are youth from all corners of Guadalajara, resellers in other parts of the country, and
increasingly, tourists and students from abroad. The Cultural is the place that youth from
all over the city will go to buy a piece of a subculture identification.
But it is also the major weekly social event, a characteristic of the
commodification of the lifeworld. Even more than the popular malls, the weekly market
is teeming with flirting, music-playing, eating, smoking, chatting, and watching young
people. Many days, as the market winds down, a live band starts up, entertaining a mostly
under-age group in the afternoon. This is, according to many authors, the definition of the
commodified culture, where cultural artifacts are increasingly commercialized, and
commercialization becomes the center of cultural activity (Peterson 2003: 141-142). This
commodification of culture is often read as the superficialization of culture for the benefit
of corporate profit and at the expense of the marketization of everyday life. It is seen as

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part of a shift in public spaces being used to “further private consumption not public/civic
interaction” (Peterson 144). But I argue that the Cultural and the subcultures that occupy
it offer a chance to see globalization, even the commodification of culture, in a more
optimistic light. As argued above, commodification of fashion and its globalization
spread difference and social contestation. Difference and social contestation are not
necessarily beneficial, however they do present an opening, particularly with respect to
challenging long-standing social inequalities and the naturalization of gendered
differences.
Globalization is not undermining an authentic, traditional, morally superior set of
cultural ideals. For one, culture is not a static formation, but rather a socially constructed
web of meaning. This means that it is always changing based on competing and
cooperating identities, institutions and ideologies. In addition, as is clear from the brief
summary of conventional Mexican historical ideals of femininity, they are composites of
various influences, deeply shaped by Mexico’s indigenous and colonial roots, and its
proximity to one of the major post-World War II global powers. Mexico’s increasing
globalization through trade, investment, flexible specialization, migration, and media
production and consumption, has changed the social context for the construction of ideals
of femininity, but should not be seen as a corruption of previous social constructions.
Finally, previous constructions of femininity illustrate women’s precious but unequal role
in society. Historical gender ideals in Mexico are open to criticism for naturalizing
gender difference, constructing women as fragile, putting the burden of moral and
religious correctness on women, and condemning women’s sexuality, among other

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things. Globalization has fostered growth of and diversity among subcultural groups that
challenge historical doctrine about religion and gender.
If we look at fashion as a social process and as bodily practices, we can see that it
has always been a part of the construction of subjectivity and group identification.
Indeed, it offers an excellent example of how subjectivity is commodifiable. Through the
design, production, distribution, marketing and consumption of fashion, the global
political economy makes important elements of subjectivity and group identification
available for sale. What is novel, then, is that fashion commodification is so diverse and
varied. Now, it signifies more than social class, nation, ethnicity, and gender. It illustrates
the rising importance of affinity groups and social contest as areas for personal
identification and subjectivity. Therefore, I argue, commodification is not necessarily
depoliticizing or naturalizing or more limiting. To the contrary, commodification can
actually be seen as an opening or an opportunity to spread more diversity. It can be read
as a sign of the increasing importance of social identification outside of historical
markers such as nation, ethnicity, race, and social class. It also illustrates how some
historical markers of group identity, such as nation, ethnicity, race and social class, are
becoming less salient to youth. For the category of gender, however, fashion illustrates
one category of subjectivity and identification that is very resistant to change.
In sum, I argue that the increasing commodification of beauty and fashion in the
global economy is surprisingly not limiting in terms of ideals for feminine beauty. To the
contrary, there many alternative globalizations that espouse ideals of beauty quite
contrary to social convention. While on the one hand we see that the global virtual

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exchange of signs is fostering the naturalization and depoliticization of consumption,
consumption remains very political, and consciously so, for these subcultural groups.
This breaks up the assumption that globalization of the beauty and fashion industries is
homogenizing, indeed it brings into question whether globalization is homogenizing or
whether it is actually a diversifying force. In Guadalajara, a culturally conservative
Mexican city, globalization can be described as a diversifying influence.

Structural Inequalities
One central problem with the virtual economy is that it is unevenly articulated
globally, so that there is uneven access to its resources, and the agenda-setters in the
virtual economy are concentrated among a global elite privileged by nation, race, class,
and gender. “…embodied elite agents of the virtual economy mirror structural
hierarchies” (118). Those privileged by the global virtual economy are those with
historically privileged subjectivities, reinforcing historic inequality. But, Peterson cites at
least one study that suggests that the emerging global elite is less filial to old categories
of privilege, such as the nation (Cerny 1996 cited in Peterson 2003: 118).
The Tianguis Cultural subverts some of these structures of power, however
structures of gender difference have proved resistant to change. With regards to structures
that privilege the cultural elite, the Cultural illustrates ways that young people and
countercultural elites are privileged in these types of markets. The Cultural was
developed as a way to circumvent middlemen, and to give artisans more power over
setting the prices of their merchandise by selling directly to a large market. The Cultural

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was started in 1996 by a civil association that collected small donations to maintain
operations, but overhead costs were cut down through volunteerism and the street market
model. Only local artists and artisans were allowed to sell in the Cultural; vendors or
resellers were expressly prohibited and, if found, removed from the market. Since the city
government assumed control of market governance in 2003, the rule that wares must be
locally produced has been relaxed, but the vending stalls were already spoken for, and
may not officially be sold. Therefore, despite some attrition and some illegal selling of
vending space, locally-produced goods are still the backbone. The market provides cheap
access for young artists and craftspeople to a large market. The artists that I talked to did
not develop their crafts through schools or specialized training, but rather through
learning to sew, paint, and make crafts at home. Usually, groups of friends and families
become small factories and salespeople as the vendors increase their sales.
So, to return to the example of the metaleros, on the one hand, the bands are the
major taste-makers, but on the other, these local designers and producers and their
consumers are the taste arbiters. I found no evidence that these local designers are
particularly privileged in the classical sense of class and ethnicity. There is a section of
the market dedicated as an outlet for indigenous artists, who are not charged rent, because
of their historical hardships and disadvantages. The market itself is an attempt to gain a
foothold for artists and artisans without the means or the demeanor to garner market share
or solo exhibitions on their own. And yet, despite their supposed disadvantages, vendors
at the Cultural do very well, much better than an office job, even in government, for
some. As the center for various subcultures’ weekly public gatherings, the market frames

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public space as very diverse. As argued above, the structure of the Cultural and the
subcultures in it are diverse examples of social contestation in everyday life, undermining
traditional hierarchies such as race, ethnicity, religion, and nation.
And yet, in the area of gender, there is a lot of sameness. Karmen MacKendrick
(1998) argues that subcultural uses of body modifications and adornments such as
piercings, tattoos, and corsets, are undoing the link between beauty and “nature,” undoing
the naturalization of beauty as a concept, making beauty heavily constructed, and making
the gender components of beauty exaggeratedly visible. MacKendrick therefore sees
transgression or subversion in the use of historically gendered and painful modifications
such as the use of the corset. It is easy to see the play with corsets, which raise the bust
unnaturally high, squeeze the waist, and exaggerate an hourglass figure, as constructing
and exaggerating the feminine shape so much as to denaturalize it. Speaking with the
youth, however, leads me to conclude that the denaturalization of gender does not make
the masculine-feminine dichotomy less salient.
Masculine and feminine gender norms, while rebellious and contesting many
mainstream standards, in many ways parallel mainstream gender norms. Mainstream
masculine standards of dress and comportment for youth closely resemble the celebrity
soccer players and their “cuerpo de futbolista,” or soccer-player’s body. The norm of
masculinity for metaleros is a clean but grungy look, unathletic, with long, product-free
hair usually held in a tie at the nape of the neck. These features contrast with the short,
gelled hairdos, athletic bodies, athletic clothing, and bright clean colors favored by
mainstream youth.

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The masculine metalero look is the metalero equivalent of the “unmarked man”
(Higgins 1998). Metaleros even directly expressed to me that they rejected using any
style or supporting any brand. From my perspective, this seemed absurd given that I had
identified them as a group by their use of black, band t-shirts, jeans, grungy tennis shoes,
and long hair in low ponytails. Within their group, however, they identified themselves as
not having any style, of being normal, of being the unmarked, default norm. This is
where the strongest parallel to mainstream masculinity can be seen. Masculinity is
performed, in whichever group, through the performance of having no style of being the
unmarked norm.
Femininity, on the other hand, is highly visible and constructed; it is the marked
other. It takes care and investment with time, money, and education. And, it is
simultaneously ridiculed for its superficiality and triviality. For example, among the
metaleros is a subgroup of young women, the vampiras, who wear fangs, shortest mini-
skirts and the tightest corsets. These sexy metaleras are also called “casagreñas” because
they just want to marry a “greñudo” or a grungy metalhead. These young women are at
one and the same time sexualized and ridiculed for their superficiality and triviality. Still,
they are not poser or outside of the authentic subculture.
Even non-vampiras are criticized for their attention to looks. One young man
criticized women for being too interested in their looks, dying their hair too red or too
blond, wearing too much makeup, and caring too much about the way they look. A few
feet from us, three young women carefully fixed up, one with her hair bleached blond and
another with her hair dyed red, ignored us and appeared not to hear his condemnations.

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He and others explained the difference in gender styles to me by referring to women’s
inherent vanity. In sum, while the Tianguis Cultural and the subcultures in it espouse
counter-hegemonic ideologies and identities, their gender ideologies closely parallel
those of the mainstream.

Conclusion
This chapter argues that globalization of beauty/fashion spreads difference, and
therefore that it presents opportunities for change. The globalization of beauty/fashion is
political because beauty and fashion are practices of bodily construction and
representation that are central to processes of producing subjectivity and social
identification and differentiation. The gender politics of beauty/fashion are particularly
important because beauty and fashion are central to constructing unequal gender
relations. The gendered politics of beauty/fashion are central to the global virtual
economy of signs and symbols. Peterson’s mapping of the global virtual economy can be
elaborated to include the global political economy of beauty/fashion. The politics of
beauty and fashion suggest that commodification and the increasingly consumer-based
economy is helping to spread diverse subjectivities and group identifications, creating
more diversity on the ground through globalization rather than hegemony. Still, while
some historical group configurations are less important to youth, gender identification,
even as it is denaturalized, remains very resistant to change.

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Chapter 7: Conclusion

I started this research with, I thought, a simple set of questions. How do beauty
images, products and ideals circulate globally? Do particular standards and practices
flow across international borders from groups privileged by race, class, and nation? In
what ways does globalization affect Mexican youth’s standards and practices of
beautification? How do Mexican youth respond to globalized beauty ideals, and what
explains their respective responses? In the 1980s, a group of feminist authors proposed a
simple yet provocative set of ideas: that beauty products, images and ideals are powerful
socializing agents for women that, rather than illustrating women’s vanity and frivolity,
are evidence of deep social inequalities, especially in terms of gender, race, and class.
This literature, a favorite in many women’s studies programs in the USA, informed my
curiosity of the globalization of the beautifying industries, leading me to ask whether
conditions of globalization were transforming the use of beauty products, images, and
ideas, and thereby transforming the socialization of femininity, and by extension
transforming social inequalities.
My feminist approach to fieldwork suggested that I needed to talk to people about
their experience of beauty globalization rather than theorize about its potential effects or
its discourses. The extended case method suggested that a local, everyday life perspective
on globalization would not only be possible, but fruitful. Looking for a place to start, I
stumbled upon the fiesta de quince años as an event where typically marginalized
subjects, young people in the developing world, explore and display their beauty ideals

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and practices. I could not have imagined a better point of entry for viewing the
globalization of beauty from the ground-up.
On exploring my field data, I came up with some patterns which indicated they
might answer my questions: local gender ideals are being mixed up and changed, partly
through ideas about what it means to be a beautiful quinceañera; an explosion of beauty
products, services, and practices appears to be putting intense pressure on young women
to conform to a rarely, often momentarily, attainable ideal of beauty based on
youthfulness, thinness, curviness, and technological improvements; the major economic
superpowers are the nations most privileged in terms of agenda-setting in the beauty and
fashion trendsetting industry. But I also found some contradictory patterns: global flows
of media and images appear to favor Anglo-American norms, but they are actually more
multicultural and diverse than locally-produced images; girls and boys share
preoccupations with body image and race, but are reticent to share their concerns.
After identifying some of these major trends, I returned to the bookshelves, and
found that what I thought was a simple set of questions and a simple set of answers, is
much more complicated. Beauty/fashion touches on just about every aspect of cultural,
social and economic life. I needed a way to interpret the beauty and fashion industries
that took into account the varied dynamics that inform beauty and fashion decisions and
trends. Also, the relationship between what I was observing on the ground and the
globalization of beauty products, ideas and practices was tenuous at best. How could I
interpret the role of globalization, a multifaceted global social and economic process, as it
intersects with local beauty practices and ideals, another multifaceted area of social life?

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The simple questions that I had started with encompassed too much territory, literally and
figuratively. Spike Peterson’s Rewriting proved to be an invaluable resource.
There might not be any political economy that illustrates better the deep and
intimate connections between production, finance, marketing, media, and consumption,
than the beauty economy. And the RPV approach offers a framework for understanding
these rhythms in concert. This mapping, as I hope to have shown, is extremely useful in
making connections between the three spheres, for example by aiding us in linking
conceptually and empirically reproductive beauty work, virtual images, and beauty
product circulation. Likewise, the RPV framework, by conceptually and empirically
linking material, social, and economic exchanges, provided a context within which to
understand and interpret the local beauty industries in relation to global flows of goods,
practices, and ideas. Triad analytics is an added benefit to the RPV framework. The focus
on structural hierarchies of identities, ideologies and institutions in these three economic
spheres, and their continuity through the spheres, further links the productive,
reproductive and virtual. In addition, the focus on structural inequalities in the RPV
framework lends itself particularly well to studying gendered inequalities.

Study Findings

With the heuristic tools of the RPV framework and triad analytics, I was able to
see further into my data and begin to see the ways that the production of beauty is linked
to the global political economy. In chapter three, I first explain that beautification is very
important to the fiesta de quince años. Standards for beautification are not easily defined

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because they sit at a crux between opposing forces for normalization and
particularization. On one axis, parents and tradition encourage quinceañeras to choose a
conservative, standardized approach toward beautification, while she and her peers push
to express their uniqueness. On another axis, standards for beautification balance a
youth’s sense of fixing herself up to fit society’s standards with a youth’s sense of
identity as original and unique. Desires to be normal and to be unique are not
incompatible, and most youth pursue both goals at the same time. Fixing oneself up
according to social standards of beauty, while also expressing personal uniqueness
through color and style, gives boys and girls pleasure and confidence. I attribute creative
searches for new sources of inspiration to the push for originality and uniqueness, and
interpret youth’s drive for originality as an engine of beauty image globalization.
Social standards for beauty and beautification do still exist, and I then explain the
gendered and racialized dynamics of cosmetics, hairstyles, dress, comportment and body
shaping. In Guadalajara, beautification is gendered primarily through women’s
overwhelmingly higher degree of investment in beauty products, services and practices.
This is not to say that men do not invest themselves, their time and their money in
looking good, but that their efforts are much less visible and their objectives are driven by
the desire to produce a powerful, natural, unproduced masculinity. The desire to produce
a powerful masculinity has led some boys to try to deracialize their bodies and imitate a
tall, broad-shouldered, light-skinned body. Males who do express openly their desire and
their efforts to look good have their sexuality and their masculinity questioned. These
gendered patterns of body adornment and modification indicate one set of processes

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through which masculinity is constructed as the expression of a natural, unproduced,
default sex that does not consume beauty products.
Finally in chapter three, I begin to link the production of beauty in the fiesta de
quince años to globalization by using the RPV framework. I argue that, through the lens
of the quinceañera dress, beautification, and dance, we can see that the reproduction of
beauty, the use of beauty products, and the use of virtual images, mutually construct both
the beautiful quinceañera and the global political economy. I also argue that the
construction of the beautiful quinceañera illustrates Peterson’s argument that the
reproductive, productive, and virtual economies are indeed inextricable and intertwining.
As a case study on the politics of the global reproductive economy, chapter four
extends out from the production of the beautiful quinceañera into the global reproductive
economy. I argue that the quince is to reproductive labor what the quinceañera is to
beauty: one is an exaggerated, in-your-face illustration of the other. As an exaggeration
of reproductive labor and investment in childrearing, education and socialization, the
fiesta de quince años illustrates the centrality of the reproductive economy to the global
political economy of beauty. The reproductive economy shapes the use of beauty
products, the consumption of beauty information, and the formation of ideas about what
is beautiful. By shaping consumption of products, services, and information and by
shaping the uses of reproductive labor, the reproductive economy plays an important part
in the global productive and virtual economies.
The intersection of globalization with the reproduction of beauty in the quince has
meant that reproductive labor is increasingly called upon, as both a source of income and

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as free labor, when demands for beautification, beauty products, and beauty services rise.
The intensification of demands on reproductive labor, the increasing commercialization
of reproductive labor, and the role of the quince in the construction of social norms,
means that the reproductive economy of beauty in the quince play a part in reproducing
social hierarchies. The intersection of globalization and the reproductive economy of
beauty, as seen through the quince, has led to increased demands on women’s time,
earning capacity, and investment in beauty. There is, however evidence of changing
norms of beauty and gender in the quince: the reproductive economy is not static.
Adolescent desires to push boundaries and try out new things create tensions within the
reproductive sphere, and illustrate how the reproductive economy is open to changes and
shifts.
As a case study of the global productive economy, chapter 5 illustrates why
women’s participation in the global cosmetics industries is not a sign of triviality,
superficiality, or vanity. There are, rather, structures of inequality that shape women’s
entry into the cosmetics industry and which limit their success. Employment in the
productive economy of beauty is increasingly concentrated in distributive and personal
services, sectors whose gendered inequalities have been discussed elsewhere. The
structural inequalities in the cosmetics industry, however, are even starker, particularly
due to the dynamics of the direct selling business. The sector is almost entirely feminized,
although there is still marked vertical segregation illustrated by the occupation of top
positions by men both at the corporate level and in beauty salon services. Another axis of
inequality is social class status, where poorer and less educated women occupy the lower

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rungs of the beauty industry. Another axis of inequality is national: the bottom of the
employment chain is held by Mexican nationals, while the bulk of assets are earned by
foreign multinationals.
I interpret the heavy employment of women in direct sales and personal services in
beauty as part of the global trend toward flexibilization and feminization of labor
markets. Network marketing involves a gendered type of “functional flexibility” through
which international companies take advantage of women’s supposedly “free time” to sell
products for commission or discount only.
The feminized direct sales industry also complicates women’s relationship with
globalization. Women are encouraged to be empowered by exploiting other women in
their “downline.” Depending on the corporation’s pricing and incentives program, it is
often more lucrative for a salesperson to dedicate themselves to recruiting other sellers,
their downline, rather than selling merchandise. These multi-level direct sales techniques
exploit women’s social networks in order to sustain profit, and implicate their
saleswomen in a web of exploitation among themselves.
This chapter shows that the gendered division of labor makes jobs in cosmetics an
attractive way for women to use skills that they have learned in the private sphere, work
and earn income without reducing their reproductive work load, and earn cultural cache
as a beauty expert. I conclude that women’s overwhelming involvement in the cosmetics
industry, rather than a sign of women’s superficiality or vanity, is a sign of woman-
centric recruitment, employment, selling, advertising, and consumption. The productive,

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reproductive, and virtual economies together are essential to understanding why women
are attracted to employment in the cosmetics industry.
As a case study of the global virtual economy of beauty, chapter six argues that
globalization of beauty/fashion commodification and the increasingly consumer-based
economy is helping to spread diverse subjectivities and group identifications, and that it
therefore presents opportunities for change. The commodification of beauty and fashion
is not exclusive to powerful corporations and media. Alternative sites of cultural
commodification, through the denaturalization of social standards of normal beauty and
beautification practices and through the politicization of the cultural economy of
beauty/fashion, undermine hegemonic standards of beauty and encourage the spread of
diversity. Difference and social contestation are not necessarily beneficial, however they
do present an opening with respect to challenging long-standing social norms. Still, while
some historical group configurations are less important to youth, gender differentiation,
even as it is denaturalized, remains very resistant to change.
The above results and interpretations lead me to conclude first, in answer to my
questions, that global beauty products, practices and images flow through the
reproductive, productive, and virtual economies. The novel idea here is that the
reproductive economy and things as simple as word-of-mouth and sisterhood are central
mediums for the exchange of beauty ideas and practices. This helps explain why network
marketing is the major source of beauty product sales in developing countries. Of course
we knew, with the high visibility of global media and marketing, that the global virtual
economy of signs plays a large role in the dispersion of images about beauty. However, a

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situated perspective of Guadalajaran youth’s use of media tells us that beauty product
marketing and celebrity media are not hegemonic. Revolutions in technology and the
importance of music to defining subcultures have facilitated an explosion of diverse
group identifications. The RPV is a useful, indeed invaluable, framing of the global
political economy of beauty.
Privilege in the global political economy of beauty is not straightforward.
Thinking in terms of the most valued identities, ideologies and institutions is a useful
starting point. Tables 6 and 7 extract the highly valued and less valued categories from
chapters 3-6 of this dissertation. What is interesting in these tables are the details that
emerge from having spent time with youth and gaining their perspective on the valued
masculinities and femininities. Tables 1 and 2 (see page 30) summarize the privileged
and less privileged identities, ideologies and institutions in the global political economy
in general based on Peterson’s text. As Peterson points out (2003: 18), the generalizations
of the RPV framing leave out some specificity in terms of different masculinities and
femininities. By using a ground-up perspective and ethnographic methods, this study has
highlighted multiple femininities and masculinities, and their degrees of privilege
according to context.
Tables 6 and 7 (see page 232) specify the identities, ideologies and institutions
that are privileged specifically in the beauty industries as seen from the perspective of
youth in an urban Mexican environment. In the fiesta de quince años, the
father/breadwinner, godparents/sponsors and mothers hold places of high value. The
celebrant herself holds a place of privilege among her family and community, but

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possibly only for a day or two. Her preciousness revolves around the illusion and
enactment of sus quince, which passes all too soon.
28
Girls with too few economic
resources, few friends, or isolated from their families, may not celebrate their quince and
may never enjoy the privilege of being a princess, even for a day. Youth in Guadalajara
value fashionable consumers (fashionistas) and tease others for being fat or ugly or not
fixed-up. In the cosmetics industry, metrosexual fashion entrepreneurs are highly valued,
as are successful network marketers. The metrosexual beauty salon entrepreneur holds
more prestige than the neighborhood beauty salon. But in the broader society, the
masculinity of men in cosmetics or beauty services is called into question. Likewise, in
the broader context of the global economy, successful network marketers are rewarded
little for their effort in comparison to global investors and corporate managers.
One striking difference between Table 6 and Table 1 is that the privileged identities
and institutions in the virtual economy of beauty signs are more open to diversity.
Through medium like the Tianguis Cultural, youth become investors, producers,
privileged consumers and trendsetters. Music groups, subculture and Japanese cartoons
share the media landscape with corporate advertisers and Hollywood. I attribute the more
open and diverse virtual economy of beauty to two things. First, information technology
has made globally diverse fashions, music, and images increasingly accessible to youth
consumers and producers. Second, youth put information technology to use in their
search for novelty.

28
Thanks to Wendy Alker for sharing her insightful analysis of the momentary nature of
wedding and quince princess status.

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Highly valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Investors,
professional and
producer service
providers,
functional
managers,
cosmopolitan
managers, network
marketers
Masculinities:
breadwinner,
fashion
entrepreneur
Femininities:
fashionable
consumer,
beautiful,
networker,
dressmaker,
hairstylist, mother
Investors,
advertisers, media
makers,
celebrities,
musicians,
fashionista, cool
kids (fresas)
Ideologies Neoliberal
capitalism,
competition
Patriarchy, religion,
commercialization
Commodification,
Information,
Consumption
Institutions Market, Firms,
OECD states
Family, church,
sisterhood,
networking,
tradition
Corporate capital,
finance
institutions,
Hollywood,
manga/anime,
music groups
Table 6: Highly valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the global political economy of
beauty.

Less valued… Productive Reproductive Virtual
Identities Personal and
distributive service
workers, most
flexible workers,
Feminized,
Racialized workers
Masculinities
racially marked,
unfit, gay,
metrosexual
Femininities: ugly,
unfixed-up,
indigenous,
friendless,
feminists, poor,
uncool, unoriginal
Subsistence
consumer, uncool,
fat, ugly, posers
Ideologies Governance,
transparency
Feminism Governance
Institutions Networks of
friends
Caring work States, IOs
Table 7: Less valued identities, ideologies and institutions in the global political economy of
beauty.

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Familiar patterns of privilege also emerge when looking at the highly valued
masculinities and femininities, particularly in the reproductive economy. The global
political economy of beauty rewards women for achieving certain femininities, like
“mother,” “beautiful,” “cosmetics entrepreneur,” and “fashionable consumer.” And the
rewards for these identities are heavily reinforcing of each other partly because of the
global poltical economy. Because girls are socialized from a young age to value
beautification, brands target them as consumers, they develop marketable skills that can
be put to use in sales or services, which leads them to market their sales and services to
other women and socialize their daughters to appreciate beauty in similar ways. Since
these highly valued femininities are so central to the beauty industry one might think that
they should be gaining more. But opportunities for advancement are based on achieving a
valued femininity, and none of the highly valued femininities is quite as valued as its
masculine counterpart.
This is because the global political economy of beauty also rewards men. As with
many industries, the beauty industries generally reward men more than women. For
example, the successful feminine network marketer as capitalist entrepreneur still does
not compare to the metrosexual fashion expert as capitalist entrepreneur. This familiar
pattern illustrates that women in the global economy of beauty, successfully performing a
highly valued femininity, are still not as valued as men or women who achieve certain
types of masculinity. It is important to note that, while women are expected to behave in
a feminine way, those characteristics associated with femininity are less valued and less
rewarded in general. For example, powerful men earn more than beautiful women. In the

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beauty industry, this hierarchy may be even more pronounced because youthful beauty is
temporary. Therefore, one of the categories of privilege is only momentarily, if at all,
achievable.
The industry is also gendered in the sense that the industry itself is feminized, and
therefore men’s masculinity is criticized or undermined as a result of their participation in
a feminine industry. The job is feminized, so even the men at top, and especially the
young metrosexuals, are considered less of and their sexuality is called into question.
A global perspective reveals that there is also an element of national privilege to
the highly valued identities. Whereas a fashion entrepreneur in Guadalajara may be at the
top of the game in the ZMG, his credentials come from having taken classes in Europe or
competed in New York competitions. Likewise the young metrosexuals in Guadalajara
are highly valued by the girls for their dapper styles. But, at the same time, they are the
same boys who are most preoccupied with deracializing their bodies in order to achieve a
“cosmopolitan” look that is highly influenced by Western European and US fashion
brands and fashion centers.
A final note about patterns of privilege in the global political economy of beauty
is that the structures of inequality are mutually continuous through the reproductive,
productive, and virtual economies. In all three economies, the horizontal segregation of
women and men into “women’s” and “men’s” work is still prevalent. This means that
women are employed in network marketing much more than in professional management,
and this accounts for some of the inequalities. In addition, as discussed above, when men
do adopt feminized work, they generally rise to the top in a pattern called vertical

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segregation. This means that, in the reproductive economy of commercialized beauty
services or in the productive economy of global cosmetics distribution, one is likely to
see men in positions of power, prestige, and high earnings. The “network marketer” as
capitalist entrepreneur does not compare favorably to the highly valued masculinities in
the productive economy.
This is not to suggest that women should pursue privileged masculine identities
and work in non-feminized employment. Rather, femininities, including fashionista, ugly,
old, and feminist, femininities, need to be revalued in order to undermine gendered
hierarchies. In addition, feminized labor and women’s work needs to be more highly
valued. I hope that this dissertation has contributed to these aims by showing that
women’s work in production, consumption, and trendsetting is an important part of the
global economy of beauty.
In addition, despite persistent gender hierarchies, even in woman-centric
industries like beauty, there is reason to hope that they can be unsettled, because these
structural hierarchies are not stable. I attribute the instability of structural hierarchies to
the fact that people are the engines behind the global political economy of beauty. As
shown by the overwhelming entrance of women into the productive economy of beauty,
into the commercialization of beauty services, and the commodification of beauty
products in Guadalajara in the last half of the twentieth century, industries are constructed
by people. Women’s integration into all three economies is transformative, and some
femininities and metrosexual masculinity have become significantly more important with
the explosion of commodification and commercialization in the beauty/fashion industries.

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The virtual economy looks especially unstable, open as it is to new technology and quick
and easy communication. Youth, in particular, promise to be a tremendous source of
transformation of traditional social norms, as their knowledge of and interest in new
communication technologies intersects with their desire for newness and change.

Reflecting on the RPV Framework
The RPV framework is helpful for a number of reasons, but two are especially
important. First, it is impossible to understand the politics of the globalization of beauty
products without considering how ideas about what is beautiful are spread through media
and marketing and how the reproduction of gender norms leads women to be the major
consumers of beauty products and the major source of labor in the beauty industry.
Therefore, the RPV framework’s unconventional approach to global political economy
by including virtual exchange and the reproductive economy is indispensable. The
conceptual linking of productive, reproductive, and virtual economies brings two waves
of feminist scholarship on globalization to bear on mainstream IPE and cultural studies
accounts of globalization, and vice versa. The integration of interdisciplinary scholarship
on this large scale established the sociohistorical background and the conceptual links
necessary to put a local beauty economy in global and historical perspective in a
systematic way. The temporary heuristic distinction between the economies provided a
basis to begin to understand the complex relations of power manifest in the beauty
industries, and ultimately their inseparability.
Second, Peterson’s triad analytics provide a systematic approach to exposing

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inequalities that are manifested in the global economy. Focusing on the identities,
ideologies, and institutions that are privileged in the global economy of beauty brings into
relief the manifestations of power unique to the beauty industry. For example, my
analysis of the virtual economy through youth in Guadalajara was perhaps most
surprising because youth are so creative and unique, and their styles so rapidly changing,
that structures of hierarchy in the virtual exchange of signs are the most fluid and open to
unsettling. On the other hand, despite women’s centrality to the beauty industry, they are
surprisingly not among the most valued identities. To the extent that they do exercise
privilege, it is often momentary and/or at the expense of other older, uglier, or downline
femininities. In addition, triad analytics, applied to the beauty industry in Guadalajara,
bring into relief the continuity of structural inequalities across productive, reproductive
and virtual economies, and across industries. From my focus on gender inequalities, we
see that the valuation of masculinities over femininities is near-universal, even within an
industry that is largely run by and caters to women. Indeed the productive and
reproductive economies of beauty, as illustrated in Tables 6 and 7, replicate most of the
same inequalities in the broader global economy, as represented in Tables 1 and 2.
What I hope to have added to Peterson’s analysis is twofold. First, this research
acts as a case study to apply Peterson’s map and see if it holds up with new data. The
RPV framework not only holds up, it is certainly an effective tool for understanding the
global political economy of beauty from a gender-sensitive perspective. Furthermore, the
case study helps make a stronger argument for linking the reproductive, productive, and
virtual economies.

259

The beauty industry helps make the case for the RPV framework stronger because
it adds new data, but also because it adds specificity gained by studying just one industry.
Rewriting presents a large and complex map for understanding the global political
economy as intertwining and inextricable productive, reproductive, and virtual
economies. Peterson uses empirically-based scholarship from all over the globe and
throughout the last half of the twentieth century. The empirical basis for her project is
extensive and effective, and helps her cover enormous breadth. But the broad mapping, in
its breadth, loses some of its specificity. The narrow focus on the beauty industries
restricts the breadth of empirical analysis, and in doing so makes a single case illustration
of the RPV framework. This one case shows how the three spheres relate as different
facets of the very same industry. Relatedly, the narrow empirical focus provides the
opportunity to see some details that add specificity to the generalizations of the RPV
framework. For instance, the limited empirical scope of this dissertation allowed space to
look at differences among femininities and masculinities.
Second, this research brings feminist global political economy to bear on a
specifically gendered, highly political industry, the beauty/fashion industry. There are too
many unexplored references to beauty globalization as evidence of globalization,
evidence of homogenization, and evidence of global racism and sexism. Underexplored,
the global beauty industries have served as an easy reference or evidence of global
cultural homogenization. Trivialized, the beauty industries and women’s participation in
it continues to be underappreciated for their importance to the global economy, for

260

incorporating women into the productive sphere, for reproducing gendered norms, and as
an arena for social and cultural transformation.

Suggestions for further research
This study has only begun to indicate what a global political economy of beauty
looks like. I propose two major directions for further research. First, global comparative
research is necessary in order to further test the proposition that the global political
economy of beauty is responsible for shaping gendered and racialized identities and vice
versa. What this study gains in specificity, it loses in breadth and in parsimony. It would
be particularly interesting to compare the Mexican case to cases where the culture of
beauty is either more obsessive or less. By my estimation, Mexico has a middle-to-high
degree of cultural obsession with looking good. Countries like Venezuela and India have
reputations for cultivating particularly strong national obsessions with beauty. Parts of the
Islamist diaspora, on the other hand, resist popular interest in feminine beauty through
prescribing variations of hijab coverings. Data from a broader regional and global
footprint may bring into relief stronger patterns of social transformation and ultimately
lead to more parsimony. Likewise, a broader case sample may show the increasing
heterogeneity that the Mexican case reveals.
Furthermore, the proposition that the global virtual economy of signs is diverse
and open to transformation merits further inquiry. Of particular interest is the role of
subcultural group affiliation in spreading diversity and affinity globally and its potential
to undermine historical gender, racialized, or other norms. The evidence from Mexico

261

suggests that subcultural groups and alternative cultural commodification will be of
growing importance to the global political economy of beauty.
Second, there is room for more detailed investigation of the Mexican case. A
broader sample could bring more conclusive evidence to bear on how the beauty
industries are or are not shaping and transforming racialized identities in Mexico. The
small sample in this study suggests that beauty ideals are indeed racialized in Mexico, but
that the context for and attitudes toward racialization are changing. Still, information was
difficult to gather and is inconclusive. A larger study, aimed specifically at uncovering
the intersections between race and beauty in Mexico, could shed light on why some youth
experience racialization deeply and others do not, and on how the experience of
racialization is changing due to the transformations in the beauty industry.
In addition, the ground-up view from Mexico would be complemented by more
analysis at the top. That is, this study has highlighted the perspectives of aspiring middle
class youth in a middle-income country, and has therefore looked at structural hierarchies
as they are experienced, or not, by less privileged identities. It would therefore be
informative to complement these perspectives with data on the lives and perspectives of
those with the more privileged identities in the beauty industry. Since power is relational,
a view from the top-down could lend more insight into how power functions in the
beauty industry.
A final area for further study, in Mexico and elsewhere, is the political economy
of network marketing. This study of the beauty industry has drawn attention to the
network marketing industry and its particularly gendered organization. Network

262

marketing is of growing importance in the developing world not only for cosmetics but
also for health, nutrition, and household products. Advocates are promoting network
marketing as a path toward development. The success and importance of network
marketing raises a number of questions for feminist international relations and global
political economy. For one, the success of network marketing is owed in large part to
gendered divisions of labor and the flexibilization of production, distribution, and
consumption. This raises the question of whether and how network marketing reinforces
or undermines gendered hierarchies. At the same time, feminists should consider whether
the success of network marketing could be harnessed to further development in a gender-
sensitive way. These questions are raised in the present study, but require further data
collection and analysis.

263

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Appendix A: Youth Interview Questions

Cluster 1:
The current significance of beauty-making in youth’s everyday life (desire, strategy,
techniques, appropriateness)

1) When, if ever, is it important to you to look your best? How important?
all the time?
certain occasions
work?
date?
special occasion?
formal? (e.g. funeral, graduation, wedding)
informal? (e.g. a party)

2) Why is it important to you to look good (in these venues)?
to what extent is it a matter of personal satisfaction?
to what extent are you doing it to be socially appropriate?

3) Is it ever preferable for you not to look your best?
do you ever feel that you have to “dress down”?

4) Do you do anything special to make yourself look your best?
special attention to clothes?
make-up?
hair?
jewelry/adornments?
skin treatments/resurfacing?
smoothing
lightening
tanning
body treatments?
exercise – what type?
diet – what type?
surgery – what type?
face treatments?
Surgery?

5) What in your beauty regime is most important? How important is it?

6) What about your looks do you spend the most time trying to “fix” or “improve”?
Why?

278

7) What about your looks most satisfy you? Why?

Cluster 2:
How she is preparing for the quince.

8) Are you going to have/ have you considered/are you going to have a fiesta de quince
años?
How did you decide?
Tell me about it – what did you do, what are you going to do.

9) What are you going to wear? Why?

10) Are you going to do anything else special to get your look ready?

11) What do you think is the significance of your presentation?

Cluster 3:
The significance of beauty images and beauty products in her life, how she responds
to “global beauty ideals,” how her ideals change over time (ideas, information, other
“looks”, change) Pay special attention to the fiesta with follow-up questions.

12) Where do you get your inspiration for ways to look your best?
Celebrities – who are your favorites, who you think are the most beautiful? What
do you like about their looks? Do you emulate them?
Friends – tell me about them (race, gender, age, social class). And how do they
inspire you?
Magazines– are they beauty magazines or other types of magazines? What do
you get out of them?
Internet – what kind of inspiration do you get there?
Art – what kind of inspiration do you get there?

9) Where do or did you get your information about products and services?
do you seek it out, or just pick up information?
magazines
TV ads
internet
beauty salon
friends

10) Do you see many images of beauty or “how to look” from people not like you in
terms of race, age?

11) Are you particularly attracted to, “looks” from other cultures (e.g. Indian, Chinese,
Flamenco, Middle Eastern, European, African, U.S.)?

279

12) Do you incorporate looks, in whole or part, from other places?
If yes, have you always?
If no, did you in the past?

13) How has your idea of how you would like to look changed over time? (each can
define her own time period, e.g. middle-age, 45-55, or when I was raising kids).
kid
teen
young adult

14) How has your idea of how you think you should look changed over time? (each can
define her own time period, e.g. middle-age, 45-55, or when I was raising kids).
kid
teen
young adult

Cluster 3:
To what degree she considers personal beauty standards universal.

15) do you and your friends share ideas about what looks good?

16) Do you think the same standards you have for your own beauty also apply for other
people?
your friends?
your family?
the women in your community?
women of your race/ethnicity/age group
women in your country?
all women?

17) How do you judge another woman’s beauty?

18) Do you have different measures for women outside your culture?

19) Do you think there is or will emerge one standard type of beauty for all women?
What would it look like, in your opinion?

280

Appendix B: Adult Interview Questions

Cluster 1:
Quinceañeras in history

1) Were you ever in/ did you consider being in or having a fiesta de quince años?
Tell me about it
How did you decide?
What did you do?
Do you have any pictures, memorabilia to show? Was it a special day?

Cluster 2:
The significance of the ceremony and the fiesta. Very open-ended.

12) What is the general significance of the ceremony? The fiesta? What did it mean to
you?
Religious
Social
Familial
Fun
Tradition
Other

13) Has the meaning changed between then and now?

13) Is there something equivalent to the quince for a man? If there isn’t, do you think
there should be? If there is, what is it? Tell me more about what it means to become a
man

Cluster 3 (if there was a quinceañera):
Beauty regime.

9) What did you wear? Why?

10) Where did you get your information?
Celebrities
Friends
Magazines
Movies
Internet
Art
TV
Beauty salon

281

11) Where did you get the dress made? Tiara? Ring? Other accessories?

10) Did you do anything else special to get your look ready?
make-up?
hair?
jewelry/adornments?
skin treatments/resurfacing?
smoothing
lightening
tanning
body treatments?
exercise – what type?
diet – what type?
surgery – what type?
face treatments?
Surgery?

5) What about your appearance was most important? How important was it?

6) What about your looks did you spend the most time trying to “fix” or “improve”?
Why?

7) What about your looks most satisfied you? Why?

11) What do you think was the significance of your presentation at the fiesta?

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation argues that there is a global political economy of beauty that shapes ideals and practices of beauty, and which in turn is shaped by the personal production of beauty. The politics of this global economy of beauty favor historically gendered hierarchies, but also evidence some openness to transformation, particularly among youth. The production of beauty in the fiesta de quince años in Guadalajara, Mexico, serves as a site to explore the mutual construction of personal beauty and the global political economy through an extended case study. The quince is a birthday party for fifteen-year-old girls that involves months of preparation, a religious service, a meal, and dancing. It is an important site for social reproduction and change of gendered norms of beauty. Applying Spike Peterson’s reproductive, productive, and virtual framing of the global political economy and feminist critiques of disciplinary beautification, the study finds that the quince is intimately linked to the global political economy of beauty through products, social reproduction, and exchange of cultural signs. Beauty production in the quince is shaped by and shapes global markets in beauty products and services and the globalization of cultural signs. Additionally, subcultural youth who reject the mainstream beauty standards of the fiesta are equally engaged in global economies of beauty. The study finds that varied standards and practices of personal beautification in Mexico are changing due to the intersection of major shifts in the global political economy of beauty with adolescent desires to be unique and original. These changing norms and practices of beautification in Mexico mostly reinforce historical gender inequalities, but also present some opportunities for unsettling traditional gender norms

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Asset Metadata

Creator McCracken, Angela B. (author)

Core Title Beauty has a price: the global political economy of beauty among youth in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program International Relations

Publication Date 02/05/2011

Defense Date 05/18/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag beauty,Fashion,feminist international political economy,feminist international relations,gender,global political economy,Globalization,Guadalajara,OAI-PMH Harvest,quince años,quinceañera

Place Name Guadalajara (city or populated place), Mexico (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Tickner, Judith Ann (committee chair), Moore, G. Alexander (committee member), Wise, Carol (committee member)

Creator Email amccracken@gmail.com,angela@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2495

Unique identifier UC1188024

Identifier etd-McCracken-3139 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-187217 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2495 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-McCracken-3139.pdf

Dmrecord 187217

Document Type Dissertation

Rights McCracken, Angela B.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu