Campaign of fear and consumption: problematizing gender-based marketing of weapons

This paper problematizes the fear-based marketing of guns and tasers to both men and women as a function of neoliberalism’s emphasis on consumption as the solution to social problems. Men are marketed dangerous weapons as a way to display their masculinity, while women are told that purchasing guns or tasers is one of the best ways to protect themselves from domestic violence and sexual assault. As the paper shows, that claim is in stark contrast to data about these phenomena, and yet such marketing is often taken as a common sense solution. In addition to detailing why such marketing of weapons is problematic, we offer several recommendations.