Forum: Women empowered as entrepreneurs and consumers | News

The “Mingle & Jingle: Women in Consumerism” event offered insights into how the role of women has changed over the years and what this role will look like in the future.

The forum was held in the Ballroom of Northeastern State University and was hosted by the Tahlequah Region Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Tena Wooldridge was the guest presenter.

“That is important to me. I love you girls and I totally love to party with you guys. I am not here to compete with you; I’m here to celebrate with you and to celebrate the fact that we are women in business, ”said Angela Tinsley of Remax Select.

Tinsley said women bring the elements of elegance and class to the community.

“Thank you for doing what you do in our community and what you serve in our community, celebrating the fact that as women we don’t have to compete with one another in business,” she said.

Wooldridge said the evening will focus on women in general, as well as business owners and consumers, and why it matters.

“The consumer landscape has changed dramatically in the last 25 years, and that’s evident because technology has changed over the past 25 years,” said Wooldridge.

She stated that people are no longer consumers from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“I don’t have to plan my day, when the grocery store is open, when I can stop by and get something. Now I can shop online 24 hours a day, seven days a week and that changes things for all of us, ”said.

Wooldridge said since consumerism changed, it means corporate brands have changed too. She said advertisers tend to view women as a secondary group of people and that it is men who make purchasing decisions.

“Over the past two decades we have seen more and more women graduate. 58 percent of all graduates are women, and that number is not going down, “said Wooldridge.

Women as consumers want to know how spending decisions are made, and Wooldridge said it just matters – for a number of reasons.

“When you have a person in your household who is considered the main breadwinner, the choices are pretty divided. The female makes a third of the decisions, the male makes a third of the decisions, and then they make another third of the decisions together, ”she said.

Wooldridge said that a woman outperforms her partner 40 percent of the time, and this is viewed as a big change over several decades.

“Eighty percent of all consumer purchases are influenced by a woman, and that is an amazing, amazing number,” she said.

Women are more likely to receive confirmations and seek reviews from other consumers than from advertisers.

“Women-owned companies – they have more people of color, they pay higher wages than any other national brand. If you are a women-owned company, you, along with other women-owned companies, have a responsibility to bridge the wealth-equity gap for all marginalized populations, “she said.

Wooldridge said in order to know where to go women need to know where they have been and she has shown a number of advertisements over the century. Most of these advertisements showed women as objects in submission to their husbands. Those blurbs showed women as sex objects to attract more consumers, and Wooldridge said it hadn’t gotten better.

“The wonderful thing about where we are now is that brands are being scrutinized,” she said. “If you go through such beatings now, people will start to alert you to it, and women will start to stick together.”