In Business / February 2007
Trends in the Making
National trend spotters have pinpointed new trends that will affect women in 2007. They say there are new segments of women emerging today, largely because ‘having it all’ is changing to being self-defined rather than society-defined. Women in the post-feminist world are accepting, even embracing, their imperfections and limitations. Though slow to emerge, the realization that trying to be everything to everyone is unrealistic and unnecessary is dawning. Technology and globalization are also shaping the near future.
There’s a definite age shuffle well under way-Moms swap MP3 playlists with their daughters. Four of the five leading ladies on Desperate Housewives are over 40 but dress and behave a decade younger. Meanwhile, twentysomethings are saving for mortgages and exploring retirement options. “Young” and “old” are being redefined, and many in both groups are not “acting their age”. Experts expect to see life stage eclipse chronological age as a defining issue and anticipate that people will increasingly connect through shared experiences and attitudes rather than age group. For example, new mothers in both their 20s and their 40s have more in common than their same-age counterparts with no children.
The new face of motherhood is Alpha Mom, a well-informed, strong, decision-making multitasker who wields great personal and consumer power. The modern mom is confident and in control. There’s an “Alpha Mom” cable channel, and NBC aired a pilot titled Alpha Mom for its 2006-07 season.
Parents are increasingly treating their kids more like peers. “Peerents,” a term coined by Schuyler Brown of Skyelab, work through issues with their children and share experiences candidly in a form of collaborative parenting.
Marketing departments work hard to cement loyalty. Mother’s pass their favorite brands down to their daughters. Although savvy consumers remain obsessed with consumerism, they no longer remain faithful to any single brand, and will flit from one brand to the next with no sense of fidelity to any of them, based on price.
Instead of aspiring to “have it all,” many young women are now hoping to become full-time mothers. Ironically, this new attitude, rather than a step back for feminism, seems to be liberating for women. They no longer feel the exhausting pressure to have the perfect career, the perfect family, the perfect body and the perfect life all at once. Today’s twentysomethings feel that older women got duped into believing such a feat was possible and burned themselves out trying to achieve it.
There’s a mounting blur in expressions of gender and sexuality as the definitions of masculinity and femininity continue to be challenged. And it isn’t just Hollywood that is experiencing role reversals. Demi Moore and Sadie Frost are with men 16 years their junior, but middle America is also seeing a new perspective in the the May-December romance, showing that men aren’t the only ones who may trend younger in relationships. For men, the attraction seems to lie in the emotional and financial maturity of older women.
At work, women are filling the need for more educated workers in growth sectors such as information technology. In nations where both genders have educational opportunities, women are less likely to drop out of school. In the U.K., female millionaires will outnumber their male counterparts in just 20 years, and women will own nearly 60 percent of the country’s wealth.
Americans respond with resistance and a strong cry against arranged marriages, but the idea may be coming back into vogue. In ABC’s primetime show, The Bachelor, each season a bachelor is given the opportunity to select a mate from a prescreened group of eager partners-essentially an arranged marriage. As women become ever more time-poor, watch as singles turn to their extended families to make a match and to online services that specialize in arranging partnerships.
Boomers will make room as younger women take the marketing spotlight. One of the most energized consumer groups today are the twentysomething single women reveling in their “me” years, eagerly sampling life, love and leisure. While just gaining a foothold in the working world, they’re indulging in luxuries big and small. As with the coveted demographic of single males 18-34, the earning power and expendable income of career young women is expected to rise with each passing year, making them an increasingly powerful segment of society.
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