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Pink Bic Pens and Man Crisps might be patronising, but we buy them

At a crude level, marketeers and advertisers will only produce such guff because enough of us indulge their campaigns with our custom. It's more troubling when companies start prescribing gender roles to infants.

By Ally Fogg Published 29 August 2012 17:02

Bic For Her! Because women need special lady pens.

I sit here writing on a sturdy black laptop, drinking coffee from an oversized, dark blue chunky mug. If I get peckish later I might pop out for a chocolate bar, or Man Fuel as I call it, or maybe a packet of crisps - Man Crisps, naturally, none of your effete, wispy, prawn cocktails for me, washed down with a sugar-free soda branded with something snappy and butch like Max or Zero. Real men don't count calories. When work is done and the woolly mammoth dragged back to the cave I might treat myself to a beer, and of course it will be a proper beer with proper colour, not one like this. I am man. Hear me burp, fart and whimper with indigestion.

OK, I'm exaggerating, but not much. Although on any given day you're more likely to find me gripping a spatula than a lump-hammer, like the vast majority of the human race, I perform my socially-decreed gender roles thoughtlessly and effortlessly. It is there in what I do, how I do it and, above all, what I buy. Nutritionists say we are what we eat. In truth we are what we eat, drink, wear, drive, play with, use and otherwise consume.

The wags of social media have been having fun for the past week or so with the Amazon page for the new 'Bic For Her' ballpoint pens. If this has somehow passed you by, just a few of the customer comments have been helpfully collated by Jezebel and just about every other blog on the internet. There is something inherently ridiculous about a cheap biro specifically designed for the female scribe, and many of the witty barbs are well aimed, but ultimately this product is no more ridiculous than the countless products marketed needlessly at one gender or the other.

The 'Bic For Her' line caught the imagination for two reasons, firstly it served as a long-awaited sequel to the classic Bic Pen Amazon review game, and perhaps more importantly because the manufacturer eschewed any attempt at subtlety in their gender marketing. The company could just as easily have produced something called the 'Bic Chic', perhaps, with the same pastel colours, slimline design and feminine curves. We would all have known exactly what they were doing and why, but I doubt there would have been the same collective urge to point and laugh.

There's a popular urge to yell 'SEXIST!' at advertising campaigns which overtly, unashamedly play to exaggerated gender norms and stereotypes, but personally I find them less offensive - and I suspect they may be less socially corrosive - than the constant drip dripping of low level gender role stereotypes that serve as inescapable mood music to our lives. I mean the likes of the vile Proctor and Gamble Olympics ad, 'Proud Sponsors of Mums' which attributed the glory of British Olympians to the mothers who stayed home washing the sports kit, presumably while the dads were out teaching the budding athletes to run, jump and throw. I mean the Oven Pride 'So easy a man could do it' campaign, and dozens more like those.

Devoid of the knowing, self-mocking irony of the McCoy's Man Crisps, for example, these campaigns present a representation of our modern society that is largely archaic and crass, and to some degree cements in popular culture a reactionary model that excludes diversity of gender roles, sexuality and lifestyle. I don't believe such adverts should be banned, but they can certainly be condemned.

Capitalist producers and public consumers have a symbiotic relationship. Each plays their role in creating demands to be supplied, manufacturing needs to be met. At a crude level, marketeers and advertisers will only produce such guff because enough of us indulge their campaigns with our custom. Our purchases add up to our public personae, and of course our gender is a key component of our identity. As autonomous adults we can choose the extent to which we want to play along with such constructions. It is rather more troubling when companies like Argos start prescribing gender roles to infants with strictly demarcated Toys for Boys and Toys for Girls.

Gender diversity, allowed to flourish freely, individually and without constraint, is a healthy and beautiful thing. If a woman enjoys buying a pretty little pastel-coloured biro, I'm happy for her. If she decides the crudely gendered marketing is patronising and insulting, then I'm pleased for us all. Ultimately, the true social media superstar of the gendered marketing debate is the eloquent little tyro at the heart of this YouTube hit. Give 'em hell, sister.

Tags: advertising

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6 comments

Thu, 2012-08-30 11:10 — Quiet Riot Girl (not verified)

P.s. I think you are using 'circular thinking' in your argument. One reason you can tell that men's cosmetics belong to men is they are marketed and labelled as 'For Men' when really they are much the same as what women use!!

Thu, 2012-08-30 11:44 — AllyF (not verified)

"P.s. I think you are using 'circular thinking' in your argument. One reason you can tell that men's cosmetics belong to men is they are marketed and labelled as 'For Men' when really they are much the same as what women use!!"

No, that pretty much *is* my point. People buy a consumer product for its functional value, but they choose one consumer product over another (in large part) because of what it signifies, what it says about them, including all this the gendered stuff.

Thu, 2012-08-30 11:06 — Quiet Riot Girl (not verified)

'You could take the possessions of a thousand random people, spread out their wardrobe, accessories, consumer goods, toiletries etc on a table in front of you and 999 out of 1000 anyone could tell you correctly whether those possessions belonged to a man or a woman.'

I absolutely refute that. There are far more 'cross dressers' than you would care to imagine for a start! Not to mention drag queens, dancers, etc. And what about trans people? Or 'gender queer' people? They account for more than 1 in 1000 I think!

Anyway even if clever clogs like you can 999 out of 1000 times correctly tell the gender identity of a person by their wardrobe, that still does not explain changing gender signifiers.

For example, men who go to the gym now have 'tits' which resemble in many cases those of women. I am often catching myself on the street noticing men's lovely busts!

and I dont think you have read enough on metrosexual masculinity to judge. If you had you might have made some references to it in this article!

Thu, 2012-08-30 11:39 — AllyF (not verified)

"I absolutely refute that. There are far more 'cross dressers' than you would care to imagine for a start! Not to mention drag queens, dancers, etc. And what about trans people? Or 'gender queer' people? They account for more than 1 in 1000 I think!"

Cross-dressers / TVs are very rarely exclusively so. If you laid out the possessions of a cross-dresser you'd normally get a male wardrobe with a few frocks, wigs and some lingerie thrown into the mix.

Trans people are less of an issue, if someone identifies as male or female I couldn't care less about their biological sex and it would be irrelevant to this discussion.

Yes, there are some genuinely ambiguous, gender queer people, and if you saw their possessions you'd probably conclude that this is a gender queer / gender ambiguous person. But they are very rare. if not one in a thousand, then not much more than that
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" that still does not explain changing gender signifiers"

I wasn't attempting to explain changing gender signifiers. The signifiers change with time, with trends, with fashion, from one culture to another. I don't find that particularly important. What is important is that such signifiers exist in innumerable forms.
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"For example, men who go to the gym now have 'tits' which resemble in many cases those of women. I am often catching myself on the street noticing men's lovely busts!"

I think that's very unlikely. What I guess you are doing is admiring men's pecs. Not the same thing at all. If you went up to one of those guys and said "nice tits" do you think they'd be flattered?

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"and I dont think you have read enough on metrosexual masculinity to judge. If you had you might have made some references to it in this article!"

I actually thought about the issue as I was preparing and writing the piece, but ended up not discussing it because in all honesty I wasn't convinced it was a particularly relevant to the points I was making. A designer exfoliator marketed at a metrosexual male market is doing the exact same thing as McCoy's Man Crisps, just in a different context.

Thu, 2012-08-30 09:59 — Quiet Riot Girl (not verified)

Maybe consumers still buy into 'man crisps' and 'ladies pens' because they want some certainty in this changing world. In metrosexual culture the difference between 'men' and 'women' in terms of what they wear, what they wash with, what they look like, is becoming almost non-existent. People may find this scary.

However feminists need to STFU. They reinforce the gender binary all the time! Jezebel is full of 'lady' this and 'lady' that and the very fact it is a website 'for women' separates men and women into different categories.

SMASH THE BINARY!

Thu, 2012-08-30 10:56 — AllyF (not verified)

Hi QRG

"Maybe consumers still buy into 'man crisps' and 'ladies pens' because they want some certainty in this changing world"

there may be something in that, but in pretty much all cultures at all times, men and women have adopted gender signifiers, notably in clothing, but as soon as consumer capitalism takes hold that extends to pretty much anything and everything.

From as early as I can remember (late 60s) my mum and dad had their own pens (chunky for the gentleman, slimline for the lady) their own cigarette lighters (ditto), they would choose different confectionary and snacks, etc etc etc. What's more new is the explicit statement "for men" or "for women" which merely makes overt what has always happened.

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"In metrosexual culture the difference between 'men' and 'women' in terms of what they wear, what they wash with, what they look like, is becoming almost non-existent."

No, I disagee. Metrosexual culture saw the reinvention of gender norms, not their rejection. It stresses that men can take care of (or revel in) their appearance and grooming and sexual presentation and still be masculine, and of course it borrows more from gay culture / identity norms than from feminine ones - hence the subtext of hypermasculinity with the bodybuilding and fetishisation of sporting achievement and all the rest, which have never really been feminine signifiers.

Yes there have been a handful of unisex perfumes on the market, but by and large the products you'll see advertised in Men's Health of GQ are entirely different to those advertised in Grazia. Even the notorious 'manbag' looks entirely different to a woman's handbag.

Gender norms have changed, but they haven't gone away. You could take the possessions of a thousand random people, spread out their wardrobe, accessories, consumer goods, toiletries etc on a table in front of you and 999 out of 1000 anyone could tell you correctly whether those possessions belonged to a man or a woman.
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"SMASH THE BINARY!"

Couldn't agree more