Are you with the offended ones?

Awful name and very sad that it was Mrs O'Toole who thought of it. What does Ernest think of Nice Baps? I think we should be told...

I didn't think that the name was a big deal really, and I'm not sure I'd have made the connection with breasts but then I read the article and saw the owner's comment and realised he was an arse (if that is in fact what he said - having read a bit about people who have been featured in the Mail I am now even more cynical about it's shoddy journalism)

Dd is only 10 months old so I have years and years of wondering why there's only ever a token female. Except for Zingzillas. But then there are the female bird backing singers who are most definitely not feminist icons.

Totally agree with the Octonauts comments. (It's Captain Barnacles, by the way) I couldn't believe that there was so little female participation when I first watched them. Kept thinking 'come on, where is the token female adventurer?'

On the other hand, DH and I believe that the Octonauts is a retelling of Clive Cussler's magesterial works of literature, the NUMA files. Hence the lack of women.

I'd think the owner was a nob. I probably wouldn't shop there.

Or the day the Kwazi character was female (mysterious past, brave, charismatic, arguably the main character)....

No SQ.
If only there were equal numbers of male and female ones kicking ass with Kwazi. One token woman is not enough.

We have the Sea of Shade book, it's so beautiful to look at and so stilted to read....

Whenever I see the name Kwazi I think "Kazi"

The reason I am so knowledgable is that we have an octonauts book and it has a biography of each of them at the back. Yes really. The illustrations are really nice actually. If only there was a female one out there kicking ass with kazi I'd be well into it

I agree re the Octonauts.

Someone should hit Kwazi over the head and the female engineer can go out adventuring in his place.

SQ - my dcs think the vegimals are male.

I wouldn't shop there. This sort of thing drives me nuts - and the thing I really can't stand is when people assume that if you object = you are offended.

Other assumptions include: you are humourless, you are jealous of women with nicer/bigger breasts than you, etc etc ad nauseam

I am not offended (like the OP, I am tough and some pathetic Carry On double entendre doesn't upset me)

But I do object, because the little things do matter. I agree with Alice's excellent post.

And Ernest is a great name for a cock.

Feel free to come to me for any further octonauts questions that are on your mind

Ah SQ thanks. Sounds like TV 'balance' i.e. roughly 30% female to male. Like Question Time.

Oh and nice baps = pathetic name for a shop.

Why would you want to call a proper business enterprise something that is aimed at making 13 year old boys snigger?

I hope my posts further the feminist cause

I am not sure what sex the vegimals are.

Octonauts has female characters - two I think.

One is the engineer which sounds quite good until you realise that she rarely goes out adventuring.

The other is a receptionist person who also takes photographs (?) and doesn't seem to get much screen time in the ones I've seen.

The ones who do the adventuring ie Kwazi, Peso and Captain something are all male, obv. Also the professor who is the one who organises them all and is v clever.

So there you go

I think Alice puts it very well.

The idea that by noticing that a shop has a stupid sign which make my breasts into a joke or that that children's TV show about the Octowhotsits has not one single female character I am taking up valuable mental and physical energy that could be more usefully employed elsewhere really does seem to assume that while shopping for bread products I can simultaneously carry out feminist vigilantism. I would like to know how upahill combines these activities?

david51

My partner did a course on Freud with a teacher whose surname was Badcock

On a mostly unrelated note, every time there's a seminar on Melanie Klein on my psychotherapy course someone will bring in bakewell tarts or iced buns with cherries on top to signify 'good breast'. Always.

Bakery and boobs just seem to go together.

Oh, yes, bronze! I wasn't having a go at you at all, should have put a on my post. Thanks, Alice.

You're not doing feminism wrong Bronze. If you're referring to the post that talks about doing feminism wrong, I took that as referring to the naysayers that feminists have to hear from a lot that whatever you are doing, come along and tell you you should be doing something else. Not the OP.

It's not about being tough or not tough though. I am a pretty confident no shit kind of person. Being pissed off by little things like the shop name doesn't make me less tough. It doesn't really rock my world. It makes me want to fight patriarchy, in all its forms, more. Recognising the little things like this doesn't make anyone weak.

That's the thing with all the 'upset' and 'uptight' comments that are used to criticise anyone noticing stuff like this. When I see stuff like this I am none of those things. If feminists got 'upset' about all the stuff they see they wouldn't come out of the house. I don't like it and see the need for us to call them out on it though. And apply a feminist lens to the world around me. It always seems to me the naysayers that get upset and uptight about people daring to point out sexism.