The Body Shop has fallen

I actively undertake not to buy from companies that lecture me. And I am stubborn and have a very long memory.

You can add to this complaint your awful, gushing ‘communities’ emails. I’m not in a community with you. I’m a customer of yours (but won’t be for much longer if you start making it all about a ‘community’). You’re not my family! You’re an entity that wants to sell me something.

I can imagine what their dim work experience kid was trying to do.

Well, given the current pandemic it won't be a work experience kid which makes that tweet even worse. A supposed adult human male or female denying the very existence of adult human males and females. And gets paid for the privilege.

Which begs the question: has anyone found a good dupe for Instablur that isn't Benefit porefessional? My face is so shiny and Instablur is the only product which keeps it in check.

Sophocles - I wish we had the option to "like" posts.

I like yours.

YY to not needing my shopping with a side order of righteousness.

When I buy coffee, I want to know that the company adheres to fair trade principles, because their practice and ethics on this directly factors into my decision to buy from them. I don’t need to know their views on Brexit, because regardless of if I agree or not, it’s entirely irrelevant.

When I buy peanut butter, I want to know that they don’t use palm oil in their products, because their practice and ethics on this directly factors into my decision to buy from them. I don’t need to know their views on abortion because regardless of if I agree or not, it’s entirely irrelevant.

When I’m buying my cosmetics, I want to know whether they allow their ingredients to be tested on animals, because their practice and ethics on this directly factors into my decision to buy from them. I don’t need to know their views on systemic racism, because regardless of if I agree or not, it’s entirely irrelvant.

In all these examples I’ve used, it’s very likely that I would agree with any company that cared to comment. But all that results is an ever increasing purity spiral, and this morning I’m annoyed with myself because I’ve contributed to that by writing to the body shop to tell them I won’t buy their products any more. Had I sat on my irritation overnight, I might have this morning written to them to say what I say above.

Flosima

😉👍

I hope JK buys the Body Shop out and then sells them to Gerald Ratner for a quid.

I am so pissed off with companies advertising their political credentials about bloody everything. Especially about something as divisive as the whole trans issue when some of its activists are behaving in the most unpleasant way

And, let me state loud and clear to any corporation that might read this.

You are not my moral superior. You do not get to preach at me, berate me or harangue me.

You want to sell me something, sure, you can talk to me about that. But don’t you dare try to lecture me whilst you take my money.

Oh ok so Yorkshire tea is another issue altogether.

Back to this discussion,

Women have an absolute biological right to their biological sex, and to the protections awarded to it.

Stating biological fact is not phobic.

Yorkshire tea responded to a tweet complimenting them on not entering the BLM debate by a woman who has posted many racist comments. They responded by asking her not to buy their tea anymore , they didn’t voluntarily enter the debate.

And I sure as hell don't want the 'right' view policed by my teabags

It's all bollocks. They don't care about black lives, they care about making their brand look good on social media. If they actually cared about black lives then they'd care about the people who grow their tea for them.

I support the BLM movement, but I still don't want my fucking tea preaching to me about it. I hate the whole idea that there is a single right and wrong view on everything, and that it is OK to alienate or belittle anyone with the 'wrong' view. And I sure as hell don't want the 'right' view policed by my teabags.
I haven't the staying power some on this thread and trotted off to bed just after I'd posted last night, but this was something I also wanted to say (thought MrsNoah said it better than I would have done). I am so pissed off with companies advertising their political credentials about bloody everything. Especially about something as divisive as the whole trans issue when some of its activists are behaving in the most unpleasant way.

Justhadathought IUVO is a small business. I've bought from them at Oxford Christmas market but they're online. Products are fab and ethical, they might be able to help.

When we learn to admit that trans women are women we can start using their products again

Love this. It’s just so exactly like something O’Brian would say while he was popping the rats in the cage over Winston’s face in 1984.

“How many tubs of body butter can you see, Winston?”

I should add I need overly-specific hair wash that won't make my frizz any worse than it already is, and which won't make my colour go weird. grin I might have to look at cottage industry type local brands

Have yo tried Faith In Nature products? Available from Holland & Barrett and many local independents: www.faithinnature.co.uk/our-story

@Seasidetrains and to pick up on another argument you made about "what makes a woman? What about a woman with no womb? With no breasts? etc"

Unfortunately this argument doesn't really make sense in the real world. It has been absolutely vital to the continuation of our species that humans can easily differentiate between males and females. Even babies and dogs can tell the difference. We can tie ourselves in knots about whether it's chromosomes or gametes or whatever but the reality is that, for the vast majority of people, we can tell what class of reproductive organs someone has by their face/voice alone.

That's why "passing" as the opposite sex is so incredibly difficult and normally involves serious surgeries, hormone treatments etc.

No one is saying that your sex should confer a specific identity or stereotypes. No one is saying any of this is a good thing or something to be celebrated, quite the contrary. But pretending that the male/female sex doesn't exist is like saying "I don't see colour". It's stupid and it gets us nowhere.

Might I add, I've been in a huge rabbit hole of debates, not just so surprised I couldn't sleep, it's scary how unsurprising it all is.

I opened this thread at about 11pm last night, clicked the Twitter link, and with this and jkr I'm literally still awake. Fucking unreal

If you want to see shouting, go to JK R's twitter page or look at a video of a WPUK meeting, the TRAs do shout.

Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel thank you! 😊

The Body Shop Twitter feed is just one virtue signalling post after another. They've jumped on so many bandwagons it's untrue. It's just a load of marketing shite. Grabby grabby consumerism.

my point is: when the way you behave coincides with what is considered to be 'how women behave', you become a target of hatred and violence.

I think you're making the mistake of lumping a few different issues together here. On the one hand we have discrimination against those (male or female) who do not conform to gendered stereotypes. So we see vitriol aimed at butch lesbians as well as feminine males.

On the other hand we have discrimination against the female sex. I presume (hope) you'd agree that there are types of discrimination that apply to all female people, regardless of how they dress or behave. A lot of this stems from the idea that females are somehow innately emotional/irrational/carers/domesticated. You could argue that transmen do not experience this and I would argue that they will have done up until the point at which they could effectively disguise themselves as having been born male.

It's not by coincidence that these stereotypes about the female sex have existed in pretty much every culture and society around the world. It's a way to control reproduction and to keep people born female in their boxes as mothers and wives rather than independent beings.

The point JK Rowling is making is that we cannot just focus on the first type of discrimination and ignore the second. The concept of gender identity is effectively erasing the ability for females to talk about sex-based oppression. For many people, myself included, this sex-based oppression has had a far bigger impact on their opportunities in life.

If it’s because you want to mark the thread, just add it to your watch list.

The ironic thing is that the Body Shop have a gender pay gap of 75%, which they try to explain away by saying that most of the people in the low paid shop jobs are women, and most of the people in the well paid office jobs are men. I mean what can you do if women just keep choosing to do these badly paid jobs....

You know, I do actually think in some cases women as a group really choose somewhat different sorts of work than men, and that's in large part related to many being mothers.

But that would still indicate, quite strongly really, that there are biological entailments related to womanhood.

are you saying that a woman has never been attacked by a man who is shorter or physically weaker than her?

I'm not sure what your point is here, but most men can physically overpower most women. It is rare for somebody to attack someone is is bigger and physically stronger without the aid of a weapon.

You said

male (sex) people who want to play with dolls and wear dresses are also at risk of (male) violence. i see it as femaleness being the object of hatred and violence, not just people who have specific female physical characteristics.

The people most likely to be attacked by men are men.

Most women attacked by men are victims of domestic violence.

There is little data on violence against transwomen in the UK.

There is no evidence to show that men attack women because they hate femininity, or that women who are attacked are particularly feminine or that transwomen and women suffer similar kinds of violence.