To not want Office to tell me I need to shave my legs?

[AliceInWonderland3]

I got an email this week from Office trying to sell me summer shoes, the email also told me not to forget to shave my legs.

AIBU to not want a business who wants female customers telling them they need to shave their legs? I shave my legs because I know people I encounter day-to-day will be horrified by body hair on a woman, but I don't need a business trying to make me feel bad if I choose to go outside without doing so. Or trying to make me feel disgusted by something natural

The guardian wrote about how we are over reacting to a "light hearted" joke. Also office aren't sexist, women just prefer to buy shoes from companies who tell them they need to shave. I'm quite surprised because I didn't expect writers at the daily mail to be more supportive than the guardian! I guess since they're a bit slow to write anything they decided they needed to be more controversial. (The writer did go on to say it was a bad joke, but she objects to the idea of advertising via email than reinforcing the idea that women are only acceptable clean shaven)

But I liked Victoria Coren-Mitchell's article in the Guardian - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/12/mumsnet-shoes-shaving-legs-promotions

Over reacting to a "light hearted" joke

Ohhh it was just a bit of banter, can't you take a bit of banter?

Love Victoria Coren's article. Particularly her makeup tips.

I found Coren's article a bit deliberately distracting and frivolous - we know they do it to sell shoes, and I think most people are quite capable of moving this on from 'Office are bad sexists' to, 'isn't it worrying how messages like this are embedded absolutely everywhere, and women are told all the time to be hairless'.

But that might be just my deep dislike of Victoria Coren speaking, and my inability to see merit in anything she ever says. At least I know my prejudices....

I don't dislike her but I think she is on the fence with that article. She needs to remove the splinters out of her arse there.

It’s not the makes you laugh kind of joke. It’s the “Hey, calm down, I was only joking!” kind of joke.

I love her. Nail: head.

I think most people are quite capable of moving this on from 'Office are bad sexists' to, 'isn't it worrying how messages like this are embedded absolutely everywhere, and women are told all the time to be hairless'.

I think you are rather optimistic about people's ability to do this.

I liked her piece, but then I like her writing in general.

Well, ok, re-framing: I think she positioned herself as explaining to Mumsnet that things are more subtle than they think, before explaining that the real problem is just too much marketing. I think there's a sense expressed by many on here that is indeed more subtle than 'Office are Bad Sexists', and she finds it more convenient to pretend that there isn't.

But hey: I did offer full disclosure in that I tend not to agree with Coren and she makes me bridle rather. Maybe she was well aware that she wasn't the only person to have spotted that this was about money, and she didn't mean to sound as though she thought she was offering a strikingly original observation about capitalism and the market which hadn't occurred to anyone else.

I still find it irritating that she's taken the debate, acknowledged it, and then discarded it so she can offer funny make-up tips.

I also dislike the tone she's taken about the thread: in paragraph 2, Mumsnet have dismissed Brexit in favour of 'the great leg-shaving debate' (untrue, but convenient),

They have 'bandied about' 'terms like 'body-shaming, and 'sexism', and 'boycott' as apparently happens 'in all debates about anything' - well, debates where the terms are relevant, yes. But Coren implies mummies mindless regurgitating trendy terms they don't understand.

So then yes, ok, 'gun to her head' she tends to agree - the email isn't very funny. That's its main crime. And in case we missed it, Office is a company and it will do what it thinks best to sell shoes. Who knew.

And then we move on to the ironic make-up tips, but not before we've heard that Coren had a bad one from 'an elderly lady' with bad lipstick.

In fact I'm going to shift my point from where I said I'm aware that because I tend not to like VC I might not be judging her fairly on what she's written here: actually, I find, the reason I don't like VC is because she writes things like this. Mumsnet is a cheap and easy way to fill your column inches, whether you're the Daily Mail or Victoria Coren in the Guardian.

Yupp.....

I don't think you've read it objectively.

I don't think she's telling MN the problem is 'more subtle' than it thinks. And I really don't think she was implying that the words 'bandied about' as 'mindless regurgitating' of terms they don't understand - she didn't say anything of the sort.

The 'gun to her head' comment was not that she agreed it wasn't funny, but that she agreed with those on MN 'incensed to have a shoe company pass negative judgment on hairy women'.

No, I meant 'gun to her head' she tends to agree that the email isn't good - it's just that she then makes it about whether it's funny or not.

And I do think 'bandied about' is dismissive and usually used to mean the terms are being used uncritically and unthinkingly.

And I don't like having capitalism corensplained to me!