Why are people boycotting Boots? Are you?

[Deadbeatex]

For full disclosure I haven't seen the advert yet, but I'll probably end up searching for it if I don't come across it naturally during viewing in the next few days.

I've seen the #boycottboots and have worked out it's to do with their new Christmas ad. What's the issue? Are you boycotting Boots or do you think people are overreacting?

Randomly choosing the poll options simply because as stated I've not seen the ad so I don't currently have an opinion either way

YABU I'm boycotting
YANBU it's an overreaction

You won't answer because you can't. You know you lied. Nothing in there was 'transphobic', and you know it. Wanting safe spaces for rape survivors like me is not 'transphobic'. Wanting women to have basic human rights is not 'transphobic'. You appear to be brainwashed and no one can help you until you examine your own internalised misogyny and femphobia.

@MirandaJH I understand your view on homophobia because I strongly about it too. I am not gay or trans but I know how homophobia feels. I wanted a discount in a shop (fish and chips) and they offered a senior discount. I am only in my late 30s. Yeah they discriminated against me because of my age. Same as how it feels for a trans person to be told they can't use a women's toilets. It is annoying to be told that something you want to enjoy isn't for you, and the having to shrug your shoulders and forget about it is tough. It must be hard to live with that annoyance and discomfort on a constant basis.

I know what being misgendered feels like. My foreign name is often mispronounced, or they call me something else instead. I can understand those seconds of annoyance and frustration that transwomen or men must feel when it happens.

I've faced job discrimination too. I'm a size 18 and 5 ft 3, I've been turned down by modelling agencies. It's tough being a minority group, isn't it ?

I feel so unheard when it happens. So thanks for sticking up for people like us. It reminds me that I'm not alone in my struggle, that we are all in it together. LGBT people aren't freaks they are our fellow sisters and brothers in the struggle of being human. Thanks for reminding me.

@IdylicDay I can also understand your views too. Whereas being denied access to women's safe spaces hurts the feelings of transwomen for a brief second, the birth women are often left shaking in fear, dissociation, flashbacks when they find that their designated rape crisis counsellor is a man in a frock. This can lead to a sexually assaulted women being a suicidal wreck. This hurts my heart. I've been fortunate that after my historic CSA, I was allowed access to women counsellors without that right being questioned.

I'm concerned, like you, with the hard fought for rights of women being eroded by a very tiny minority of transwomen and their allies. The majority of TW do not wish to take away anyone's rights I believe, but they don't seem to have the power and privilege of a very vocal TRA movement. It seems like the white middle class wokerati are using their privilege to stamp all over biological women.

Its not that we bio women are superior to TW. It's just that these safe spaces are a need and a right . It's a real safeguarding issue, not a "I would quite like to use a women's toilet because I identify as a woman" which is neither a need nor should it be a protected right.

I know how homophobia feels. I wanted a discount in a shop (fish and chips) and they offered a senior discount. I am only in my late 30s. Yeah they discriminated against me because of my age

🤣
Yeah, that's the same 🙄🤣

You are still missing the point!!! But ta for yer input love!

Well it is, pretty much the same as a TW being told to not use a woman's loo or changing rooms isn't it ? The effect on the discriminated person is the same. They feel annoyed and inconvenienced.

Contrast that with the rape survivor who goes into full on flashback PTS D mode when she sees a man in a frock in a space she thought was safe. She can't just suck it up like someone who is told they can't use the ladies loo because they aren't a lady, can she? Or someone who has the wrong pronouns used of them, who will just correct the person making the mistake and go on with their day. The woman with PTS D might be triggered constantly if a situation where transwomen might be allowed to invade a safe space with impunity.

But yeah, you go on prioritising the feelings of the privileged man in a dress and make up, for whom it doesn't affect them to use the bathroom of their birth sex or be called he instead of she or they . Because their privileged little man butt is more important than the rights and needs of a rape survivor who may feel she can't go out any more because she can't be guaranteed a safe toilet for her.

That ad just came on again and I realised what it actually is that bugs me about it.
If Mrs Claus was white and all of the “elves” were actual women (for want of a better way of putting it), there would be uproar because it’s so old fashioned and misogynistic.
The elves are basically that old playboy bunny stereotype, but the modern version.
Women don’t want to be portrayed as that bimbo stereotype anymore or the wife who is happy to do all the work and get none of the credit while their husband dozes with his feet up.
And just when it was beginning to feel like we were finally moving away from that, suddenly we’ve gone into a time warp where it’s okay again.

There are legitimate reasons to be offended by this ad and it has nothing to do with it being too progressive or inclusive. It’s because it’s so regressive and shallow.

I didn't notice that, SuspiciousA, and wonder if you are reading too much into what is basically a pantomime-type advertisement, festive, with subtle wit. I like it.

Sorry, I phrased the last bit of my post wrong. I meant to say a rape survivor who may see a TW in there and feel unable to go out anywhere because she doesn't feel there so be a toilet that FEELS SAFE available for her

I feel I should make that distinction, because of course the majority of TW are no more or less likely to be rapists than any other men are. The toilet may or may not be safe, but if the survivor is traumatised it may or may not feel safe for her if she clocks a TW there even if he/they has no had intention.

As someone who has experienced CSA and trauma, the need for us to feel safe is so paramount to our healing and recovery.

What’s subtly witty about it?

I like it too - I've always loved Christmas and anything sparkles/glitter though.
Love a bit of Drag Race UK too, so liking the advert personally 🙂

Yeah, Christmas is lovely. I love to see those sparkles come out on decor in people's homes and shops. Have a good one, Christmas is awesome! (Toasting with virtual mulled wine)

Womenface is offensive to some. Just because some people like men dressed as caricatures of women doesn't mean its not offensive to others.

@WhatterySquash 15/11/2024 13.30

It's all very well defending the comment Adjoa made as throwaway, not deliberate, she apologised, she didn't mean it etc etc.

But it is also true that if anyone white said that about a prominent black family they absolutely would not be excused in that way. They'd be hauled over the coals for racism and cancelled immediately. I'm not condoning or condemning that or taking sides especially but it is true.

There are those who would argue that that's fine because black people can't be racist and white people can't suffer racism, and the historical injustice means the discrepancy is OK. But there are many others who just see it as unfair and "political correctness gone mad" based on a straightforward sense of fairness.

You really don't have to be Tommy Robinson, a racist or anti-black to be able to see the issue. People have a sense of fairness, and things like this piss people off. It appears to be putting black people on a pedestal and saying that it's OK to say that being white is bad.

Absolutely beautifully put. And this is the issue. The unfairness of it, the double standards, and the disingenuousness.

I absolutely agree with the posters on this thread saying that this advert is dreadful, and the actress Adjoa, should not have been allowed to be in it. And the 'woke' agenda on the ad is actually laughable and farcical.

As someone said back in the thread 'it's not about complaining about black people. No-one I know has any issue with black people/POC. It's about the social injustice of the fact that a black woman got away with saying something like that about The Royal Family, ('they are terribly white aren't they?!') when there's no way in hell that a white person would have got away with saying the same about a black family ... They would have been lambasted, and cancelled, and very likely not got anymore work. Don't even try to tell me it would have been okay because it wouldn't. And also yeah, as I said, the ad is ridiculously woke!

I'm actually pleased to see there's a lot of posters thinking the same as me on this thread - that they're absolutely sick of the woke agenda on television now. It's in every television programme. It's in every chat show and panel show. I can't bear to watch The Last Leg now because it's ridiculously and laughably woke and far left.

It's even spilled over onto Coronation Street, and Eastenders, and many dramas. As has been said, it's spilled over into the adverts too.

And in real life (and on the internet,) you can't say anything without taking your words out of your mouth, and looking at them before you say them.

Many (white) people are sick to death of not knowing what to say, as the rules keep changing! The terminology keeps changing. Someone said on a thread last week that saying 'people of colour' is now 'wrong' and you are now a racist if you say it, and someone called someone BAME the other week on here and was absolutely fried for it. Called thick and racist and told to 'get a clue' and 'educate yourself!'

I knew a woman who was born in the early 1960s. (So she is in her 60s.) She was actually sacked from her job in 2022, because she used the 'wrong terminology' when referring to another woman (a young mixed race woman..) She was describing her to someone who asked about the new woman and they asked 'what does she look like?' She was not racist, she just used an old fashioned 1970s and 1980s term, and she got sacked for it. She'd been there 12 years at that point, and this girl had been there 6 months.

The young woman herself didn't complain, it was her (white) friend who reported it, and said the woman who said the words was a 'racist piece of shit.' The young woman herself felt terrible about the woman being sacked and asked if she could be reinstated, but they said 'the genie is out of the bottle now. We'd look bad if we let her back in.' A classic example of someone getting offended on someone else's behalf.

It's always the same type of people as well - the same type who mock Christians, and hate the royal family, and call people who voted for Brexit, thick, badly-educated, racist, gammon. (I don't even take any notice if people say this now, it's just white noise to me.)

There are a lot more people who are not 'far left woke' than the 'far left woke' like to think. They can NOT all be bigoted, and racist. There is a huge silent majority, and this is why Trump won, and why the Brexit 'leave' side won, and why the Conservatives kept winning and Jeremy Corbyn never became Prime Minister.

Knock yourself out if you wanna have a go at me. I really don't care. No, I really don't!

Many (white) people are sick to death of not knowing what to say, as the rules keep changing! The terminology keeps changing. Someone said on a thread last week that saying 'people of colour' is now 'wrong' and you are now a racist if you say it, and someone called someone BAME the other week on here and was absolutely fried for it. Called thick and racist and told to 'get a clue' and 'educate yourself!'

I've often wondered about this phenomenon - not just with ethnicity but the thing of terms changing all the time and then people being lambasted if they get it wrong. It seems like it's a way for those who like being the woke police to keep one step ahead of the game, so they always have someone to accuse. And as you've said these may not be members of the minority in question either.

"People of colour" is an especially tricky one IMO because of course if you are old enough to remember when people used "clrd" (I'm even scared to type it) which has now become a reviled racist term, it's very easy to get them mixed up because they are basically the same term, just different ways round. When I first heard POC I couldn't fathom why it wasn't considered racist in the same way but had somehow become the acceptable version. It is racist IMO as (like "non-white") it positions whiteness as the default - in fact we all have colour. I avoid it and prefer ethnic minority as that doesn't describe anyone's ethnicity or colour and depends on the location and setting.

(tried to use asterisks but it didn't work)

I believe the phrase 'Gobal Majority' is now preferred to BAME or People of Colour.

There are a lot more people who are not 'far left woke' than the 'far left woke' like to think. They can NOT all be bigoted, and racist.

@Zov I don't see why the fact there a lot of such people means they can't all be bigoted and racist. There's a lot of it about.

Actually she said 'it was terribly white'.

If a white male had said it was 'terribly black' about an event, can you imagine the outrage?

@Zov I agree with you about the woman who was sacked for using an outdated term for mixed race - that was outrageous. All it needed was someone to have a quiet word about the historical context of the term she used and advise her not to use it.

Nope you're correct. She said something worse and actually said 'they're terribly white'.

It's just the same, but slightly humorous and not meant to sound as though being white is bad in itself - just it was a bit undiluted.

How is that worse? Like you'd describe an event as "terribly fancy". It's not a negative, basically meaning very.

Describing a family as terribly white is rude and racist. How can anyone not see that?
Even if she meant terribly as in very rather than negative, it's still a rude and unnecessary comment. Imagine seeing a famous black family and commenting that they're terribly black.

I absolutely agree with the posters on this thread saying that this advert is dreadful, and the actress Adjoa, should not have been allowed to be in it

Ooft, she shouldn't be allowed on TV in an advert because you don't like something she said?
Thought people were against "cancelling" and silencing, free speech and all that?!
Seems that' only goes when it's your "side" being "cancelled" 🙄😁

Yes - or 'awfully'.

People have taken that remark way out of context. However they have had it all explained to them and still feel the same way so my conclusion is that many enjoy being outraged. In the same way that many have very strong, negative opinions about Prince Harry's book, 'Spare', but have never read it. That's what the likes of the Daily Mail thrive on. We might as well give up.