B&Q think ‘girls’ cant do stuff

[Coralleadery]

B&Q have listed a flatpack cabinet with the description ‘easy to assemble, even for a girl’

At the same time they’re running a big ‘purpose’ advertising campaign around encouraging female tradespeople.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14752363/amp/B-Q-apologises-bathroom-cabinet-easy-girl.html

Apologies for the DM link - I couldn’t see a better one (The Sun?!)

It's way more complicated than biology why women are under represented in jobs and while nature obviously affects things like grip strength, nurture has a huge affect.

Boys are bought therefore play with more engineering / construction type toys. Girls are encouraged towards the nurturing toys.

Once girls get to teens they drop out of stem subjects if in mixed sex schools, due to social pressures.

The trades have a lack of women so girls don't see them doing the jobs, so they don't think they are for them.

If a women does get a job in a male dominated industry there's still an undercurrent of sexism making it harder to stick at.

Then because there's not many women there's a lack of flexibility for parents, oil rigs is an obvious one most women don't want to leave their children for weeks or months.

I actually feel pretty sorry for them. They’re trying to do more to promote women being involved in trades and someone else’s bad joke and a poor admin process has caused this level of outrage.

@Coralleadery
You know an awful lots of specifics around what they have in their stores for women, ‘a large range of women’s gear in sizes 8-20’ eh?
Indeed I do. I walked past them on Thursday and Friday when I went into pick up wallpaper and again on Sunday. We are doing a lot to the house a d I'm doing more trips to B&Q and the tip than anywhere else this month!

There may be a few things where there’s a split (those requiring more brute strength or size than most women possess, for instance) but it’s risible to imply that’s the case with most flatpack furniture. There are items which require more than one person to assemble them but I’m not sure I’ve come across anything where blokes would be required.

The day B&Q start selling proper work gloves (not gardening gloves) in sizes smaller than a 'medium'/8 is the day I'll take their commitment to women seriously. Average women's sizes are xxs/xs/s = 5, 6, 7.

A larger proportion of women get injured because of a lack of appropriate PPE. Gloves, helmets, boots are all much harder to get in the correct size.

I've been buying rigger gloves for about 5 years and the only brands that do them in are Scandinavian brands. I buy Ejendals gloves online.

Edit: I mean sell direct in their shops, not on the marketplace

I sincerely hope our girls won't go into trades, I dread the idea. First, it is not where real power lies, secondly, uterine prolapses, hernias and the rest. I agree with your about stem subjects, but unfortunately, the only girls (now women) who performed well in this country due to studying stems - like the only successful commercial architect, the first female brain surgeon, etc. they all came from repressive-dictatorial families, i.e. were pushed by parents' pressure. I wish we could have more role models like that, real ones, only with the normal non-dictatorial families, purely through normal (not private) schooling. I wish we could have one half-decent female chess player who could compete with men in chess - after all, we are told we are the same, aren't we?

I also wish women can leave all the B&Q, trades, and other 'shovel-heavy shit' type jobs deflections alone and concentrate on gaining access to real power - i.e. architects, lawyers, doctors, chemists, physicists. I did not include engineering (real one, not fixing electric mains) meaning materials engineering, civil engineering, etc. because unfortunately we underperform in those disciplines as well, despite massive leg up by all educational establishments.

Ladies, time for a boycott. Let’s see how they like it when the pink pound stops spending money there!

I disagree with the pp who said it’s not practical to check every listing before it goes up. I work in content management for an agency who works with brands of this size and they can and should check every listing and description before it’s uploaded. Normal process is that everything is cleared by a minimum of two people. I would be mortified if this was my agency’s job or any of my copywriters had tried to submit that description. But looks like they didn’t have checks in place, so they’ve apologised and learnt their lesson. Also, sometimes descriptions are translated from other languages where they have different cultural norms but, again, you don’t upload things without checking them first

In this house I do all the DIY. I have done flooring, tiling, plastering, all kinds of decorating and any flat pack that has come into our house. DH keeps well clear of it.
I've often been in B&Q's shop, asking questions, and never have any of their staff been as condescending as the wording of this advert.
The advert quoted here reminds me of the 1970s and I suppose it's a measure of how far we've come that this kind of wording is notable. It's unusual to see such blatant sexism nowadays.

Bit like those Yorkie bars, only for men or whatever

Unsurprisingly IKEA don't write stuff like that on their products

Pink pound? That would surely mean only women living with women or single women without any recourse to public funds when brining up their children, right? Otherwise it is not pink pound.

Oh. Was that what we were supposed to do? I’d eat a multi pack just to prove them wrong

I remember about 25 years ago buying lunch from Sainsburys and I picked up a Yorkie bar. Guy behind the till joked that I wasn't allowed to buy it as I was a girl. He got cranky with me when I didn't bother to respond and just gave him a look

They definitely need an en-masse complaints surge from us!

I thought the 'Pink Pound' was gay people?

This puts me off B&Q more than the girl comment. If they can't be bothered to even know their own products then they are doing nothing to ensure quality.

But they've taken it down and apologised. What else would a complaint achieve?

I think that the poster meant just women?

I can’t imagine getting frothy over this, especially as they have apologised and taken action.

I’m a girl that can’t do DIY, tbf.

I haven't had a Yorkie since then either!

Don't tell DD girls can't do DIY, over the last few months she's helped DH build the new workshop from being panels and planks of wood, including electrics plumbing and the internal furniture. She loves a trip to B&Q.

Yeah well.🤷‍♀️
I put together my parents kitchen units in the 80s when I was still at school.
My dad was a bricklayer by trade, but fucking useless with instructions and a screwdriver.
DH can identify a hammer and a screwdriver.
I don't let him near my curated collection of either.
😁

Fucksake.

I mean I can't follow instructions and 2D diagrams for assembling furniture for toffee and would have to watch a video but the stereotype is so outdated.

We haven't got B and Q just Wickes but didn't they do something that MN didn't like as well

Why don't we instead do an en-masse complaint to our mothers (strong independent women) who did not bring us up to be great chess players so we could challenge male great masters to a game (like in Netflix Chess queen or whatever it was called) and show them once and for all, that women are just the same as men intellectually! Forget about stupid flat packs and heavy lifting and boxing! Show it where it matters!