Paperchase's --Sexist-- 'Ironic' Back to School Stationary

[EgyptVanGogh]

...and Marketing Director Robert Warden's stupid rude response.

I think Paperchase deserves to find out how rather sharklike a group of angry feminist mothers can be...

Sadly, it doesn't surprise me re: Paperchase though I would lay odds that they won't care about angry feminist mothers.

They didn't care when they got shown up for copyright theft sparking a massive campaign against them either although they eventually did apologise after a lot of media backlash. You'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson.

www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/11/paperchase-design-hidden-eloise

there's a jezebel post about it here - although I'm amazed to hear people saying that she was rude to him, or they are as bad as each other! She is a customer, he is an employee of the company she is complaining to - surely a basic standard of politeness is expected?

would be hopping if I saw that in the shop/window. Yes kids are very good at irony aren't they? And they all remember the 1950s? oh whoops, no, they were born some 5 decades later

Perhaps I should have started a thread about 'ironic' advertising and representation in general.

Thinking about Courtney Love's 'ironic' 'Kinderwhore' look in the 90's.

Oh I don't know - personally I thought the fact that the Marketing Director took the time to personally respond, is very positive. He might still disagree, but at least he bothered with a reply.

I think all this "we're all the same" is a bit silly anyway - they have to target the majority of the market in a way they believe best for sales. For example, when pitching to a toddler audience, I'd probably play "toddler" type music - Twinkle, Twinkle, etc. Some children could possibly have preferred Rock. It doesn't matter. (And yes, I know that's "ageism" not "sexism", if you want to get offended about that kind of thing.)

I'm saying all this as someone that believes I can achieve whatever I want in life. Professional job (not earning less than men of the same experience), a husband that cooks loads better than I do, oh, and I love power tools. Yet, I had a pink duvet growing up and a doll that I took everywhere.

I just can't be bothered to get so worked up about nonsense, sorry.

He makes a fair point though - what is to stop girls buying the shark-themed stuff?

I do get worked up by it. It's not nonsense, it is carefully considered, carefully researched product design and marketing. And it shapes culture. And I have young children who need stationary. And I am in despair that I can't find a plain box of legos, or a dual-gender Playmobil set, or even a freaking ungendered kids lunch bag.

Well said, MisSal.

Or the boys the baking stuff. Except that children are socialised by society to think pink is for girls and blue is for boys, so no self respecting boy will be seen dead with the pink baking stuff even if he is a nascent Gordon ramsey because he'll get bullied by the other boys for being "gay"

There's a whole world of things that are wrong here.

Yes. Thank you Slug.

Getting into petty fights about silly things like this makes it difficult to fight for actual equality when it really matters.

I always thought I'm a feminist, until I realised what people who call themselves "proper" feminists get worked up over. Since then, I just fight the corner of equality when I believe it matters, and roll my eyes at some other, uhm, issues.

??? There are tons of dual gender Playmobil sets!! Same with lunchbags: and stationery!!

It shapes culture but we also shape our kids by giving them free reign to decide whether, for example, Pokemon is for boys or girls, or pirates or anything. Tut.

So you're saying that pirates are actively marketed to girls?

Example please. I know of a couple of girl pirate children's books. Where are the girl pirate Playmobil sets? There is one Playmobil knights set with a female knight (we own it).

'Free reign' hahahahaha...yeah. Good luck with that.

stationEry

Feenie. I know I shouldn't have, but it made me laugh when the MD mentioned that one too.

Yeah but when there is pink cupcake stuff, and blue shark stuff kids know (because it has been the habit from their birth to categorise the pink babies and the blue babies) which ones they are "supposed" to like. Whether a girl actually likes sharks or a boy actually likes baking, it is recognisable to everyone whether they've got the "right" one or not, and they will be mocked accordingly.

The strict gendering of products plays into that. The girls who don't like pink or hate baking, and the boys who maybe don't like sharks, are being told that they are not "proper" boys/girls, they are odd. How often on here do you get women saying: "I am not very 'feminine'" or "Maybe I should have been a man!"? I've seen it a lot, and it's partly because if we don't like what the shops say little girls should like, we judge ourselves as "odd" instead of recognising what BS it all is.

Have a look here

The only dual gender lunchbags are solid colour. None with images. Now, how hard is it, exactly, to come up with one image that would attract boys AND girls? Obviously very. We need to be concerned about this.

Feenie and MisSal. You talk about 'real' equality then mock someone for misspelling stationary. Well done. Take it to the pedant's corner.

yes, slug, WRT nascent chefs.

MissSal - just because you don't agree with some other feminists, doesn't mean you aren't a "proper" one. How odd.

How can you not find gender neutral Lego, Playmobil or a lunchbox?

Plain box of Lego - one of hundreds out there.

Plain red lunch box

No, we don't. In the current economy, we should be concerned about businesses not going under, leaving families without guaranteed food on the table, which matters a lot more. Now is not the time to take risks. If I had a business, I would try to sell what I know (from analysing sales trends, market research etc) sells best.

I didn't mock anyone, or talk about 'real' equality. I just corrected a spelling error. Deal with it.

Oh, sorry - I didn't realise we were excluding plain lunch boxes in the search

These any better?

Agree that is a pretty shocking response from a Marketing Director, whether or not he 'agreed' with the original complaint.

My guess is that a more junior marketing person brought this to his attention, asking what the company line should be. Instead of doing what he should have done and giving a few guidelines and leaving his staff to compose a polite response, this somehow irked him and niggled his ego so much that he felt compelled to respond in person. And managed to completely cock it up in a spectacularly unprofessional way.

I would bet that the rest of his dept are holding their heads in their hands in despair at the fallout, and probable torrent of follow-up complaints.

Hmm, I'm typing too slow...

Egypt, I'm not mocking, I'm often rubbish with spelling myself. That doesn't mean I can't find someone's reply funny. Which I thought his was. Hey ho, sorry if you feel I was horrid.

Elephants, the reason why I prefer not to see myself as a "proper" feminist is that I disagree with so many things a lot of vocal feminists get worked up over, and sometimes find the drama created over nothing embarrassing.

I find that if you go on and on about something, people often stop listening. So, when I do feel there is discrimination on the grounds of gender, I will take the matter further and back up my argument with facts (e.g. in a work situation, you can argue on the grounds of education, experience, contracts, whatever), but I don't go on about what I believe doesn't matter. Obviously it matters for others, and that is their right. I just don't agree.