Lakeland

[benderinabun]

Long time lurker, have had my eyes progressively opened by this board & am becoming more & more (quietly) passionate about the issues raised here.
Have just seen this on a friend's FB- she was annoyed enough to share it and it's riled me enough to post for the first time!
Her & her husband both got sent Lakeland catalogues today.
Can you guess who's is who's?!
I'm going to write to Lakeland! Not quite sure what to say, my job is vaguely marketing related so I do understand targeted advertising but are we in the 50s still? Cunts.

Again, the issue isn't really about who got which cover. It's about the fact that we seem to be a long way away from being in the position where Lakeland would run a cover showing a man really caring about the job of cleaning.

@alliejay81

Don't know about Lakeland but Lego used to do this. We were members of the Manchester Discovery Centre and DH and DS got the "boy version" and I got the "girl version". I was NOT happy!

Now Lego really does irritate me with its stereotyping gender bullocks.

@HoneysuckIejasmine

Elise undoubtedly. Wouldn't it be nice if they chose to challenge stereotypes rather than reinforce them?

Are they not doing that with a man cooking?

HoneysuckIejasmine
but I take your point

In the (wondrous) middle of Lidl mag I notice that the tools and jobs are always very equally divided.

Lakeland are a bit retro in general, but I do think this is very irritating. Will be interested to see which cover I get, as I buy cleaning stuff from them but not cooking stuff.

Just flicked through virtual Lakeland catalogue

There’s Only a handful of pictures of models throughout the entire catalogue - if that. One of which....

I got the cooking one

I got the cooking one.

I got the cooking one too...

Also @Elsiebeard I would argue about the cooking being against stereotype as men cooking has a lot more positive connotations, like male celebrity chefs etc? As I said I am new to this board and can't articulate myself as well as I would like but there is definitely something about the cleaning cover that doesn't sit right with me, combined with the fact there are two covers...

I'm female with a very female name and I got the catalogue with the man cooking on the front yesterday so it may just be random believe it or not.

I’m female but got the cooking one, I assume it was random.

It's the same as the primary school reading argument isn't it? Which goes something like any book the class use as a topic must be about and of interest to boys, because girls will be interested in everything but the boys won't tolerate anything they see as girl focused or about girl stuff.

It's currently cool for blokes to be good cooks a la MasterChef. So that cover will appeal to males and females. It's not cool for males to be interested in cleaning, and as a pp said, it mostly won't be the case that males do the majority of cleaning as statistics bear out. But that is to some extent because pictures like this normalise that housework is a female thing and not something for males .

These pictures do matter. They send signals, they help to create the culture, and in those two choices, the male model gets the cool image, the female model has been left with the donkeywork. And this is supposed to be ok.

Cooking one here, female cardholder

My (male) other half got sent the cleaning one. Are you sure it's not just random or based on previous purchases (he never cooks but loves a good cleaning product)?

I hope that they also have other covers which depict men doing the cleaning. If not, then that would be sexist.

I hope that they also have other covers which depict men doing the cleaning.

I don’t think they do.

Maybe it's based on previous shopping history, some lakeland fans are into cleaning, some are cooks, etc?

Doesn't matter who receives which catalogue, IMO. It's the models assigned to each task that's rooted in sexism.

Men cooking - established and approved arena of masculinity. Ramsay, Ottolenghi, Kerridge, Oliver, Blumenthal, Bourdain, Stein, Martin, Hollywood etc etc etc
Men cleaning - not so much. (Anyone?)

Oh! Lakeland man irons and cooks! I could do with one of those.

He also hangs out the washing on the website. Mumsnet refuses to post the screenshot though, just spent 10mins trying.

@CallarMorvern

Oh! Lakeland man irons and cooks! I could do with one of those.

I rarely buy anything from Lakeland as it's over-priced and a lot is unnecessary but in our house I never do any cleaning or ironing. I was to pay for a cleaner for years when we both worked full time but husband now works part-time and does it.

I love cooking and baking. I'm an incredibly messy cook. The deal is I leave the kitchen the way I leave it and if he wants to enjoy what I've cooked he cleans up.

I have literally not switched on a vacuum cleaner in over 30 years.

"was happy to pay for...."

DidoLamenting

You obviously have life sorted 😉

@TornadoOfSouls

Yes, but men get praised for cooking, especially ‘special’ cooking. What on earth is it, though? On my phone it looks like he’s pouring gravy over a cheese toastie stack with ice cream on top?

It's waffles with a scoop of ice cream