Paperchase taking leave of their senses

[Imnobody4]

twitter.com/BradfemlyWalsh/status/1372701455866552336?s=19
"Feel empowered... uplift and motivate... supporting the Campaign for Female Education" ... by buying a notebook with a load of women's arses in their knickers on the cover.

Slow handclap for @FromPaperchase t.co/WwyKpOqp17

They did a range a while back with boobs on. I didn’t like those either.

Is it just me or this just really weirdly written? Particularly the bit I've bolded? If it's meant to be marketing copywriting it's very odd.

This image has become a symbol of female empowerment & recognised as such in this form, we are proud to be supportive of this. We have also seen similar themes elsewhere. We have received great feedback from customers at the positive message it drives

Did they leap onto someone else's craftivism and miss the point entirely.

Jenny Eclair did that Craftivism programme and met Helen Baker who 'knicker bombs' tiny felt knickers to raise awareness of cervical screening.

Have Papercraft bandwagoned the visuals without the bloody message?

ThinkWittyThoughts
Muji have similar to the ones you want to replace & Hema do sometimes

im annoyed that some of those products have been removed because of uproar from the public. Some of us are not mortally offended by smutty humour, and not everyone thinks that cartoons of bums is the height of womens objectification.
Thanks for the links to the worlds most boring notebooks and stationary though

not everyone thinks that cartoons of bums is the height of womens objectification.

They may not be the depths of it, but they're sure as hell not 'empowering'. And the link to a campaign for female education is frankly weird.

@Branleuse

im annoyed that some of those products have been removed because of uproar from the public. Some of us are not mortally offended by smutty humour, and not everyone thinks that cartoons of bums is the height of womens objectification. Thanks for the links to the worlds most boring notebooks and stationary though

I think the point was about the illustration being 'empowering' .

I think you missed that it was the image plus the message that pissed people off.

Get your arse out and feel empowered!?

I suspect the sight of my derrière would have them cry ‘put it away!’

I thought they had closed down permanently, I do like some of their stuff but stopped shopping there some time ago because of some other gaffe.

@Branleuse

im annoyed that some of those products have been removed because of uproar from the public. Some of us are not mortally offended by smutty humour, and not everyone thinks that cartoons of bums is the height of womens objectification. Thanks for the links to the worlds most boring notebooks and stationary though

www.paperchase.com/en_gb/stationery/notebooks

What are you on about? It's available on their website. Setting any and all other objections aside It's pricey and not a particularly attractive design but if you want it , go for it.

Do BAME women not have bottoms then? Is this why they are not included in the empowering women mantra?

This is all kinds of wrong but Paperchase are closing their corporate ears to the criticism. The notebook and their snarky patronising reply tweet should be their Gerald Ratner moment.

No one is objecting to just bums. Go for it, it’s the fact they themselves called it empowering to women when as a general rule it Is no such thing.

YY to detached women's body parts being the absolute logo of patriarchy, and who was it said "it's not empowering unless it gets you some actual power"?

But mainly I wanted to call out your massively insensitive comments about duck-billed platypuses because they are some of the most vulnerable in society and they prove that being a mammal is a spectrum and therefore crocodiles are also mammals.

The message is that women are a bunch of arses?

Of course it's empowering. Did you miss all those times when the Prime Ministers' arses appeared on notebooks shortly before being elected into governing the country?

I suspect the sight of my derrière would have them cry ‘put it away!’

Perhaps women should all go into their local Paperchase for an empowerfulising moon, to say thanks. We can bring some men, to be diverse.

We could call it Moon Friday,

The image on its own is just silly - but if people want to buy it that's up to them. The fact that Paperchase think it is empowering is pretty ghastly. And having thought it, that they then actually said it out loud and still could not hear that it makes no sense.

...and then logic tells me that if they are that daft about this they'll be useless at applying rational thought elsewhere - who would trust their thought processes on the environment or modern slavery if they truly can't think straight? And sure enough a quick look at their website shows a superficial environment policy at the very, very, very bottom of which is their modern slavery statement. As a subset of their green policies (?) Not meriting as much detail or prominence as trees for heaven sake (yes, I know important, but still!).

What woke companies really advertise is not their virtue but their illogicality. And then, what can you trust them on?

Wow.
Not buying another fucking thing in paperchase again.

I would assume most of paperchases customers are women - why do they treat us with such contempt?
Luckily I am a woman of colour so 'my' arse isn't empowered.

Fuck empowerment - it doesn't appear to be something I'm interested in.

The image on its own is just silly - but if people want to buy it that's up to them. The fact that Paperchase think it is empowering is pretty ghastly. And having thought it, that they then actually said it out loud and still could not hear that it makes no sense.

They don't care and they don't genuinely think it's empowering. Despite the veneer of performative virtue, they are the Paddy Power of stationery.

@unforgotten23

Wow. Not buying another fucking thing in paperchase again.

I would assume most of paperchases customers are women - why do they treat us with such contempt?
Luckily I am a woman of colour so 'my' arse isn't empowered.

Fuck empowerment - it doesn't appear to be something I'm interested in.

I would say women are a huge proportion of their audience. And mostly young women. That's why they've jumped on this virtue signalling bandwagon and are supporting the charity but this is the wrong way to go about it.

@Branleuse

im annoyed that some of those products have been removed because of uproar from the public. Some of us are not mortally offended by smutty humour, and not everyone thinks that cartoons of bums is the height of womens objectification. Thanks for the links to the worlds most boring notebooks and stationary though

The point was over >>>>>>>>>>>> there.

It's almost like smutty humour and female education and empowerment are different. Or maybe Malala could have just flashed her arse and everything would have been peachy (smutty pun intended).

If they’d just said ‘we thought it was funny/cute/silly’ that’s one thing - but try to sell it like Dickenson under the horse...?

But mainly I wanted to call out your massively insensitive comments about duck-billed platypuses because they are some of the most vulnerable in society and they prove that being a mammal is a spectrum and therefore crocodiles are also mammals.

Platypuses are surely the prime mammalian exemplar of 'large gametes' and rather than mere XY or XX, the males and females have 5 pairs each of XY or XX respectively. (Weirdly this thread lead to me educating myself about platypuses last night but in PJs so nowt to do with my undies).

@AtTheDickensDesk

YY to detached women's body parts being the absolute logo of patriarchy, and who was it said "it's not empowering unless it gets you some actual power"?

But mainly I wanted to call out your massively insensitive comments about duck-billed platypuses because they are some of the most vulnerable in society and they prove that being a mammal is a spectrum and therefore crocodiles are also mammals.

Ah - the duck-billed platypus. Living proof that you can identify as a venomous duck, lay eggs, and yet still be a mammal at the same time.