Companies that nailed their colours to the mast early on in the gender debate

[Jessasamantha]

38 degrees petition site prompted a memory the other day about them taking down a petition calling for a debate on the GRA, which was then followed by a petition calling out 38 degrees on Change. Found it here

www.change.org/p/38-degrees-38-degrees-stop-silencing-and-censoring-women

Which got me thinking about all of the other companies who made it very clear they were not on the side of women early on in the debate, who perhaps may be reconsidering their misogyny and hoping that we might have forgotten. I have some vague memory of Co-op in the early days refusing to provide banking services to one of the first grass roots women's groups, can anyone confirm? Also Ocado, who sided with Primesight after they took down Kellie-Jay Keen's adult human female advert?

Any others from the early years?

@DomesticatedZombie

The problem with closing Lush shops is how you dispose of the contents - some people say it should be buried underground until the smell finally wears off, but others are in favour of firing it into space. The thought of billions of bath bombs appearing in international airspace is possibly not going to be countenanced right now - the only solution - keep the shops open.

I imagine.

Could you entomb them in concrete for a couple of centuries?

I'm not honestly sure what the half life is for Lush products.

@TheirEminence

Every single company that contributed to that full-page advert in the Evening Standard promoting GRA reform.

If you mean the Stonewall one TheirEminence, I seem to remember there were suggestions at least some of the orgs involved had not been properly told how their names would be used, and that the ad would link through to Stonewall's take on how to fill in the consultation, and that some of them weren't particularly happy about it when they found out.... So they may not all be as bad as they could be, though they were all in the Stonewall scheme. (Some were also public sector/Civil Service orgs that are meant to avoid taking political positions, too, so they might have had more reason to be unhappy!)

@DomesticatedZombie

I'm not honestly sure what the half life is for Lush products.

Covered in dust and dirt, no quality control, dropped on the floor, touched by hundreds of people and then put in your bath so you can get thrush. Lush is the TRA secret weapon.

@DomesticatedZombie

The problem with closing Lush shops is how you dispose of the contents - some people say it should be buried underground until the smell finally wears off, but others are in favour of firing it into space. The thought of billions of bath bombs appearing in international airspace is possibly not going to be countenanced right now - the only solution - keep the shops open.

I imagine.

I love it

I mean I love your comment about firing lush products into space - not I love Lush.

Weren’t Innocent Smoothie horrible to a nice older lady on Twitter and showed themselves to be horrendous bullies?
And The Body Ship are bastards.

Oh, and it pains me to say this… weren’t Amnesty International horrible outside a feminist conference in Portsmouth? I think I’m right in thinking there was a roll call if dead women and a bunch of TRAs were denigrating them? And AI put out a mealy mouthed statement

@delurkinglawyer that's actually really interesting - I knew the Spectator had issued a ban but hadn't realised that they had overturned that decision at a later date, deciding (fairly reasonably it appears) that the appeasing of lobbying groups had been done by the social media team rather than higher up.

Body Shop. Never been in there since.

Oh, and it pains me to say this… weren’t Amnesty International horrible outside a feminist conference in Portsmouth? I think I’m right in thinking there was a roll call if dead women and a bunch of TRAs were denigrating them? And AI put out a mealy mouthed statement

Yes. They supported the awful protest upfront with wanky branded placards etc and then when it inevitably turned abusive they sort of backed away.

@PamDenick

Oh, and it pains me to say this… weren’t Amnesty International horrible outside a feminist conference in Portsmouth? I think I’m right in thinking there was a roll call if dead women and a bunch of TRAs were denigrating them? And AI put out a mealy mouthed statement

The Filia conference -

mforstater.medium.com/i-am-who-i-say-i-am-9e7dcac50e35

AI provided signs for the protesters who wrote slurs and sexual threats on the ground outside the venue (after trying their best to cancel the event entirely). This was a 'respectful' protest apparently.

AI did not condemn this behaviour, and as you say, put out a mealy mouthed statement.

Oatley. Used to buy their products. Not now.

Several sanpro companies changed their packaging/terminology too if I remember. I haven't bought any for several years, so I don't recall which ones.

What I can remember:
M&S - allowed men in the 'lingerie' changing rooms but not women identifying as men in the men's (women's signs were taken down so it was either men's, lingerie, or just 'changing rooms'). Left up loads of pervy review of women's pants on the website, by men who identified as men but liked wearing women's underwear.
John Lewis - also allowed men in the women's changing rooms.
Lush - had a promotion for Mermaids charity, and there was also a lot of misogyny reported relating to female employees.
Starbucks - sold cookies for the Mermaids charity, had adverts showing a girl giving her name as a male name (it was meant to be empowering).
I can't remember all the details, but there was definitely something with Flora and Oatly (to do with adverts and supporting the TRAs). Lots of MNers boycotted these brands, I would have but didn't buy them anyway.

Zombie are there too many products for them to be taken into the desert and destroyed using controlled explosions?

Lush also had a store which said they would take in orders for breast binders so if a teenage girl wanted one and didn’t want her transphobic parents to know, lush would allow them to have them delivered to and then collect from their store, this enabling the potentially permanent damage to healthy growing breast tissue and totally overstepping corporate ethical boundaries. 🤬🤬🤬

Oreo nailed their colours to the mast of the good ship Totally Pointless Statements in February 2021 with the classic hit single:
Trans people exist.

twitter.com/Oreo/status/1365038991469281280?t=J3P9M-L1vCl5DC0gjDQFxA&s=19

I mean, honestly. Is there anyone out there, at all, who thinks Caitlyn Jenner, Lauren Cox, Rachel Levine, Paris Lees, India Willoughby, Rachel McKinnon and Laurel Hubbard don't exist? Do they think we're under the impression that they're actually just holographic projections? Or computer-generated imagery, like the amazing tiger in the film Life of Pi?

It would have been more useful if Oreo had taken the time to reassure us all that Australia exists; there actually are people out there who think there is no such continent and that it's all a massive conspiracy.

To be honest, I'd have found it less irritating if they had outright said that they thought women shouldn't ever have the right to meet without the presence of males. It would have at least indicated they knew what the debate was about.

Edinburgh. Lots of it!

@MamaSaidTheredBeDaysLikeThis

Zombie are there too many products for them to be taken into the desert and destroyed using controlled explosions?

That is banned under the Geneva convention.

@DomesticatedZombie

The problem with closing Lush shops is how you dispose of the contents - some people say it should be buried underground until the smell finally wears off, but others are in favour of firing it into space. The thought of billions of bath bombs appearing in international airspace is possibly not going to be countenanced right now - the only solution - keep the shops open.

I imagine.

😂😂😂although I did like there shampoo bars, but I buy them elsewhere now.

It really does smell bad.

Lush also had at least one store have anti ‘terf’ slogan on it’s shop

With Flora, though TRAs claimed immense victory & that MN was about to crumble to dust at any moment as ALL ad revenue was going to evaporate… didn’t it turn out that the decision had been long-made not to renew the contract purely because Some Marketing Thing About Our All Now Being Slaves To Flora Anyway (or similar) & someone saw an opportunity to virtue signal on the way out?

@Random789
Must add a certain element of excitement to booking train tickets & the associated journeys, especially if you have any other confused cities/transposed towns

@VelvetChairGirl
Chemical warefare = excellent neologism

@WhyThatsDelightful

Barclays pushing pronouns to be nice

Barclays did more than that they said we should not try to understand but just do what we're told to be one of the allies.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Oh, and it pains me to say this… weren’t Amnesty International horrible outside a feminist conference in Portsmouth? I think I’m right in thinking there was a roll call if dead women and a bunch of TRAs were denigrating them? And AI put out a mealy mouthed statement

Yes. They supported the awful protest upfront with wanky branded placards etc and then when it inevitably turned abusive they sort of backed away.

Not to mention Amnesty Ireland saying something like women who are GC did not deserve political representation.