M&S calls young girls 'things'

[lcakethereforeIam]

This isn't just any misogyny, this is...

https://archive.ph/6XLUT

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/03/ms-trans-row-advertising-girls-first-bras-for-young-things/

Eta link

Well I suggest you read it as what it is a slogan! Honestly I am sick and tired of the every single phrase tore apart and analysis carried out with only one lens!

It's a catchy phrase with language used by the youth. Simples.

and Taylor Swift has an album called Fearless. I believe she's a little bit popular these days. So it's unlikely they just plucked the word from their bums.

Just showed my teenage boy the advert (only context being his mother is a raging feminazi) and he said "oh, so women are things now". He got it.

If it's a non-issue, why have M&S apologised and withdrawn the poster?

@DrizzleMySwizzle swifts fearless album is 20 years old

"Bright Young Things" is a well known phrase describing the cohort of youth about to burst forth into adulthood any minute now.

The bright young things were socialites, mainly in their 20s and 30s (and a few older). Comfortably into adulthood, although perhaps somewhat reluctant to grow up.

so? she's still currently the biggest artist in the world, especially with girls, and her fanbase are acquainted with her entire back catalogue on a granular level. They'd clock it and think of TS

@Marblesbackagain you'll absolutely hate my opinion on the word 'simples' then. 🤣

Are you professional at " getting offended" ?

@BobbyBiscuits yup probably would. We are very proud mercat fans here and simples is our go to phrase. 🤷‍♀️

For me this is a bit of a reach. I can't be offended by this, I think being so makes us all look a bit silly. But that's just my opinion. You do you.

This is how I read it and I've described my daughter as a fearless young thing but I'd say in this day and age it's fairly risky wording and I can see why it's been picked up.

I feel like what is happening to women is lost on many people. The 'inclusive' language always takes something away from women. So it is now politically correct to call us 'chest feeders', 'those with a cervix', 'birthing people' and now we are moving in to no longer use 'girls' or 'young women' but instead 'bright things'. In fairness, a perhaps more endearing phrase but it should alarm us because it adds to the eroding of language which describes our sex.

It's harder to find as many examples where men are reduced to their body parts and functions. I am not okay with being referred to as a cervix owner when my GP reminds me that I need a smear test. I am a woman and I am not going to allow people to refuse to use the term in case it offends a minority of society. We should own the language which that describes us.

Girls go through a very different type of puberty to boys. Society needs to acknowledge and respect that and not tiptoe around it in order to include everyone who wants to wear a bra.

I wouldn't have picked up on the bright young things reference, and as that phrase was coined to refer to hard partying young adult rich folk it doesn't make much sense anyway - their set would have been at the youngest late teens, mostly 20s and were men or women with an androgenous style of dress. This was the 1920s when the bra was literally being invented & the fashion of the time was to minimise the bust for a flat chested look. So either literally or metaphorically it doesn't work to reference pre-teen girls. But I may be overthinking things, unlike the M&S ad execs.

Aside from main point at issue, Helen Joyce's absolute clarity is a thing of beauty: “It’s really incredible to see retailers bend over backwards to accommodate the feelings of a tiny number of men and boys who are unhappy about being male and want everyone else to pretend they are female."

I don't agree with this.

Bras have a very specific function - they support breasts, so yes, they are for girls and women.

Can men/boys wear them? Yes, of course. But I do not see why we would need to make unisex adverts for bras so that a very small proportion of males do not feel policed? 🙄

Oh good grief, what made up outrage!

I thought the same.

Except that men who choose to wear bras do so as part of their fetish. I for one don’t want the clothing designed for females to be co-opted to feed a fetish.

Fearless young people - absolutely dreadful tone of voice for a brand already seen as staid.

Fearless young things - still a bit cringe, a staid brand at least trying to find a slightly younger ToV.

You have to be fearless to brave the changing rooms at M and S, knowing how men are literally getting of on women’s underwear.

Because they’re terrified of being cancelled if they didn’t…

Agree. There are plenty of things to be upset about in the realm of women and girls, but this doesn't strike me as one of them.

My eyes have rolled so far back in my head that I think I need a lie down.

I might be overthinking this but I think that the hook is David Bowie "Oh! You pretty things". Probably not a great plan to use a 50 year old song without actually referencing the song.

I don't think it s misogynistic. I'd have been quite happy to be called a "young thing" as opposed to a "young lady" or a "young girl". I don't think it's suggesting that boys can wear them too.

So you get breasts and become a thing?
A play thing?
Idiot marketing, think we need a rebrand to M&Sogynistic