About a month ago I emailed both Sainsburys and Tesco, following it up with tweets, about the gendering of magazines. It seemed wrong that New Scientist, Photography, NME, The Economist and Private Eye sat in ‘Men’s Interests’ sections while women had the 3,738 fashion and beauty mags as well as knitting and cooking mags.
Tesco were the first to respond, telling me via tweet that they were passing this up to central management:
It took a while for anything else to happen, but a week later I got an email from Sainsburys saying that where they were refurbishing or creating a new store, they would cease to gender their magazines.
Fabulous. I mean, I would prefer it if they spent the small amount of money printing new labels for the plastic holders on their magazine racks and replaced them all NOW, but that’s because they have a lot of stores, and seeing this every day still makes my head hurt and fear for young girls who go in and subconsciously learn that science and politics are not for them and that they should concentrate on being pretty while cooking.1
But Tesco still haven’t replied properly. Nothing more except another tweet to BadRep saying management are looking at it. And now, the Everyday Sexism Project (@EverydaySexism on Twitter, and you can also check out the hashtag #everydaysexism) is really helping out – drawing attention to the gendered labels in a local store and retweeting those pressuring @UKTesco to take some form of action.
What would be even better would be for more of us to email them. And while you’re at it, email Sainsburys too and ask them to put their hand in their pocket to start making the changes now, so we don’t have to look at this sexism everyday. It’s just not good enough.
- Ed’s tiny note: Or indeed the boys who learn to compartmentalise “knitting”, for example, as “for girls” – certainly some proud male knitters have commented on this site in the past!
A few days after we received the post, one chain emailed Lizzie back. We’ve added the email into the post so you can see CUSTOMER SERVICE IN ACTION.
And if you have a guest post brewing in your brain, you know what to do: pitch us at [email protected].
Image: Flickr user Toban Black (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/)
The Problem
Dear Tesco and Sainsburys,
Can you please cease categorising The Economist, New Scientist, Private Eye, and the Spectator as ‘Men’s Interest’ magazines? I think you’ll find all genders are interested in politics and business. You are perpetuating the myth that women only care about (because they are valued for) their beauty.
While I accept (but hate) that a large proportion of women read Cosmo and Marie Claire and Good Housekeeping, I think that a large proportion also watch the news, vote, work, and may be interested in reading The Economist from time to time. You don’t segregate papers (although papers themselves, with their Femail sections, and Style sections, also start pushing my buttons). Why the shit have you determined that certain topics are not for the eyes of women?
Women still suffer unequal pay way before they think about maternity leave, and this is part of the same problem – you are saying that business and politics (something we are all involved in, one way or another) is purely the domain of men.
Sort this out immediately, please. It’s patronising and misogynistic. Actually, can you please also remove film, photography, game, cars, nature and music mags from the same category while you are at it, as that’s also inaccurate as well? Unless you think women can’t like music, cars, photography, video games, nature and film? I mean, it’s not as if you really think only men are interested in those topics, right? You have to admit that, say, there have been some female musicians, and some women actually enjoy going to the cinema and hey, Diane Arbus existed, and gosh, there are female commuters on the roads.
I’d stick with just Men’s Health if I were you, and even that’s shaky.
Thanks,
Women in the UK
What to do?
To complain to Tesco, please go here. For Sainsburys, here. If we get enough people complaining, maybe they’ll actually listen and change their stores. I mean, if a little girl can get the name of a loaf of bread changed at Sainsbury’s, surely they’re amenable to listening to vindicated complaints by women who are tired of being told to not use our brains and instead just look pretty. I mean, bread name change by photogenic small child must have meant something rather than being innocuous PR in a time of recession, right?
Boom! Progress from Sainsburys!
From: Sainsburys
To: LizzieDear Lizzie
Thank you for your email and suggestion that we reconsider the signage used to categorise magazines in our stores. I understand you feel our current method is dated and we certainly do not want to imply the magazines are gender specific.
Up until now we have used information from publishers, who identify the target demographic for their magazines. We have organised the magazines on our shelves accordingly. We appreciate the points you have made, and have undertaken a review of the signage we use in store.
I am pleased to say that going forward, our magazines will be shown by genre and they will not have a gender prefix. There will not be an immediate change to the magazine sections in all our stores as this will be a gradual roll out replacing the existing signage. This should also address the grammar issues that you kindly brought to our attention.
We appreciate you taking the time to contact us, giving us the opportunity to look into your concerns. We look forward to seeing you in store again soon.
So that just leaves Tesco, from whom, as we go to press, Lizzie is still waiting to hear. Bad form, guys. (Although what Sainsburys mean by “grammar issues” is eluding us slightly here at BR Towers. This is a SEXISM ISSUE.)
Time to get on it, readers! To the Tesco feedback page, one and all.
- Thanks to Lizzie for making a noise and sending us her progress. Have you had a Customer Service Breakthrough or Problem lately? Get in touch and tell us all about it!
NASA doll
…in a Fox News shop of all places.
It’s a female astronaut doll.
Now, no doubt you’re still reeling from that the shock that Fox News – bastion of feminism-hating, Sarah Palin-supporting, “family values” madness – is fielding a toy for girls that encourages them to study science and quite literally reach for the stars.
Here’s another doozy.
Look closer and you will see that – pink casing aside – there’s almost no other “girlification” going on with this toy. Sure, she’s standard issue doll shaped, but wearing a very functional, non-revealing, blue and black NASA jumpsuit. Even the tagline reads as pleasingly gender neutral: “Space Crew”.
And to cap it all off, she’s not even blonde.
Unlike Barbie.
Who when she went to space looked like The Invasion of The Ghastly Metallic Pink Shoulder Pads (clicky the link, but don’t say I didn’t warn you).
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but looks like we’ve got a genuine Found Feminism from Fox News. Wonders will never cease. Feeling pretty chuffed about that, actually – it’s one thing that you can see progress being made from friends, quite another from enemies.
Feminism: to infinity, and beyond!
- Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. What’s brightened your day? Share it here – send your finds to [email protected]!
Real men wear pink, and not much else...
Whilst Christmas shopping I came across this little gem. Part of me isn’t sure how well this sits with the “found feminism” concept. Certainly it isn’t doing much to push back the frontiers of heteronormative dominance within advertising, and additionally the shift in focus from the traditional feminine body beautiful to the masculine version does not challenge expectations of what is sexually attractive, nor the link between money, sex and power.
On the other hand, it does stand out from the usual fare in at least being funny as well as easy on the eye. There’s also a nice knowing nod both away from the standard of “pink perfume is for girls”, and perhaps even towards the idea that being a “real man” could mean more than just having a wider range of colour choices.
If real men can wear pink and perfume and still be real men, then maybe they can do other things formally excluded from them by dint of socially conditioned gender boundaries.
That said, he does have the compensatory pretty lady and amazing abs, so perhaps those things excuse and allow for his momentary lapse into scent and cerise.
What do we think?
- Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. Send your finds to [email protected]!
Needless to say, this sort of behaviour is why I will never be a proper writer or journalist.
“I celebrate Christmas as a practising Christian.”
“I’m originally from Poland. I’m not flying home this year because I don’t have any days off left because of my studies.”
“I am a 23-year-old disabled feminist who lives alone in council housing. I am unemployed due to my disability and spend a lot of my time homebound.”
“Too much to do w/ career/cuts this year to get involved in capitalistic nonsense this year. Merry Christmas!”
“Spending the weekend before Solstice with partners’ parents and the rest of the Christmas time at home.”
“I enjoy pink products! … But ideally, I’d like to be able to enjoy them were I male, too, without negative comment!”
“For various reasons we can’t get to our families, so we’re all doing Christmas together. We’re going to prep the food on Christmas Eve, then have dinner and stockings the next day, and generally be relaxed.”
“I have honestly never really considered Christmas as being stressful for feminists but that’s because my dad was always pretty involved and my partner does a lot of the cooking.”
“I bought a card for my younger brother who is currently working in France because I know he’s getting homesick.”
“Last year I wrote poems for the people closest to me.”
“Will probably end up at my local arts centre, buying quirky crap.”
“I guess I feel the need to try and take some pressure off my Mum because she always seems to get very worked up about Christmas, she has the longest holiday so has always done more of the preparation.”
“The way children’s toys are so aggressively segregated by gender worries me and I often think about how I will work this when and if I have children of my own.”
Thank you to everyone who contributed – either by responding to my emails, phone calls and texts, posting on the survey or pinging me on Twitter. I’m always excited by the range of people who connect with BadRep and hope that you all have an awesome holiday!
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TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
My name is Lily and I’m a literature student, photographer and occasional event organiser of Crimson (a BDSM club) and Peer Rope London among other things. I’m 23 and have been with my boyfriend for almost five years and with my girlfriend for almost four (I’m polyamorous). I’malso pagan, as are my parents; something I don’t advertise overmuch, but which may impact on the rest of this interview. I was born and grew up in London and am very close to my family, who live ten minutes away from us in Wimbledon.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AT CHRISTMAS?
For the last few years, we (my boyfriend and I) have had small Christmas celebrations by ourselves, except for a traditional walk on the common with my family in the morning, then friends have come over in the evening. We usually see our girlfriend the week beforehand for mini-christmasness; she spends the actual holiday with her primary partner. This year, however, we are hosting christmas for the first time for my family (mummy, dad and little brother). I’m cooking, not because I have to, but because I love cooking for people and I get annoyed with other people in the kitchen really quickly! So, we will open stockings, go on our morning walk, open presents, chill out, have christmas dinner. Then more chilling out, a game of cluedo or something and then movies (Wallace and Gromit!), port and bedtime. My family isn’t christian, so it’s never been about religion for us (we celebrate Yule instead); it’s a chance to celebrate the people you love, have a good time and take time out to spend with each other.
WHAT HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
Crabtree and Evelyn rose perfume, chinese flying lanterns, shoes, wallet, a hat, a kigu, a sparkly Virgin Mary, sparkling skulls, a recipe book, a Jedi bathrobe. I still have to get a couple of bits and pieces.
HOW DO YOU BUY GIFTS?
Online if I need something specific, Etsy for beautiful individual items (I usually boycott Amazon, for LGBT and ethical reasons) and other independent shops, but otherwise I pick up curious little things when I see them in the shops. I like shopping for other people.
AS A FEMINIST DO YOU FEEL ANY PARTICULAR PRESSURES OR RESPONSIBILITY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR?
I feel a need to not be gender biased in my present giving. I tend to use Hawkins Bazaar to get a lot of things (like the lanterns, sparkling skulls, etc), because they stock a range of stuff that isn’t gender specific. They’re also great for kids as well as adults. I despise most kids shops at this time of year, when everything is split into pink and blue; Early Learning Centre is a particular horror (and the Pink Stinks campaign highlights this), as is Hamleys with its split gendered floors (one for the girls and one for boys).
Another example of neutral toys made pink...
I actually was horrified by a couple of things in Hamleys, especially its beauty bar for girls, which offers pre-teens manicures etc, and is called Tantrum. And the fact that in order to market something to girls, you should just take the normal toy and paint it pink. But if people ask for something or really love something which is gender specific (rose perfume for example) then I will get it, because that’s about preference not obligation.
AND FINALLY…
I think that a lot of pressure will come from family and social circles at this time of year, more so than the media. I dislike a lot of adverts and articles aimed at “the woman cooking” or “manly gifts”, or “pink for girls, blue for boys”, but I do think it’s starting to get a tiny bit better. Our society is so media saturated, that I don’t even really see or acknowledge most of them nowadays.
Thankfully, my family don’t fight and my parents were always really careful to share the tasks like shopping and cooking (they are both feminists themselves), so I think I don’t see a lot of the feminist issues around the holidays, because I have very little experience of them. Our friends don’t stress us out or insinuate that there is a certain way one should be acting, so I have always found Christmas to be quite enjoyable.
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TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
My name is Oli. I’m a man, and I’m self-identified as a thinker, a pluralist and a liberal socialist rather than a feminist per se. I am all about equality for everyone – my feminism, such as it is, is an acknowledgement of a need to redress an imbalance of power and privilege across gender lines and a desire to be aware of the privilege I have by accident of birth and not be insensible to it or frankly abuse it.
I do think that a lot of how I feel about gender and society has sprung from my exposure to feminist ideas and discourse through my family, social and academic life, not to mention an ongoing interest in engaging with the society I live in. I suppose I would characterise where I come from on the spectrum as really a post-feminist or a “sex-positive” feminist. I’m about to get married and shortly thereafter I’m going to be a father. I am happier now, in my mid-thirties and planning a life with someone, than I have ever been. This is in no small part due to that person being as equally broad-minded, open and thinking a woman as I try to be a man.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AT CHRISTMAS?
We’re planning a quiet, family orientated Christmas with my fiancee’s family in rural Sussex – I am looking forward to it immensely! There will be food, drink, boardgames, Christmas telly, and most importantly from my perspective, a sense of togetherness. We will (briefly) celebrate again with my family on the eve of our upcoming wedding when they get back into the country from spending Christmas with my brother and sister-in-law in Belgium.
WHAT HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
A Kindle for my parents, a laptop for my partner, an array of games/DVDs/CDs/books/hats and gloves for various siblings – that kind of thing.
HOW DO YOU BUY GIFTS?
About half and half online and in the shops – we have done most of it together.
AS A FEMINIST DO YOU FEEL ANY PARTICULAR PRESSURES OR RESPONSIBILITY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR?
I suppose more than anything I would want to avoid cliche with regard to roles in the “Family Christmas” – there is no reason for just the women to cook and the men to socialise – but to be frank my lifelong experience of Christmas has been my father cooking Christmas dinner, in fact dealing with all things distaff over the festive period, so to avoid cliche I would have to inhabit my own personal one.
This year in particular I will be a guest in another family’s idea of Christmas, and while I want to be true to how I feel about all kinds of things, like not just defaulting to giving little girls “something pink” to fighting over the washing up instead of just doing it, I am aware of the fact that I need to bend in the wind of another family’s prevailing wind, if you’ll pardon the dreadful imagery.
Tradition has a funny way of entrenching the most trivial gender bias to the most insidious prejudice; I suppose the particular pressure I feel whenever Tradition weighs in, as it does heavily at Christmas, is to not let it force me or allow anyone else to behave in a way that is inappropriate.
AND FINALLY…
There are many groups of people that get a pause for thought, at least, from me at Christmas; the old, the lonely, the homeless, and in amongst that I would have to say women who have to be all things to all people over this period, all the way through to the women spending what should be a happy time filled with love and family, running and hiding from abuse. But as with any other “time of year” or similar, I always find myself chiding myself for not thinking of such things just on any old Tuesday a bit more often. I suppose what I want to say is that Christmas being a time for reflection as well as joy is a bit of a double-edged sword; after all, a social conscience of any stripe should be for life, right?
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TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
I’m Kate Craig-Wood and I’m a technology entrepreneur. I’m the managing director of Memset, a family business founded and owned by my brother and I. As one of the tiny number of highly successful businesswomen in IT I try to be a bit of a role model and am a big advocate for getting more girls into science and technology where they are much needed!
I’m very aware that my approach to Christmas, and to my domestic arrangements for that matter, are opposite to the perceived (and, in my experience, common) societal norm of the woman doing the bulk of the present shopping. I attribute this in no small part to my upbringing. I am transgendered, and was raised as a boy, though I have always had a female brain. That is the nature of transsexuality: during gestation the brain differentiates one way and the body another.
Kate - minus Christmas hat...
In stark contrast to my sister I was brought up to be confident, assertive, comfortable with being the breadwinner and with delegating responsibilities. This is not to say I have always been in such a relationship dynamic; I’ve often been the “present buyer” in the past, but it does mean I do not feel restricted to that stereotypical role in the way that my little sister appears to. My partner, a student at present and himself unfettered by gender stereotypes, is happy to fulfill that role and I am very busy with work, so it makes sense. I firmly believe that if my sister had been afforded the same sort of upbringing as me she would not feel trapped into the often-stressful role of Christmas coordinator, but instead she struggles to ask her husband for help.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AT CHRISTMAS?
Spending it with my family. Sadly I can’t have children of my own, but my brother and sister have six between them. Christmas is a time for me to spoil my nieces and nephews and usually ends up with me being knee deep in chocolate wrappers and lego!
WHAT HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
I’m fortunate to have a very organised boyfriend, with whom the stereotypical roles are very reversed – I’m the breadwinner and he takes care of the household and “detail”. This means that (with a little input from me) he takes care of the bulk of the Christmas shopping, and I just have to get things for him, my brother and my sister.
I’m showering him with gadgets this year: an Xbox Kinect, a big screen for his office (mainly for gaming), and some fancy headphones. For my brother, a deep intellectual, I’m getting a pile of books, the main being Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science.
The younger kids are fairly easy, especially the boys – lots of Star Wars Lego! Shopping for my older niece (14) and nephew (13) is getting harder, but anything from Superdry still seems to be in young-teen-vogue!
My sister is always the difficulty. A dedicated mum and thus something of a polar opposite to me as the career woman (we often joke how between us we have all the bases covered), there are only so many bits of jewelery, smellies and scarves one can buy her! She has been having a hard time lately, and we don’t spend enough time together, so this year I’ve decided to give her a shopping trip (so I can check she likes the things I get her first) and a spa day, also with me, plus various small bits.
HOW DO YOU BUY GIFTS?
I get the big items online, and leave the rest until the very last minute. Everyone thinks I’m mad to go Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, but I find it works rather well for those stocking filler items. My local town centre is pretty quiet – the shops have plenty of stock since they are ready for the post-Christmas sales, and the time pressure really focuses the mind! Rather than visiting one shop, seeing something suitable, but then prevaricating, it forces one to be decisive then and there.
DO YOU FEEL ANY PARTICULAR PRESSURES OR RESPONSIBILITY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR?
Christmas’s approach tends to be generally stressful. We don’t tend to host over the period, going to those with children rather than them having to move the family to us, so it is not that, but more just a coincidence of deadlines. On the one hand there are presents to buy, which even with assistance I struggle to find time to do in advance, but it is more work and the business of transitioning a company from one financial year to the next with lots of people taking time off in between!
I know I will enjoy the festive period when I’m in it, but as with most holidays, the prospect of stepping away from my desk for a week or two causes undue worry. Since we provide 24/7 services I feel a responsibility to ensure that everything is in order ahead of this break in particular so that my customers and staff don’t end up having any unwanted interruptions to their holidays.
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TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
I’m John, 41 years old, white, middle class, single, hetero, male. I’m not sure if I’d call myself a feminist (due to a number of dissenting views as to whether men can be feminists or not) but I have seen the fnords, am aware of the knapsack I carry and try not to wave my privilege in people’s faces too much.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS?
Normally it would be visiting family – either parents or one of my two sisters and their families. But this year I have to work Christmas Eve and the thought of public transport and a suitcase on Dec. 24th fills me with a deep horror. So I’m going to visit friends in London for Christmas lunch. This has meant that all presents to family had to be dispatched early, so I’m in the enviable position of having bought all my gifts with a week to go.
WHAT HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
I have one nephew and four nieces, plus presents for sisters, parents and close friends. Books tend to figure highly on my present buying (and receiving) and Amazon makes everything easy – especially with wishlists. I’ve tried to stay away from stereotyped presents, but it’s difficult when a 6-year-old boy really wants a Nerf gun and his 5-year-old sister wants a mouse ballerina doll. With my elder nieces who are in their teens, it’s a bit easier – I can have a conversation with them more easily about what I’m happy buying for them. And luckily, neither of them particularly feel the need to ask for stereotypical presents – this year they’ve received iTunes vouchers (because they want to buy games for their iPod Touches) and a watch/clock that’s hopefully ‘cool’.
HOW DO YOU BUY GIFTS?
This year it’s been a combination of Amazon and other internet retailers, alongside the Brick Lane and Covent Garden markets. I like getting people presents that either I know they want (hence the joy of wishlists) or that I see and think “that would be perfect for …”. Almost everything has needed to be posted, which has meant small, durable presents.
DO YOU FEEL ANY PARTICULAR PRESSURE OR RESPONSIBILITY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR?
I’m feeling quite guilty about not seeing my parents, despite their reassurances that they understand and that they’re okay with me not travelling up. It’s something that highlights how different my life is from my dad’s – when he was 41 he had a wife, three kids, and was living in a different country to his parents (one of whom had already died). He didn’t have to travel ‘home’ for Christmas – he was home.
AND FINALLY…
I’m aware that I’m becoming the black sheep of the family. Both my sisters are married with kids; I’m single, run a cabaret occasionally, and still go clubbing regularly. But that gives me a degree of freedom to challenge the way that my nieces and nephew think, in ways their parents might not want to or be able to. I’ve had conversations with the elder nieces about gender specific clothing, kicked off by me mentioning that I’ve worn a skirt and makeup when I’ve been out clubbing, for example.
If I’m going to be the slightly weird uncle, better to use my powers for good, no?
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TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
My name is Stef O’Driscoll. I’m a young award-winning theatre director – I received Best Production at the Fringe Report Awards for my debut play Yard Gal in 2009. I’m artistic director of three companies: Sketchbook Productions, Inner City Theatre and Dirty Stop Out Productions. In my spare time I produce theatre and film. My goal is to make theatre accessible and enjoyable to everyone.
WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AT CHRISTMAS?
I spend Christmas Eve with my dad, stepmum plus brothers and sisters on my dad’s side of the family. We go for a curry at my dad’s local Indian. I then spend Christmas Day at my dad’s house and then I have a second Christmas with my mum on Boxing Day. I’m lucky to have two Christmases!
WHAT HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
Not a lot as I have not had the time to do so yet – and I thought I would be clever and get presents online and then due to weather conditions Amazon still have not delivered what apparently has been dispatched two weeks ago!
HOW DO YOU BUY GIFTS?
Generally I ask what people want and try to get it if I really don’t have a clue what to buy them. I do enjoy getting presents that really suit the person I am buying for. I like to see people get excited or happy when they open presents. I avoid Oxford Street and will most probably leave it until Christmas Eve to get the majority of my presents!
There is a pressure to have money, to get good enough presents and to make up for the lack of time I spend with my family throughout the year.
AND FINALLY…
I wrap my Christmas presents in newspaper.
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