{"id":50649,"date":"2012-08-28T11:31:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T16:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=50649"},"modified":"2012-09-04T16:19:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T21:19:00","slug":"is-there-any-product-we-wont-gender-hint-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/08\/28\/is-there-any-product-we-wont-gender-hint-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Is There Any Product We Won’t Gender? (Hint: No)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Note: The last item on this page might be NSFW in some workplaces; it’s behind a jump, but if you came to the post directly, be careful about scrolling down past the raincoats.]<\/p>\n

Seven readers — Aneesa D., mouskatel, Brandi B., Lisa B., Jared B., Tom Megginson (of Work that Matters<\/a>), and sociologist Michael Kimmel<\/a> — all let us know about the attention Bic’s “for Her” pens have been getting, so I thought it was a good day for another round-up of the many items we have decided must be differentiated into versions for men and women. We’ve featured pens like this before; Bic’s are designed just for us ladies and our special pen needs, which apparently include the colors pink and purple and “easy glide” and “smoothness”:<\/p>\n

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The pens are for sale on Amazon<\/a> in the UK, and they’ve inspired a lot of push-back over the gendering, with people writing reviews mocking the product and its packaging. Buzzfeed<\/a> featured a number of the reviews, which highlight the way that internet marketing certainly helps companies, but also opens up more avenues for the public to complain about or ridicule products in a very direct, immediate way that can quickly attract others to do the same — a much faster form of complaint than the days when you had to write a letter to a company’s headquarters:<\/p>\n

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But don’t worry, guys! There are products just for you, too! J.V. is happy to report that there’s now a<\/del> hair dryer for men, called the Man Groomer<\/a>. After all these years of wishing you had some way to quickly dry your hair the way women can, a solution is at hand:<\/p>\n

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And Sean discovered that Planters is helpfully now selling cans of mixed nuts that are specifically chosen to support men’s health. Obviously women may eat almonds, peanuts, and pistachios separately, but when combined, these form a magical Man Food that addresses men’s unique needs for protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber:<\/p>\n

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UPDATE: Reader Kat says,<\/p>\n

The Men’s Health on the can of nuts is because they are a product the editors of the magazine Men’s Health<\/em> felt were a healthy option…The can of nuts aren’t gender specific they are just boasting their “award” of being well liked by the editors of this particular magazine. No different than when any other product has the label “recognized by *fill in the blank* magazine.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other gendered products news, Jessie L. noticed these face masks for sale in Taiwan. They are different sizes, but instead of simply presenting them as Medium and Large, for whoever might need those sizes, those size differences are clearly connected to expectations about gender. They’re differentiated by color, by the person shown wearing each one, and the pink package even has a heart-shaped hole that lets you feel the mask.<\/p>\n

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Similarly, Joonas L. saw his-and-hers versions of disposable raincoats for sale in Helsinki, Finland, and couldn’t see anything different about them except the color and the use of language (miesten = men’s, naisten=women’s) to explicitly gender them:<\/p>\n

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Finally, Megan C. pointed out an example of gendered personal lubricant. The exact same product it “Tush Eze” when it’s pink and features a woman, but “Anal Eze” in the blue bottle featuring a man. I’m putting it after the jump, just in case it’s not safe for some workplaces:<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Note: The last item on this page might be NSFW in some workplaces; it’s behind a jump, but if you came to the post directly, be careful about scrolling down past the raincoats.] Seven readers — Aneesa D., mouskatel, Brandi B., Lisa B., Jared B., Tom Megginson (of Work that Matters), and sociologist Michael Kimmel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-50649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50649"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50661,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50649\/revisions\/50661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}