posted
I'm not sure I like the new M & S adverts. I don't know what irks me about them but they seem to be a bit like "Hey I'm Twiggy and I still look the fucking business. When you wake up next to me in the morning you'll be ecstatic. Just think of it. 50 years old and still looking banging. See me frolic with girls at least half my age. So what if I've got a funny speech impediment, you'd wank the liver spots off your forehead if I was bent over your dishwasher" and it's all so joyous and bullshit. Actually I am hammering the keys harder for any fifty year old who thought a trouser suit was going to make them feel better about themself.
posted
O look - I'm nearly at 7000 posts. I'd better come up with something better than whatever it was that Thorn pulled out of his ass at 7k.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: The tabloid I read in the barber's today described Twiggy's cardie as 'iconic'.
Aaargh. You don't want to hear my periodic rant about the use of the words "icon" and "Sienna Miller" in the same sentence do you? It's generally illustrated with images of Marlene Dietrich in slacks, Marilyn Monroe over a grating, Madonna in a cone bra (and muscles) and someone or other wearing the postwar New Look.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: When I say 'non-conformist' I suspect I mean people like me who object to be being targeted aggressively by vendors that are explicitly hunting the (early) thirtysomething fashion pound, and who therefore gravitate towards fogeyish or unfashionable marques out of a vague feeling that they're doing so in a somehow ironic or self-aware way.
No, OK... you're bang on the money there. I thought you hadn't quite nailed me but now I see you have.
posted
There's a poster for car insurance plastered on many of London's billboards at the moment. It reads, "Have you heard the one about women drivers? They get cheaper car insurance."
OK, so it's a bit shit, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, the name of the company advertising its policies is sheila'swheels.com And there's a picture of a pretty, pink Penelope Pitstop sports car. You know, for girls.
Obviously the 20-35-year-old female demographic is a mystery to me but, to those plucky girls who are brave enough to learn to drive: insuring a motor vehicle is obviously a tough, boys kind of game; would you feel safer buying insurance for your gigglemobile from a company that sounds like it should be a garage on Ramsey Street?
posted
When I first passed my test I insured my clapped out Escort 1.1 (with added plastic spoiler ) with Diamond - who made a big hoooo haaaaa about how women drivers are safer and lesser premiums blah blah blah. It was alright the first year but the premium went up loads on renewal so I've given up with them since.
Personally I honestly find it hard to believe that women can be better drivers after seeing some of the mums on the school run in the morning...
H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
According to Diamond's blurb (yes I'm a Diamond gal too) it's not that women are better drivers or even that they have less accidents - it's just that the accidents that they have cost less to repair as (apparently historically due to us little women being relegated to hearth'n'home and not being the breadwinner) we only had little prangs on the school/supermarket run and didn't have multi-vehicle motorway pile-ups when on our non-existent power-business journeys. Since the dynamic in the work/home gender split has moved away from this traditional interpretation in recent years, it falls to be seen whether the cost per claim statistics will continue to show a similar gender bias in the future.
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
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quote: If there were statistics saying Africans were less reliable at paying off debts than Europeans, would we as a society allow banks to automatically refuse people from Africa mortgages? Of course not (well certainly I wouldn't anyway). Would we refuse renting a house to a German because they're more likely to start a war with us (and statistically, looking back over history, they are)?
quote:Next, there's the taunting of men in the advert. The one pictured is just one example from a series. Most of them tend to depict men attempting to dress up as women in order to get cheaper car insurance. This is really waving the injustice of insurance discrimination in the face and deliberately trying to offend men with it. What kind of advertising is this? Isn't this also offending transvestites? Making a mockery of something that is extremely natural to some people. Would this kind of blatant taunting be tolerated if it was directed at women, or ethnic minorities? Of course it wouldn't be (and neither should it be). It feels to me like the company is trying to be deliberately devisive, in an attempt to separate women from men further, presumably because this will make women more likely to buy things from companies ran exclusively for women, like, oh, Diamond. These stupid, selfish people are trying to take society in exactly the opposite way to how it should be going. Shouldn't we be trying to integrate and harmonise social groupings together, rather than attempting to pull them further apart? We're all human beings, after all.
Perhaps if this dude spent more of his time at 10p-a-pint night, glassing squaddies and fucking women hard in the fanny - and did less bitch-whinging on the internet - he'd feel secure, even happy, in his maleness.
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quote: Would this kind of blatant taunting be tolerated if it was directed at women, or ethnic minorities? Of course it wouldn't be (and neither should it be).
Well, yes it would be - and is. Like those Nuts (or is it Zoo?) adverts that go "Don't expect any help on a Friday because your boyfriend's going to rape you with a hammer!", or the one with the Rum in it that's got all the Jamaicans in it, trying to buy a melon.
posted
Don't forget the Lilt advert where two black men refer to white people as 'Lobsters' because of the colour of their skin.
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quote: Would this kind of blatant taunting be tolerated if it was directed at women, or ethnic minorities? Of course it wouldn't be (and neither should it be).
Well, yes it would be - and is. Like those Nuts (or is it Zoo?) adverts that go "Don't expect any help on a Friday because your boyfriend's going to rape you with a hammer!", or the one with the Rum in it that's got all the Jamaicans in it, trying to buy a melon.
quote:Originally posted by Roy: Don't forget the Lilt advert where two black men refer to white people as 'Lobsters' because of the colour of their skin.
Yes, but a woman still can go into a shop and buy Nuts if she happened to feel that deranged.
Also, Lilt and Bacardi do actually allow white people to buy their drinks.
Even YORKIE (which they say is "not for girls") can be bought by people with vaginas, and not necessarily ones over the age of consent.
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Your comparisons are flawed.
At that point the guy in question is explicitly referring to the taunting, and the portrayal of men in the adverts, rather than the fact that he can't partake in the service.
However - for the exclusion thing, how about the scouts? Or the freemasons? They don't let women into their clubs.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: At that point the guy in question is explicitly referring to the taunting, and the portrayal of men in the adverts, rather than the fact that he can't partake in the service.
It's not quite the same though. The Nuts advert for exmaple is not portraying the woman as desparate to buy the magazine, and then laughing at her because they won't allow her to buy it.
Not: "You really want to buy this but you can't. Ha!"
But: "If your boyfriend buys this, he won't do DIY"
quote: However - for the exclusion thing, how about the scouts? Or the freemasons? They don't let women into their clubs.
I think there's a difference between a club choosing who it wants to include as members and a business refusing to sell a product or service to a certain part of the demographic.
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posted
This really has nothing to do with either marketing demographics or sexism. It's to do with insurance companies' calculation of risk, which as has been sensibly pointed out before I'm sure, doesn't discriminate about who it discriminates against.
Insurers will turn you down for having had an HIV test (although I think there's now legislation which means that you don't have to disclose this). They will say you can't get travel insurance if you're pregnant, or will charge you a fortune if you've got an existing medical condition etc. etc.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Your comparisons are flawed.
At that point the guy in question is explicitly referring to the taunting, and the portrayal of men in the adverts, rather than the fact that he can't partake in the service.
However - for the exclusion thing, how about the scouts? Or the freemasons? They don't let women into their clubs.
I thought that the Freemasons now let women in? Or is there some 'brownie' like freemason group for the ladies?
-------------------- If Chuck Norris is late, time better slow the fuck down Posts: 2741
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: It's not quite the same though. The Nuts advert for exmaple is not portraying the woman as desparate to buy the magazine, and then laughing at her because they won't allow her to buy it.
Not: "You really want to buy this but you can't. Ha!"
But: "If your boyfriend buys this, he won't do DIY"
No - it's not literally exactly the same advert, but the tone of sexist mocking is the same, and it was this 'taunting' that the guy was talking about.
quote: I think there's a difference between a club choosing who it wants to include as members and a business refusing to sell a product or service to a certain part of the demographic.
You'll have to expand on what that difference is, because I can't see it myself. I don't see how it's that different to a bank refusing a loan to someone because of their post-code. A business isn't obliged to take people on who are likely to cause them to lose money.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: A business isn't obliged to take people on who are likely to cause them to lose money.
Would you mind if a chain of "whites only" shops opened in towns across the country, perhaps quoting that statistically black people are more likely to steal their goods?
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Even YORKIE (which they say is "not for girls") can be bought by people with vaginas, and not necessarily ones over the age of consent.
Your comparisons are flawed.
This is only because a girls' version has been released, in pink packaging of course.
It's all a bit silly really. Are they saying Yorkie is too chunky for girls? If I had a girlfriend who couldn't get a Yorkie in her mouth I'd be well miffed, know what I mean fellas?
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: A business isn't obliged to take people on who are likely to cause them to lose money.
Would you mind if a chain of "whites only" shops opened in towns across the country, perhaps quoting that statistically black people are more likely to steal their goods?
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Would you mind if a chain of "whites only" shops opened in towns across the country, perhaps quoting that statistically black people are more likely to steal their goods?
The difference is that shops aren't in the business of assessing the financial risk of a particular demographic poses and tailoring their products accordingly. All insurance companies/ banks/ credit card companies will go through the same process of assessing your risk according to age, income, gender, area etc. All this particular insurance company is doing, is choosing to focus on a particular tranche of the market. Ethically speaking it's no worse than anything Endsleigh, for example, do it's just that they're a smaller company focussing on a smaller part of the market. They only sell women's insurance. They don't have any products for men, like a women's clothes shop wouldn't have any products for men. I'm sure Sheila's Wheels would be happy for you to ring up and arrange car insurance for Kellifer.
To map this onto the retail sector, the parallel would be - say - a cosmetics shop which only sold skin products that suited white women. I can't imagine anyone would complain too hard about that - they just wouldn't shop there. Instead of whinging about it, they'd go to one of the millions of outlets that sell a product they can actually use.
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![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
) with Diamond - who made a big hoooo haaaaa about how women drivers are safer and lesser premiums blah blah blah. It was alright the first year but the premium went up loads on renewal so I've given up with them since.
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