stoopid body shop

[keryx]

I went to the Body Shop (not a car repair place, the fair trade/no animal testing bath product store) this weekend, and in my bag they left me a flyer enticing me to host a "girls' night out" to earn free products, Mary Kay style.

There are a couple of issues with the "girls' night out" concept. First there's the semantic one: isn't it really a night in if it's at my house? Second, what's with this "girls" thing? Really, couldn't a company as generally liberal as the Body Shop have just called it a "Night Out" (or "Night In", more accurately) and avoided any hint of sexism or infantilizing women? Would it have been that hard?

I expect that other people have called or emailed to voice the same question I voiced, since the website talks about guys and groups as well as girls, as opposed to their stupid flyer, which is all about slim, poreless, slightly ethnicly diverse middle class women having a girls' night (as are the pictures on the website).

This is not a condemnation of single-sex entertainment or of women calling each other girls, but seriously. Such a small thing they could have done to be better and more attuned to their mostly liberal audience.

Comments

[varsil.livejournal.com]

Might be that they have different flyers that they hand out... a guys' flyer for the guys, a girls' flyer for the women, and a group flyer for couples/groups of friends/etc.

I'm not saying they do, but it's entirely possible.

I also don't have much of a problem with the girls/guys thing. "Girl's night out" is a term in common provenance, and it'd have hurt their marketing to call it something more odd. Considering this is a test marketing thing, where they're just getting their foot into the water here, expect them to do the usual.

Then again, I'm also not a big fan of the Body Shop. I find the place toxic to be near (I don't agree with all the scents).

[keryx.livejournal.com]

re: your icon, jesus hates me?!

you're right - it's entirely possible they have different flyers or something, though i doubt it.

from a test marketing perspective, you'd think they'd stick with things that were more "tried & true" to their main demographic, though. maybe i just think their demographic is more ragingly liberal than it is.

[varsil.livejournal.com]

Re: Icon, it's not specific to you, it's from an amusing webcomic. http://www.meninhats.com/

And I don't know, there are a lot of raging liberals who won't really have a problem with it. I don't so much. It's not used in a deprecating fashion, it's just borrowing a common term.

I'd say they get no points for being progressive, but nor do they lose points for being regressive. It's just entirely expected.

[riotkat.livejournal.com]

so you going to host it? ;)