Big Fridge Aspirations

Oh, hurry up and die you pair of coffin-dodgers

Moving on from last week's ponder about products tackling the epidemic that is female bloating, the 2010 "John Lewis Always a Woman" campaign made me want to put my foot through the telly.

I don't have a problem with John Lewis - apart from I couldn't afford to buy a packet of buttons in there - but I do have a major issue with the way women are still portrayed in the media.  Before I stumbled into Geekdom I was a marketeer and I can spout endlessly on about demographics, leverage points, brand linkage and semiotics.  And I'll tell you what that particular advertisement says to my little brain:  "You're a woman.  Aspire to a big fridge".

Yup, 2010 and despite the leaps forward in equality and eliminating sexual discrimination (equal pay is still bollocks btw), women becoming confident with their sexuality, women forging careers and getting through the glass ceiling  - that's what John Lewis think we women really aspire to: a big fucking fridge.

So never mind securing the best educational and professional qualifications you can, working damn hard for a successful career,  earning your own money and paying your way, being a competent parent and contributing to the community - what you really want out of life is a humungous fucking fridge.

My parents had three daughters and they taught us that our gender wouldn't hold us back - we could go into the world and become whatever we wanted.  I went to a single sex school and picked up the same message.  Only 30% of IT employees in the UK are female - I'm one of them and I work damned hard and can hold my own in an otherwise all male department.  Why are things going backwards?  Nuts magazine, WAGS, being a size 8, Big Brother, X Factor, Katie Price, boob jobs, FHM, MTV...  When did everything become about tits and fridges???

I don't aspire to a big fridge.  What I really want is an Aston Martin DB5.

 

Bifidus Culture - Bollocks

Fuck Off Martine McCutcheon

I appear to have missed the point in time when the most common topic of conversation between female friends became constipation.  Watching television advertisements recently it appears that we should all be suffering from some kind of bowel complaint or at least "feeling bloated".  And then talk about it in front of your friends just before you stick your face in a plate of pasta.

I can't recall ever discussing this subject coming up at a girly-gathering - and if it did it wouldn't be fucking yoghurt that was prescribed by those present.  More likely you'd be told "Get some bloody Guinness down your neck and have a bag of pistachios.  That'll clear you out.  Now shut moaning". 

 

The ad/marketing agencies are making assumptions about what women are talking about.  Handbags?  Solar panels?  Buying nutritionally-crap food in Iceland?  Stain removers?

My social circle is made up of well educated, intelligent and hard working women with some disposable income.  Rather than arriving at a lunch table and announcing "I'm bloated" before sinking into a chair like Gillan McKeith, we're more likely to stagger in and offer: "Sorry I'm late, I had to catch up with Match of the Day because I was out last night shagging that bloke from the kebab shop".  Typical topics of conversation are:

Match of the Day
Would you shag Alan Hansen?
Soccer Saturday
Not going to the gym

How much free alcohol we managed to inveigle from a venue last week
Aiden Turner's arse
The latest brawl you kicked off in a petrol station
Whippets
Shagging.  Not relationships.  Shagging.
Rugby - and in particular why Wales are so shite 

Infuriating parents
How to get pissed in Majestic Wine for free

Dr Who
The scandalous price of fags

Nobody is whipping out blister packs of medication and looking wan.  We're far too busy leching at some passing barman or waiter.  So do us a favour Martine McCutcheon, take your Activia and do one.