Bags of fun for boys and girls
Everybody loves a freebie, says conventional wisdom. Organising the Freshers’ Fair, YUSU officers must have reasoned along these lines when they accepted the offer of 3,000 promotional bags from a marketing firm. However, in a neat testament to the unfortunate truth that you can’t always keep everyone happy, the branding and contents of the bags caused internal rifts when they arrived, which quickly spread to the rest of the student body.
The objections came in two flavours. The first took issue with the way in which the bags were divided – colour coded pink and blue – to cater supposedly for male and female preferences. The very fact of this division is a controversial piece of sexual politics: the idea that the sexes can be so neatly divided in their tastes is, on a strict understanding of equality, an affront to the idea that men and women should be treated equally.
There is a reasonable response to this line, and it goes like this: although the colour-coding might be crass, it’s reasonable to think there might be some things that are more desirable or useful to men than women, or vice versa. To say this isn’t necessarily to posit an inequality, but simply to assert a difference. Cellulite cream, featured in the pink bags, is marketed to women. The magazine FHM, found in the blue, is marketed to men.
What is less easy to defend is the content of the bags themselves. Cellulite cream is a product from a lucrative industry thriving on certain assumptions about female beauty, and whatever you might think about the cosmetics trade, marketing it at new students, not all of whom necessarily have a positive view of their bodies, is blatently irresponsible.
It’s also true that FHM promotes a male culture driven by machismo, actively identifies heterosexuality as the only acceptable lifestyle choice, and is often accused of objectifying women. Furthermore, it isn’t just offensive to one sex: plenty of men resent the signals it sends out about male culture.
The issue is not one of restriction or censorship. Men’s magazines will be sold as long as people buy them. Their promotion at a freshers’ event is a different matter. The fault does not lie with YUSU, expect perhaps for the sin of omission in not carefully scrutinising the deal beforehand. Rather, it lies with those who aggressively market such damaging products.
This is surely a good opportunity for all those who felt that the giveaway was irresponsible to make the opposing case, as many already do: that students should seek out and support causes, organisations and companies that promote a positive view of sexuality, one that leaves no-one feeling ignored.
