British retailer Marks & Spencer is copping heavy backlash over what’s been described as a sexist and tone-deaf Christmas window display.
The display at a Nottingham store is basically a foul juxtaposition from the mindset of a misogynist.
On one side you have gift ideas for men titled “must-have outfits to impress”, featuring a photo of model David Gandy wearing a suit alongside mannequins donning mens shirts, suits and coats. Ya know, all the odds and ends a well-dressed bloke would want for Chrissy.
And on the other side you have present ideas that guys seemingly want women to be gifted with, titled “fancy little knickers”. The model in the photo along with the three mannequins wear nothing but lingerie because apparently women exclusively want knickers and absolutely nothing else this Christmas.
Credit: Twitter
WHO signed off on this, I’ll never know, and I’m betting said sad little person has become v. unpopular with the powers that be at the high-end company as the offensive display has garnered international criticism and is being labelled as “vomit-inducing” for normalising “damaging” gender stereotypes.
Shopper Fran Bailey first posted a photo in the Facebook group Feminist Friends Nottingham, with the comment: “Ok, M&S Nottingham, have we really not learned anything in the last 35 years? Or am I alone in finding this, their major window display, completely vomit inducing?”
While she believed in the rights of everyone to wear “whatever they want”, she said she objected to the window for both its “normalisation of damaging gender stereotypes through the juxtaposition of images of women apparently obsessed with ‘fancy little knickers’ with images of fully clothed men being ‘dressed to impress’ in suits”, and also the slogan “must-have” when “huge numbers of Britons are struggling with poverty”.
The controversy has since gone viral on Twitter:
To be clear: @marksandspencer believe that the ‘MUST HAVES’ are:
For MEN: ‘outfits to impress’
For WOMEN: ‘fancy little knickers’
Imagine for a moment if those window displays were reversed.
Go on M&S …. we are watching.PS Who signed this off? #sexist #marksandspencer pic.twitter.com/XOqLUSElgd
— FiLiA (@FiLiA_charity) November 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/stefanpaetow/status/1064844608885145600
Disappointing marketing from #Marks&Spencer: “Men must have smart suits to impress” and “Women must have fancy little knickers”
Impressionable on young men and women with wrong message! pic.twitter.com/5bK9mRae2u— Charlotte Percy (@charlpercy) November 21, 2018
https://twitter.com/RealVHS_Archive/status/1065230151489851394
https://twitter.com/Feisty_Female/status/1065209826974797824
