sexism is alive and well in deepest Surrey

[baratron]

Seen on a van today:

Handyman Home Services
Why get a husband when you can just hire one?

Um... even bearing in mind that I've been bitching lately about Richard not getting round to doing DIY, I'm not even going to start on what's wrong with that advertising slogan.

Comments

[judiff]

theres a van/company near near that's called daial a hubby and says "anything your husband can't or won't do we will"!
It also had leaflets for it's specail deal for pensioners that said about "anything your dad can't or won't do for your mum" which is just yucky

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I know I've seen that kind of advertising around here too occasionally. Yuck.

[hatter.livejournal.com]

Maybe they had a matching set of advertising offering to let you hire women to do what your wife wouldn't, but had to stop them due to high call volumes not relating to the activities they intended to offer ?


the hatter

[ailbhe]

You're just bitchy? I didn't even see it first-hand, and I feel violent.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Dial A Hubby is even worse, imo. And the bit about pensioners is really ick. Not least of all because relative lifespans mean that there's every possibility that the reason your Dad or Grandad can't do something for your Mum or Grandma is because he's died already!

[baratron.livejournal.com]

My initial reaction was kinda mitigated by the fact I thought it would be quite a good slogan in another context... but then I was thinking about it further in the shower today (as you do), and I realised that not only is it demeaning towards women (as in, women need a husband or a handyman to get certain jobs done), it's also offensive towards men (implying the only reason a woman might want to be partners with one is because of the manual labour he could do). So now I feel fairly violent as well. Fortunately, I have a long crowbar here, so despite my lack of physical strength, the lever principle means that if you have any nails that need taking out of walls, I'm your girl. It also doubles as an assault weapon when people insult my intelligence.

[hattifattener]

coincidentally I ran across this news story just now: (I'll do the things your wife won't)

There was an SUV ad around here a while ago with a similarly annoying tag line. Something along the lines of the SUV doing more work than your husband will. (File under "cars as penis replacements"?)