Global stationary giant Bic has attracted the ire of the world’s social justice warriors for telling women to “Look like a girl, Act like a lady, think like a man, work like a boss” in a promotional image distributed for South African Women’s Day.
Initially it appears that social media users thought the graphic was a hoax, but Bic was forced to admit its error and apologise following outrage from The Sunday Times (South Africa), which wrote: ““Look like a girl?’ Because the infantilisation of women and the sexualisation of children is exactly the kind of blurred line we need!”
British feminists quickly jumped on the bandwagon, almost further insulting South African women by insinuating that they couldn’t look after themselves.
Caroline Criado-Perez tweeted, “What fresh hell is this?” paraphrasing the U.S. satirist Dorothy Parker.
Bic took to their Facebook page to apologise, stating: “Hi everyone. Let’s start out by saying we’re incredibly sorry for offending everybody – that was never our intention, but we completely understand where we’ve gone wrong. This post should never have gone out. The feedback you have given us will help us ensure that something like this will never happen again, and we appreciate that.”
But it appears that most people didn’t care – with responses from South African women also reading, “Storm in a teacup! Really if this offends your ‘gender’ them you’re very thin! Pathetic” and “You actually did nothing wrong, giving-in to bully lesbians will be like feeding parasites, soon they will be calling for donations. There was nothing wrong with the ad, these feminists have created the worst sexist ads like the ones running on tv by “insurance company called 1st for women”, projecting men as brainless creatures, even charge them more for car insurances.”
Bic’s post has attracted just 68 likes, and 15 shares on Facebook, despite attention being drawn to it by the Guardian, Huffington Post, the Independent, and the Daily Mail.