Women’s Month in South Africa now means 4 weeks of pink pens and ‘lady steaks’
"Think like a man. #HappyWomensDay."
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — It's Women's Month here in South Africa. The history is impressive: On August 9, 1956, more than 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria against racist "pass laws" being extended to black women. The march was so significant in part because it involved women of all races, challenging the white government together — a rare thing indeed.
South Africa now celebrates August 9 as a national holiday, Women's Day (not to be confused with International Women's Day, March 8, also celebrated here). The entire month of August, in fact, is dedicated to women, marked by a variety of government events — a trade fair for women's crafts, a symposium on labor issues, a symbolic march against human trafficking — and other worthy campaigns.
Unfortunately, Women's Month has also come to mean four weeks of obnoxious, often sexist advertising directed at women. Take, for example, this ad by Bic — makers of ballpoint pens — in which women are told to "look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, work like a boss."
The ad was posted on Bic South Africa's Facebook page and later taken down, with an apology. But Bic didn't seem to see the problem with this ad, also posted to Facebook August 9, which celebrates women with pastel-colored "Miss Bic" pens:
The issue here will be familiar to anyone who's thought critically about the marketing of products like women's razors or girls' toys.
Last year, your correspondent received this flyer, from a real estate firm, in which women are praised as fabulous because “a woman eats about 2-3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime” and “women spend nearly one year of their lives deciding what to wear”:
South Africa is, after all, the realm of the "ladies' steak" (meaning, a smaller size):
As opposed to …