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LIFE'S A BITCH: Poster ad enrages working women

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Published Date: 16 October 2009
"Behind here, men earn their Bowtime."
What is the enormous poster for a brand of cider plastered across the side of the still "being renovated" Park Hill Flats trying to say, exactly?

That alcohol is a prize to be earned?

Or is the hoarding actually a sexist statement encouraging the archaic view that only men who work hard for a living are entitled to that bit of me time down the pub, or sitting in front of the telly with a couple of cans?

In an age when drink problems threaten to engulf the nation in a sorry sea of violent post-club brawls, addiction and chronic health problems, it's not a terribly sensitive, or even sensible, message is it? In fact, it's stupid and irresponsible.

If I were a man, I'd be insulted that a band of supposed marketing experts think me so shallow.

Most blokes I know put in a hard day's graft, then head off to pick their kids up from the childminder, or go home to help their partners get tea ready.

Sheffield PR woman Faye Smith is enraged every time she passes the hoarding. So much so, she got a web designer friend to come up with a new version of the poster.

Says Faye, who runs Keep Your Fork: "I appreciate men apparently need their cave, but in our current obese, binge-drinking, unhealthy, divorce-ridden Britain, why oh why do a cider company think glorifying a working man's right to booze his way through the family's budget, ruin his health and looks and avoid precious time with their children is ok?

"And what do women "earn" for often frantically juggling paid work, household duties and childcare/ aging parent responsibilities after a long day? " asks Faye.

"Not a couple of hours in the pub that's for sure. A quick glass of vino at the weekend when the kids are safely tucked up if we're lucky - and haven't been made to feel we are pickling our lives and orphaning our children by the latest report."

I couldn't have said it better myself, Faye!

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  • Last Updated: 16 October 2009 12:08 PM
  • Source: Sheffield Star
  • Location: Sheffield
 
 

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