Today's Social Justice Warrior Update: Kleenex to ditch Mansize tissues after gender inequality complaints
Here it is, today's moon-bat story of the day. Man size triggers product consumers setting women's rights back 200 years with Man size Kleenex! Oh the horror of Mothers, Wives and Daughters oppressed by the Misogynistic Tissue! I wept after watching the commercial, I have two sisters, a Mother and a Wife. How could they do this to them? How Dare They! Do they think all women man sneeze?
And the story:
T he UK's most popular tissue brand, Kleenex Mansize, has been forced to clean up its image after consumers complained its name was sexist.
After more than sixty years Kleenex is phasing out the Mansize tissues name, deciding instead to call the disposable handkerchiefs "Extra Large" tissues.
Kimberly-Clark, which owns Kleenex, said it succumbed to growing public demand to change the name, despite not itself believing that the Mansize branding suggests or endorses gender inequality.
It comes amid a wider backlash against unnecessarily gendered products, with consumers and campaigners criticizing manufacturers of razors, pens, confectionary and other products over "outdated" gender stereotyping.
The Advertising Standards Authority, which regulates adverts, has also said it will ban those that encourage gender stereotypes, such as women cleaning up after their family, or men failing to do housework.
I t conducted a year-long inquiry which found some adverts were portraying "potentially harmful" gender stereotypes.
Sam Smethers, chief executive at feminist campaign group, the Fawcett Society, praised the move, saying: "Rebranding mansized tissues is not to be sneezed at. Removing sexist branding such as this is just sensible 21st century marketing. But we still have a long way to go before using lazy stereotypes to sell products is a thing of the past."
Kleenex "For Men" tissues were first launched back in 1956 when cotton handkerchiefs were still widely used, with the claim that they "stayed strong when wet".
In 2009 Kleenex released a television advert which showed men including actor Tom Hardy and former England manager Sven Goren Ericson crying.
At present the renaming of Mansize tissues is only impacting big boxes, but compact boxes are due to be rebranded next year.
A spokesman for Kimberly-Clark said: "Kleenex Mansize tissues have been on shelves for the past 60 years. Over that time, the brand has always been characterised by a much larger tissue size, which is both soft and strong.
"It was launched at a time when large cotton handkerchiefs were still very popular and Kleenex offered a unique disposable alternative. Despite that our consumer service is registering consistent increase of complaints on gender concern related to Mansize subbrand.
"Kimberly-Clark in no way suggests that being both soft and strong is an exclusively masculine trait, nor do we believe that the Mansize branding suggests or endorses gender inequality. Our Mansize tissues remain one of our most popular products, with 3.4 million people buying these tissues every year.
"Nevertheless, as we remain committed to developing the best possible products for our consumers and take any feedback extremely seriously, we decided to renovate our current product and update the product subbrand as Kleenex Extra Large."
I'd like this opportunity to offer sympathies to anyone who might have been offended to the offensive term used in this article "Man size".
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Don't panic. They just want to sell you something.
I never saw these kleenex. If I had, I would have bought them. I produce a lot of snot when I have a cold or an allergy attack
Holy Mackerel!
When i sneeze, 6 is the minimum, 8 average. LOL.
True story.
I can sneeze non stop for 15 minutes. It scares the cats
Oh no.
I would laugh, except I have an idea what it's like...especially when driving...Eyes Open.
Hahaha,
Reminds me of twisting the word mendacious when joking with my daughter when she was young. Mendacious, girldacious, 220, 221, whatever it takes.
I've seen my BF use paper towels or blue shop towels to blow his nose. Apparently it's a testosterone thing.
Blue shop towels are best. They are softer than paper towels too.
The blue shop towels are good for cleaning windows, and if they are folded in half they make a decent replacement for Swiffer pads if I forget to put them on the shopping list.
ZEP's foaming aerosol is the best window cleaner. That stuff could clean a dead buzzard off the windshield without leaving streaks.
Trout - U.K. product....were you guys stationed there?
Not sure why this moved to another place in the comment chain.....
Actually, it promotes gender equality in the same way that Black History Month promotes racial equality. For decades men have had to suffer with Woman-sized tissues as being the standard. Finally we didn't have to sit in the shadows to blow our noses, but now they want to take that away from us.
I don't even want to GUESS what the NEXT target of the overzealous PC warriors is going to be.
Okay, I GOT it. The next target for the ultra-PC Social Warriors will be the English language. For example:
manpower -> personpower
manicure -> personicure
manifesto -> personifesto
manslaughter -> personslaughter
manhood -> personhood
woman -> woperson
doorman -> doorperson
omen -> opeople
humanity -> hupersonity
human -> huperson
The capitalized universal word "Man" -> "People"
Willie Loman in the movie Death of a Salesman will now be known as Willie Loperson.
Roman Polanski will be required to change his name to Roperson Polanski.
The speech from the moon will now be known as "A small step for [a] person, a giant leap for personkind."
Use this new language or be attacked by the ultra-PC Social Justice Warriors.
Another one of life's little oddities, seems to be an epidemic of odd lately.
I grew up in Dutchess County, New York.....I wonder if it will have to be called '2nd Tier Non-Gender Specific Royalty County now'?