Happy Women’s Day, South Africa! So, Bic is really bad at women.
Bic continues to have trouble talking to women.
The pen maker, which was the object of ridicule a few years ago for its absurd “Bic for Her” pens, failed spectacularly in South Africa this week, posting a tone-deaf ad on social media for national women’s day that drew swift criticism — and soon led to an apology.
The disastrous ad? One that encouraged women to, among other things, “look like a girl” and “think like a man.” (#HappyWomensDay, y’all!)
I’m assuming that as we think like a man and work like a boss, we’re supposed to write like a woman with our special lady pens.
Bic initially attempted to smooth things over by deleting the ad and posting a lovely fauxpology to anyone who took offense, because again, Bic is really bad at women.
We would like to apologize to all our fans who took offense to our recent Women’s Day Post. We can assure you that we meant it in the most empowering way possible and in no way derogatory towards women. We took the quote from a “Women in Business” blog site. The blog site explains the quote and what its intentions were when it was written. BIC believes in celebrating women and the powerful contribution women make to our society.
Then they deleted that and replaced with an actual apology saying that they “completely understand where [they]’ve gone wrong” (one can only hope) and that all feedback is being closely considered to “ensure something like this will never happen again.”
Of course, the ad inspired plenty of parodies that are way more entertaining, evocative, and — I think — inspiring than the original, so maybe that’s somewhere Bic could start.