Oooh, shiny!

Me, I like to read the news. I sit in the morning with my Weet-Bix and rooibos and scroll through South Africa's most recent history. I like a sprinkling of analysis on top of my news, so I tend to avoid sites where the comments are the analysis, and frequent instead noble online platforms like the Daily Maverick. Do I always agree with them, no. Do I sometimes wonder whether they write the news hanging upside-down singing sailor ditties, yes. But generally, I can get behind their general vibe.

This morning I noticed a little icon next to their Facebook link, in that space that used to have a dollar sign and "Love us" for a while. "Taste us" the icon enticed me. Enticed, I clicked and was welcomed by a little black box:

Sigh. Let's look past the generally gendered discourse, and zoom in on just two words: the wife. 

Yes, yes, the ad may be aimed at married lesbians, but that's a fairly niche market. So I'm going to assume heteronormativity on the part of the WineStyle team, and guess that the wife they refer to, is the one married to the husband. Because as we all know, the husband, HEY, he must impress the wife with his business success/financial prosperity/juicy fat wallet. We women, we're easily impressed. A fast car makes us go grrr. A snappy suit, ooh. And a good bottle of wine, Holla Holla we're writhing on the floor. 

The women I know do writhe on the floor when it comes to wine. We love it. We go wine-tasting and wine-buying. We're not experts by any measure, but we know that there's more to a Sauvignon blanc than just green peppers, and that for a Chardonnay to be really yummy, the buttery goodness needs to be balanced with something else. Also, and here's a news story for our friends at WineStyle, we have jobs of our own that fund this luxury. I'm used to having to explain the more nuanced aspects of gender equality to people, but the whole Independent Woman spiel has been bouncing around pop culture for decades. I thought we had covered that ground. Apparently WineStyle, in partnership with the Daily Maverick, missed that bus. So let me spell it out for you: 

Women, like men, can be employed in jobs that compensate them well enough to enjoy the privilege of nice-to-have spending. 

Women, like men, can and do buy things for themselves.

Women, like men, are not necessarily like children and magpies who are easily seduced by shiny things.

Articulating an assumption that it is only men who are able to impress through expressing their financial prowess implies two things. First, it implies that it is only men who have that financial prowess. Yes, women are in general less financially independent than men, and that is something that feminists the world over have been challenging for years and years. We don't need it supported through idiotic advertising like this. Second, it implies that women are easily impressed by their partner's ability to provide... *bang head on desk* It's a tale as old as time this one and I'm not even going to explain the levels of ridiculousness here. If you can't understand, go work for WineStyle, I think they'll have a place for you. 

Tomorrow morning, when I whip out my Weet-Bix, I'm going to give the Daily Maverick the stink-eye, and wonder why in the name of all things vaguely sensitive to gender equality, they haven't done a better job of vetting the advertising of their partners.