BIC comes under fire for failed women’s day advert

Bic has posted apologies on both social media platforms and withdrawn their original Facebook post.

Bic’s post has attracted just 68 likes, and 15 shares on Facebook, despite attention being drawn to it by the Guardian, Huffington Post, the Independent, and the Daily Mail. Act like a lady? Because the infantilisation of women and the sexualisation of children is exactly the kind of blurred line we need! Because narrow, straitjacket social scripts about “proper” ladylike behaviour is precisely what emancipation was all about. “This is because women who know how to position themselves are more successful”.

This is not the first time that Bic has been accused of sexism.

Bic’s Wandile Setlhodi says it was a quote from a women in business blog site and was meant to be empowering and not insulting.

“So basically this post, it was not meant to be offensive in any way because we had intended it to be empowering and in no way did we want to offend anyone”. The blog site explains the quote and what its intentions were when it was written.

Unsurprisingly, the company faced a backlash on social media with the seemingly innocuous brand receiving a barrage of criticism for the marketing material which stated that women have to “think like a man” to get by in the business world.

Unfortunately for the brand, attempting to deflect blame by pointing out that it simply stole the quote from a third party and then mindlessly shared it isn’t proving to be an effective strategy.

“Hi everyone. Let’s start out by saying we’re incredibly sorry for offending everybody – that was never our intention, but we completely understand where we’ve gone wrong”, read the apology”.

This seems to be landing them in more hot water.