From Sociological Images comes a report that is, apparently, not a joke: Australian IKEA opens a Manland to drop off men who don’t want to participate in shopping.
My reaction is something like this:
- What the fuck? Xbox and football sounds way more fun than furniture shopping. I WANT TO GO TO MANLAND. Can we institute this policy in every store my mom likes, except name it Ozyland and have a pile of crappy Lovecraftian fantasy novels instead of the Jurassic Park video game machine?
- Why the hell wouldn’t you just leave your dude at home if he’s not going to help pick out shit?
- Nice job erasing all the men who actually like furniture shopping.
- Maybe I can sue to have Manland opened to people who are not men? After all, it’s very discriminatory. Lots of people hate shopping! Including me! No, especially me! And sometimes IKEAs don’t have bookstores near them and my mom still wants to go inside them!
- Why doesn’t the man get input into furniture decisions? It’s his home too, you know.
- No, seriously, nice job equating men and toddlers. That’s not insulting at all.
- Maybe if they expand this to the United States and I wear my baggy shirt and don’t talk everyone will think I’m a dude and let me into Manland so I don’t have to go furniture shopping.
- Holy heteronormativity!
- They give the women a buzzer so they remember to pick up their husbands and boyfriends after thirty minutes. Because… men can’t be trusted to find their wives on their own?
- No, seriously, they took the buzzer idea from the children’s room in IKEA. They literally seem to think men are overgrown children.
- “Whinging dudes”? Listen, dude, lots of people hate furniture shopping, but furniture still has to be bought and you have to have some input too.
- Maybe I can pass as a gay man? Fuck, no, gay men like shopping. Goddammit I’m going to be forced to actually shop for shit.
- “Darling, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s a Chinese family in our bathroom.”
- “IK-EEEE-AAAA (IKEA!) Selling furniture for college kids and divorced men! Everyone has a home, but if you don’t have a home you can buy one there!”
- Why are things that would be horrifically offensive if directed at women somehow okay if you direct them at men? Equating women to children is not okay; equating men to children is also not okay. Gender egalitarianism fail!
- Maybe if I put a mustache on, scratch my imaginary balls and pretend I know what a “down” is in football…
I remember one of my cousins, who isn’t in the habit of examining societal roles very closely, talking scornfully about his friend’s excitement over being given carte blanche to decorate his room. My cousin was very quick to shove the paint chip-wielding boy back into the male gender box. It was kind of heartbreaking in a “let me tell you how I kicked a puppy today” way.
@AB: Of course, if they want to. What I find difficult to relate to in regards to men, is that many of them seem honestly disinterested. Even when you ask them what they think, you often have to work hard just to pull some kind of opinion out of them. But if you respect their show of disinterest as genuine, people will portray you as some domineering screw who wont let her man have any say. It’s like it doesn’t have anything to do with your actual actions. About a year ago, at a dinner at my parents’, the phenomenon… Read more »
“And I think that sex workers are perfectly nice people doing a needed profession and really do not deserve to be compared with IKEA’s marketing departmet. ” You know I find I never ever use that word for sex workers. They do honest work and they deserve respect for that. Renting oyu body for a while is one thing but harsh epithets should be reserved for selling your humanity. “Jim: I think you misunderstood my syntax. In the English dialect of Lolcat, “X, ur doin it rong” means that some unspecified you is doing X incorrectly.” Syntax? “Punctuation is the… Read more »
I remember that “chuck out your chintz” marketing campaign. I never saw it as having anything to do with femininity or masculinity, and everything to do with taste. At the time, most other furniture stores were selling pretty hideous shit it has to be said…
Jim: I think you misunderstood my syntax. In the English dialect of Lolcat, “X, ur doin it rong” means that some unspecified you is doing X incorrectly. 🙂
And I think that sex workers are perfectly nice people doing a needed profession and really do not deserve to be compared with IKEA’s marketing departmet. 🙂
“Simon: Ugh. Feminism, ur doin it rong.’
No. I’m not going to blame a kidnap victim. IKEA marketing knows what buttons to hit. Whores. No blame on feminism on this from me.
PC: Maybe the buzzer goes off so the man can check whether the chairs are comfortable? Or so he can shop for his Man Cave. *nods seriously*
Simon: Ugh. Feminism, ur doin it rong.
“Y’know what was really annoying from a while back in Ikea? Chuck out the Chintz! Like anything effeminate was an affront to NU WIMMINZ!!! ‘
Why did IKEA have it in the first place? Chintz and anything effeminate, or feminine for that matter, is unSwedish. They manage very well without it. Chintz hardly goes with their traditional Zen-like folkart sensibility.
“Of course, if they want to. What I find difficult to relate to in regards to men, is that many of them seem honestly disinterested. Even when you ask them what they think, you often have to work hard just to pull some kind of opinion out of them. ”
Being an interior decorator is seen as a woman’s job, and if men do it, they’re defacto considered gay, like hairdressers and fashion designers.
So having an opinion could be discouraged by this kind of climate, where having any means you’re less masculine.
oh! (lightbulb)
Y’know what was really annoying from a while back in Ikea? Chuck out the Chintz! Like anything effeminate was an affront to NU WIMMINZ!!! (Yeah, Ikea as Feminism, this was a few years back, and in the UK)
So yeah, that was terrible.
@Xakudo: “Totally agree. And as long as the arrangement is sufficiently agreeable to both partners–regardless of what that arrangement is–awesome. I have no complaints. But there are inequitable circumstances that can arise that are often difficult for men or women (depending on which situations we’re talking about) to properly object to due to social norms, etc. And not having a fair say in how the home looks, feels, and functions can be one of those circumstances for men.” I totally agree. I just think it’s important to not walk into the trap of using patriarchal reasoning to justify complaints like… Read more »
Err… that should be “price of admission”, not “price of entry”. Close enough, but might as well correct myself.
@AB: No it couldn’t. When people are married, or even just move in with their romantic partner, they usually end up doing non-paid work for each other, often of a kind which enables the other to focus more on their paid work. Totally agree. And as long as the arrangement is sufficiently agreeable to both partners–regardless of what that arrangement is–awesome. I have no complaints. But there are inequitable circumstances that can arise that are often difficult for men or women (depending on which situations we’re talking about) to properly object to due to social norms, etc. And not having… Read more »
The buzzer thing pisses me off more than any other part of the Manland concept, I think. Does Ikea think women become so crazed in the presence of consumer goods that they literally forget their husbands exist, or do they think that men are such drooling fucking morons that they lack the capacity to text message their wives after a little while going “Where are you? Are you almost done?” I picture a scene in which Ikea is closing and all the customers are gone…except for one guy sitting disconsolately on the floor in the middle of Manland. A motherly… Read more »
Heteronormativity, the idea that women aren’t threatening and my general cuteness have combined such that no one will believe I’m looking at girls’ tits as long as I do it half-discreetly. Except my friends. They’re onto me. (Note: I approve of the right to check out the body parts of anyone you find attractive, as long as you do it half-discreetly.) My wife does this all the time, any time. Her elbow in my ribs is a good sign that I’m about to see someone very pleasant to look at, but we’ve had a lot of short, whispered arguments. I’m… Read more »
So, Teh Menzezez supposedly hate to shop at IKEA? News to me. I work within 2 miles of an IKEA. Guess where I go to lunch occasionally? Guess who still had batteries when the recent hurricane shoppers emptied out all of the stores in Northern Virginia? I’ve been to IKEA enough to know exactly where they were in the Potomac Mills store (endcaps in lighting) and got all I needed to replenish our flashlights when the entire East Coast had no “C” or “D” cells left. I have a list of codes for several pieces of furniture that I want… Read more »
“My point is this: I imagine you would not feel entitled to disallow a piece of furniture your boyfriend wanted, even if you didn’t like it, as per my example. No?” No. I brought some of my own stuff, but minimally, not to disturb his stuff (he was here first, too). And the furniture mostly was there before, and his. I’d never feel entitled to decide unilaterally what we buy, unless I paid significantly (not necessarily 50%), and he gave me his right to choose of his own volition. Then again, I’m indecisive a lot, so I’d rather it be… Read more »
I am a girl, I hate shopping, especially at Ikea where it’s a big maze packed full of people like some nightmare amusement park with no bloody signs to tell you where your rides are so you have to walk through the whole thing just to find what you need. This was a PR stunt, for sure, but I’m annoyed that a)people are going to do this and b) the guy/girl guy/guy couples that will do it are letting one person off the hook for buying shit that is supposedly for a shared space. It’s like the 50s, men drive… Read more »
@Schala: “@AB Even if we admit that some couples are 50/50 on earning, the stereotype is that 100% of the interior decorating is the woman’s decision. It could be justified if they often earned 100%, but they rarely do.” No it couldn’t. When people are married, or even just move in with their romantic partner, they usually end up doing non-paid work for each other, often of a kind which enables the other to focus more on their paid work. The statistics from the USA which I’ve read all appear to agree that the gap between the sexes widens after… Read more »
@Schala: I am not trying to shame people who are unable to work. Even if someone doesn’t have the issues you listed, they can still have a hard time finding or keeping work for other reasons. And I strongly believe that people can have whatever relationship arrangements they want, as long as it’s with the full blessing of both partners. My point is this: I imagine you would not feel entitled to disallow a piece of furniture your boyfriend wanted, even if you didn’t like it, as per my example. No? In other words, I’m not trying to make a… Read more »
@Xakudo While my boyfriend currently doesn’t work. My various issues (social anxiety, no experience, only high school, being trans, hangup over phoning, and problems working directly with the public, no car or license for financial and fear* reasons) make it unlikely to find work that would be anywhere near meaningful or permanent enough (if I get a job and lose it next month or so, unless I find a job within a week or two, I’ll have less money than welfare, because of the delay in processing the welfare demand, and the fact that 1 month’s pay covers 2 –… Read more »
My brother graduated from college about a year ago, and landed a job that pays quite well. He and his wife got a fairly nice apartment. My brother has a bean-bag that he wanted to keep, but my sister-in-law wouldn’t let him, because it was old and run-down looking. It still functions fine, but she couldn’t stand having that thing around now that they were making a good living. I could see her point, but it was like… one thing. She had say over everything else. And my brother felt this was important. But she somehow vetoed it, and it… Read more »
Well, I’m not going to delete people’s comments for violating mod notes that I hadn’t said yet. That’s unreasonable. I skimmed her comments and didn’t see any blatant personal attacks; I’m quite sorry if I missed one and will spamfilter the comment posthaste. I’m sorry you have problems with AB’s view of Nice Guys, but talking about it on this thread is both (a) off-topic and (b) likely to lead to yet another awful comment thread where everyone’s yelling at each other. However, we do have an open thread AND one of Noah’s threads that has derailed itself into being… Read more »
Yeah, ok, Ozzy. Let her personal attacks and shit stay up, but whine at me for defending myself. Leave her Nice Guy shit up too, while your at it, even though it makes me feel personally attacked.
I don’t tell people in other countries what their words mean. That’s freaking obnoxious. If AB wants to speak for that insignificant little speck of a country she calls home that’s fine, but she has no right to make demands on the rest of the world or make everyone’s experiences her own.
Put me down on the record as a girl who fucking loathes shopping.