By Sharanya Gopinathan
The primary frontier of the struggle for women’s rights is apparently food and bev.
Back in July 2017, a Prague-based company apparently forgot that women invented beer in the first place when they launched their new, expensive “women’s beer”, which came in a dainty pink bottle and was meant to have a taste that was “adapted to the elegance of women”. In January 2018, Reba McEntire became KFC’s “first female Colonel Sanders” in an American advertisement, joining a long line of male American celebrities who had donned the costume in commercials. Just earlier this month, Doritos, which is owned by PepsiCo, announced their plans to bring out lady-friendly Doritos corn chips that were more in keeping with women’s demands for less audibly crunchy and messy chips. And now, Johnny Walker’s joining the party!
Stephanie Jacoby, vice president of Johnnie Walker, said in an interview to TIME Magazine that the label was planning to bring out a limited edition of their scotch with a female version of its iconic striding man logo, to be named Jane Walker. Why? Chumma, it’s 2018, what else is there to do?
Actually, Jacoby provided some boring logic about girly drinks and said that the move was because “scotch as a category is seen as particularly intimidating by women, and that this would be “a really exciting opportunity to invite women into the brand.” They also plan to donate 250,000 (one dollar for each of the 250,000 bottles produced) to charities working on women’s issues.
It of course sounds like the laughably obvious marketing stunt that everyone on social media is calling it out to be, and possibly a bid to address market research that women drink their product less than men. But’s impossible to believe that a move based firmly on the premise that women are afraid of scotch could be rooted in principles of gender justice, but unfortunately, this is probably just the beginning of a whole spate of moves we’re going to see from various corporations and companies eager to trade their seemingly women-friendly credentials for your money. The #MeToo moment is barely a few months globally, but companies are already doing what they do best, finding ways to translate the mood of the moment into easy money.
Johnnie Walker’s new move is supposed to be accompanied by two other substantive changes. The brand’s board will be 50 percent female by April, and they’re also “calling on advertising agencies to put forward at least one female director as part of any work pitch”. The former option has its share of proponents, and the latter sounds useful in theory, but also very much like a random nod to female representation (and a demand made of external firms working with Johnnie Walker, not an internal change) at a time when Johnnie Walker badly needs to look comprehensively feminist for PR’s sake.
It’s not a bad thing that brands taking women’s needs and feedback in mind when designing their products, and perhaps it could be useful to see more female representation in general in all kinds of media, even brand logos. Plus, there are indeed those who believe that having more women in board rooms is an important feminist victory. But let’s not make the mistake of assuming that Johnnie Walker is doing this for us. If they were, we’d be seeing explorations into what exactly is stopping women from drinking scotch (besides crippling intimidation), and try to address those fronts, instead of merely slapping on a female logo and letting it walk. Johnnie Walker is doing this for Johnnie Walker and its profits, and we can merely enjoy whatever benefits it may accidentally accrue us.