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15-10-2014, 18:13
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I wasn't going to comment on this. But I started leaving a comment on someone else's blog and it started getting a bit too long so I thought I should stick it here instead.

In case you haven't heard: CAMRA, quite reasonably, would like to recruit more young people. To help do so, it produced and distributed a leaflet for use by university real ale societies. Some people who saw the leaflet were offended by it (http://www.rowanmolyneux.co.uk/camras-sexist-young-members-leaflet/), finding it sexist. One even started a petition to have the leaflet withdrawn (https://www.change.org/p/the-camra-chairman-and-directors-stop-distributing-the-sexist-young-members-leaflets).

The outcry was a success. CAMRA has withdrawn the leaflet and apologised 'for any offence caused', defending its actions by revealing that sizeable numbers of young men and women were consulted on the design (http://www.rowanmolyneux.co.uk/camras-sexist-young-members-leaflet/#comment-12709), and liked it. Crucially CAMRA's statement stops short of acknowledging that there was any real justification for people to be offended.

It's a classic beer industry ding-dong. Now the offending leaflet has been withdrawn and CAMRA has admitted that they 'got it wrong', some on either side think it's time to let the matter drop. But with opinions ranging from not seeing what all the fuss is about to wanting to burn CAMRA's offices to the ground, it's not going to go away easily.

It's important then that before we move on, everyone - especially CAMRA - needs to acknowledge what the problem is.

Everyone I've shown the leaflet to - mainly people outside the beer industry and with little interest in either CAMRA or CAMRA-bashing - has been appalled by it.

Whatever your views on sexism (or not) the women are highly sexualised and stylised, whereas the bloke in the top picture is just wearing an ordinary T-shirt. That gives a very clear contextual suggestion that the sexualised women are there for the ordinary ale-drinking bloke's delectation.

The front of the leaflet is sort of better in that both the man and woman are dressed in the same period costume. That would make it forgivable, were it not for the fact that in the pose, the man is physically possessive of the woman. You see, it's not just the clothes: in both sets of images, the women are portrayed as being subservient to the men.

The picture of the woman on her own shows a pose I have never seen a real woman strike when she's drinking a pint. Again, it's highly stylised, highly sexualised, and clearly has its roots in the imagery and shapes of Burlesque dancing.

Burlesque has been championed by some women as empowering, but ridiculed by others as 'middle-class stripping'. If a woman wants to dress like this, stand like that or even take her clothes off in public, she has every right to do so, but the choice is hers.

The problem here is that the women shown are presumably there to demonstrate that women drink real ale too. The reason CAMRA wants to communicate that message is that CAMRA, real ale and beer generally are still seen as being male-dominated. This broader context again reinforces the suggestion that these women are not empowered, but are here as eye candy for the lads.

There is still a great deal of sexism in the drinks industry, and real ale is no exception (http://pumpclipparade.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/cottage-brewing-company-new-balls-please.html). I've just been working at drinks trade shows where young women were leered at and openly complemented on the merits of their tits and arses, sometimes by senior figures in the industry. Every female real ale drinker I know has at some point been subject to sexist comments for daring to drink real ale.

If these tasty birds had been in a Foster's or Carling ad, or in a lad's magazine, few would have defended their use as anything other than lairy, laddish titillation. If they'd been in an article about beer in Cosmopolitan magazine, I think they would have caused less offence, but I suspect ale-drinking women would still have seen them as condescending and patronising. Context is all.

In the recent Cask Report (http://caskmatters.co.uk/category/cask-reports/), one of our main and most widely repeated headlines was that real ale drinkers no longer agree with the statement that 'real ale is not a drink for women or young people.' But nearly half of all publicans still DO agree with this statement.

The industry is behind the times when it comes to gender equality and relations with women. Someone in CAMRA - even if they personally felt the leaflet was fine and operated within the style and tone of contemporary studenty imagery - should have realised that it was simply too risky for a supposed consumer champion to use. If I try to tell my female friends that beer has thrown off its sexist image, as we were trying to suggest in the Cask Report, they could simply bring up this leaflet and laugh in my face.

It's good that CAMRA reacted so quickly and withdrew the offending article, but the damage is done. And what still upsets those who complained is that, while the organisation genuinely did not want to cause offence, it doesn't seem to understand why it did.

More... (http://petebrown.blogspot.com/2014/10/sexy-or-sexist-this-is-not-just-camra.html)