Update: A version of this post also appeared here in the Independent

As we all know, life as a women is spent mostly worrying about being bloated, and shoving endless tubs of yoghurt into our faces in an effort to remove said bloat. Women bloody love yoghurt. Other things women bloody love: salad, ryvita, muesli. The only things that make our banal existence worthwhile are grabbing a glass of chardonnay with The Girls, and that secret bar of Galaxy chocolate we’ve got stashed away in our secret hiding place. You know, the one we like to take out & felate from time to time.

But sometimes I think advertising marketed at men is even more patronising than advertising marketed at women. Every single product consumed has to somehow be a tiresome test of your masculinity. CAN YOU EAT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S FUCKING MASSIVE?? CAN YOU LIFT THIS THING EVEN THOUGH IT’S IRRITATINGLY CUMBERSOME?? HOW MANY BLADES DOES YOUR RAZOR HAVE??? ONLY FOUR?! WHAT A WUSS, MINE HAS SEVENTEEN.

(I think my favourite product name for Gillette razors has to be the Gilette Fusion Power Phantom. It has five blades and probably roars. The female equivalent is the Gilette Venus Spa Breeze, which is apparently “infused with a white tea scent”. Hey, Gillette? Fuck off. If I want a cup of tea, I’ll have a cup of tea.)

The most hilariously over-the-top version of man-marketing is on products “traditionally” seen as appealing to women. No man wants to feel feminised and subjugated by a cleaning product, after all. So whereas women shower to RELAX and INDULGE, men shower to be INVIGORATED and ENERGISED. Just the thing to set you up for a day of climbing rocks and punching other dudes!

Personally, I shower because it’s socially unacceptable for me to be mucky and smell weird, but I guess that’s a pretty radical stance.

REAL MEN DON’T SMELL OF BERRIES. REAL MEN SMELL OF FENNEL & BRICKS.

In the shower today I used an exfoliating scrub (not mine, I hasten to add) for men, which was called ROCKFACE. The Rockface brand is an impeccable example of patronising man-marketing.

Here’s the blurb for the exfoliating scrub:

Exfoliation is not just for girls! When your face is exposed to the elements every day, your skin can get clogged up with dirt, pollution, dead cells and general grime.

EXFOLIATION IS NOT JUST FOR GIRLS. How dare you question my gender identity, face cream?! I AM MAN. HEAR ME SCRUB.

The website homepage has a scrolling marquee featuring pictures of (yes, really) a man rockclimbing, an EXTREME SPORTS MAN skydiving, an EXTREME SPORTS MAN windsurfing, and some blokes on a rugby pitch. Amazing.

It also features “The Man Blog”, which it describes as “A monthly man blog for men about manly things”.

A monthly man blog.

For men.

About manly things.

WHAT.

I think that probably the thing that I like best about this advertising campaign is… its subtlety?

Cereals are another biggun in the “PROVE YOUR MASCULINITY” stakes.

All Bran for women. Feeling bloated? Sluggish? All Bran can set you up for the day and give you the energy to do all those chores your bastard husband can’t be arsed to do. Why not try it with some yoghurt? Delish! All Bran for men. MAN BRAN! MASSIVE CHUNKS OF BRAN SO HUGE YOU CAN BARELY FIT THEM IN YOUR GOB! THIS CEREAL TRULY IS A CHALLENGE! IT’LL RIP YOU UP ON THE WAY OUT!

These are not real blurbs, but I think what they tell us about advertising is true. If you would like to use them for your own cereal marketing campaign, please feel free to drop me an email. I daylight as a copywriter.

Here is an actual real thing that Jordan’s Cereal marketed in 2008:

MACHO MUESLI. None of your namby-pamby muesli here, thank you. Check out that manly font! REAL MEN USE CAPITAL LETTERS! It also looks a bit like a pot noodle, which is pretty canny of them; from a distance, none of your bros will realise you’re actually eating gay-ass muesli.

Jordan’s don’t actually sell this anymore, so the website for it (www.menandmuesli.co.uk) has disappeared, but you can still access it via the Wayback Machine (sidenote: I bloody love the Wayback Machine, it is amazing).

Once we started looking, there seemed to be few really healthy role models for real men, the sort of bloke you could meet for a pint in the pub, the sort of man like Mike Tindall. So we thought we should start a campaign to encourage men like you to eat better, to stop relying on your mum, girlfriend or wife to do the shopping and cooking for you and to get in shape.

BLOKES DRINK PINTS. WOMEN DO SHOPPING AND COOKING. I’m not sure who Mike Tindall is, but Google tells me he is some sort of rugby player, and thus exactly the type of person everyone hindered by a cock should aspire to be. He also has two criminal convictions for drink driving.

So that’s nice.

This sort of gendered marketing is doing no one any favours. It makes everyone, women and men, look like complete idiots. As a consumer – which I unfortunately must be, and cannot fail to be – I don’t particularly enjoy being pandered to and patronised, according to my gender. And it’s so insidiously ambient now that we barely notice it. And the thing is, you guys… the thing is, I don’t even LIKE yoghurt that much.

I’ll let Riley have the last word.