Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Oh Come On Now

It is chocolates for Pete sake.

A conservative newspaper is claiming that we are protesting a chocolate company making gendered chocolates.

  • Chocolate company is slammed for making 'boy' and 'girl' flavours that are blue and pink – because it doesn't take transgender people into account
  • Whittaker's Coconut Ice Surprise blocks come in blue and pink colours
  • Campaign raises money for children's charity, contributing 20c for each block
  • Activists, academics have criticised promotion for excluding non-binary gender

Daily Mail
By Ben Hill
18 February 2019


A chocolate company has been criticised for its latest promotion - as activists and academics claim it excludes transgender and intersex people.


Whittaker's Coconut Ice Surprise blocks come in blue or pink colours - representing a 'boy' or a 'girl' - and are a special product designed to raise money for children's charity Plunket in New Zealand.


The campaign has been criticised by academics, activists and on social media for not considering intersex, transgender, gender non-binary and gender-fluid people.
[…]
RainbowYouth executive director Frances Arns said although it was good that 20c of every bar sold was going to charity, the campaign was still 'disappointing'.


'It's a shame that they used a binary notion of gender, which is erasing many of the identities that exist in the rainbow community,' she told Stuff.


The Whittaker's promotion was inspired by 'gender reveal parties', where expectant parents hold a special ceremony to announce whether their child is a boy or a girl.
This is a big ado about nothing.

And they also brought in a spokesperson for intersex people,
Intersex university sociologist Sarah Hendrica Bickerton said she likes Whittaker's as a company but doesn't appreciate the campaign.

'I get  that they were just trying to have some fun and Plunket does an amazing job so it's really good they want to support them. But if you place the campaign in a wider context effectively it is excluding a whole range of people,' she said.
Maybe they can make one trans chocolate trans in every 200 that they make and one in a thousand intersex.

One thing I learned in life is that you pick your battles and this is not one of my battles. My battle is not eating chocolates and I don’t care if the chocolate is pink or blue (frankly I don’t find pink or blue chocolate appetizing).

What about you, what do you think?

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