by John McMahon
Recently, Ryan O’Hanlon at The Good Men Project Magazine (a site about which I have complicated thoughts and feelings) highlighted an effort by cosmetic product super-giant Proctor & Gamble to test “men’s only” shopping aisles, because, you know, men freak out if they see tampons and pink stuff.
From a TIME post on the experiment:
Though aisles were once grouped by product, not gender, the ladies’ beauty products would now also have their own separate aisle because men and women behave differently in stores.
“Men are buyers and not shoppers,” said P&G’s general manager of male grooming, Thom Lachman. “They want to get the shopping done.”
The idea behind this separation seems to be based on the idea that men are freaked out by women’s products, and are therefore less likely to spend time perusing items. […]
Extra bonus: they can also ditch their lady friends while they’re browsing. “Neither [sex] likes to shop for personal grooming items with the other one right on top of them,” said Lachman.
Then there’s this Boston Globe article, in which we learn that Duane Reade, Target, and other chains are experimenting with similar plans, tropes about metrosexuality are alive and well, that women shopping for their men appreciate the ease, and that the traditional product organization was “emasculating.”
Where to begin? How about the celebration of traditional gender stereotypes:
- Men and women have absolute shopping patterns independent of the the shopping experience is constructed
- Men cannot handle seeing tampons, hair removal products, pink stuff, lots of soap
- Men are purpose-driven and rational, while women dither about, are fickle shoppers, and, you know, love shopping
- Men and women are unable to shop together
- Women are really the ones that care about their apperance
Of course, all of these stereotypes are assumed to be true, not conditioned by gendered discourse or the gendered organization of society…you know, like this crazy scheme.
Unfortunately, O’Hanlon engages in some similar chuckling at gender stereotypes as well:
Maybe, though, it is embarrassing for some guys to buy grooming supplies in front of women. If the “men’s only” aisles make shopping easier for them, then I’m all for it. As long as guys are buying body wash and shampoo, it means they’re showering. And that, my friends, is always a good thing.
Not only can men not look at tampons, apparently they’re all dirty and smelly and hate bathing too.
There’s also the implicit assumption in the plan, and the coverage of it in these two articles, that men need to protected from the emasculating activity of shopping for products for their appearance and presentation. As Gwen Sharp at Sociological Images has pointed out, this sort of discourse that “ridicule[s] men for being insufficiently hetero-masculine” permeates advertising (see also Sharp’s roundup of stereotypes of masculinity in advertising).
Finally, there’s the way in which this plan signifies the the perfect alliance between capitalism/consumerism and gender stereotypes. The primary concern for the companies involved in the experiment is to make sure that men buy more stuff.
To recap, men – it is inevitable and not at all socially conditioned that you can’t handle seeing tampons, or shopping more generally, so in order to make you buy more stuff, companies and stores are going to segregate your grooming products. Just don’t think about it too much.
facilegestures 
It’s confusing to me that men shopping for products aimed at men is somehow emasculating…shouldn’t that make you more manly? To be expressing your masculine identity? Regardless, I think that gender grouping occurs already. As an adult woman with no children, I still have to walk down the diaper aisle in order to buy tampons. I want to buy my items as quickly as possible because I hate shopping (gasp!) and honestly it is more efficient to group items by similarity and not gender. So when I go to look for body wash, I expect ALL the body wash to be in the same place.
…and let’s not forget that in addition to all this, this gender dimorphic capitalism is FAR more concerned with protecting men from an emasculating experience than they are with the ways capitalism, gender stereotypes, marketing, etc pit society against women, women against women, and women against themselves. No one’s made a peep about the dehumanizing of women that is intrinsic in our patriarchal capitalist system.
Forgive me for noting, also, that men–I hear ya! I HATE walking down an aisle full of flowery, pink, sometimes-scented (!) tampons. It makes me feel a little confused and ashamed of myself, too.
I recently scoured an upstate grocery store looking for angostura bitters so that I could serve guests Manhattans before dinner. I found a bottle, eventually, shelved among the various brands of dog food, flea collars, and kitty litter.
My point is this: Marketers direct almost all packaging and product placement at women — including the most masculine products — on the assumption that women shop and will buy Axe Body Spray (and other gendered products) for their husbands, boyfriends, sons, etc. Inter-gender hygiene products or inter-species cocktails? It’s all the same, and we don’t usually notice the contrasts unless some hapless (insightful?) stock boy in the Catskills thinks that bitters are pet food.