Last weekend we made one of our occasional trips to the Boston area IKEA store, mostly because we couldn’t come up with anything better to do. We don’t ever really need anything at IKEA; we long ago outgrew the assemble-it-yourself apartment furniture (although how we would have loved IKEA twenty-five years ago!), but we always somehow seem to find a cart full of little things to buy. On this trip we ended up with a new shower caddy, two packages of paper napkins, some TV trays (you know, trays for eating dinner in front of the TV), a lampshade, a bag of frozen meatballs, three milk chocolate bars, and a jar of lingonberry preserves. My own personal favorite part of every trip is eating lunch in the cafeteria, where I always enjoy the Swedish meatballs.
Now, the IKEA store in Sydney, Australia, wants to ruin everything by creating a special zone where wives can drop off their husbands while they shop, in the same vein as their “Småland” play area for little kids. They’re calling it “Mänland”, and it’s furnished with sofas, Xbox consoles, and free hot dogs. If this catches on, will I be shunted into this manchild zone, deprived of my meatballs and lingonberries? I actually like wandering around looking at all the furniture with the silly names like “Fäarttunder” and “Tittslåpper”, and I especially love my lunch of meatballs.
The women who author the sociology blog “The Society Pages” have also caught wind of this sexual discrimination, and they are not the least bit impressed, let me tell you. In their view, by treating the men like children, the retailer is also undermining women by reinforcing the message that the men would rather be left behind than spend time with them. So it’s patronizing AND patriarchal at the same time. Plus, hot dogs?
