Note: This “Moore to the Point” commentary aired on NewsTalkSTL on Wednesday, October 19th. Audio included below.
I’ll confess: I’m not a huge makeup consumer – and the makeup I do wear tends to be garden variety, meaning I can readily pick it up at the grocery store or drug store or Target – wherever I happen to be shopping. So, it’s rare that I find myself shopping at Ulta.
It will likely be even rarer now.
The beauty giant made a seriously bozo marketing move last week , managing to alienate a significant portion of its customer base. You see, the company, whose target audience is obviously women, decided to highlight a podcast episode featuring two biological males made up like women tweeting it with the headline: “Trans Girls Can Do It All!” (Punctuated by the clapping emoji between each word–just so you know How. Much. They. Mean. It!)
Look, I’m a big fan of the “You do you, I’ll do me” approach to most things. But even I find the whole premise absurd. Call it “mansplaining” – or “transplaining” – no matter how you package it, it’s insulting to women — and the infantilized “girl talk” more than a little disturbing.
Not surprisingly, there’s been swift pushback – with #Womanface trending. So much so that Ulta resorted to turning off comments on the thread.
Guess they don’t really like hearing women roar?