Is it sexist: a landing-page case study

This may very well be the most self-annoying, sour post I will write this year.

About me (important to read — will help later)

I am the product of a upper-middle class family (step-father and biological-mother), sexually divided responsibilities (motherly responsibilities vs. fatherly responsibilities), one incredibly logical-based biological-father, and four divorces.

I’m an incredibly abrasive and straight-forward person — I will tell you exactly what I’m thinking with little regard for your feelings if I think it’s important for you to hear.

Simply put, I never sugar-coat.

The case study

I launched Squash Tomato on Nov. 1st, 2017, with great intentions. I wanted to alleviate mothers’ responsibilities to do the grocery shopping for what could be a very large family (I grew up from ages 12–16 with a single mom and two half-sisters).

My way of giving back

As I read that last sentence, all I feel is pride. I think, “my mom paid so much forward to me, and even if she doesn’t find a need for Squash Tomato anymore (she is single and only lives with my two sisters, which are pretty self-sufficient), I feel really proud to be able to do what I can for all the other mothers in the world.

The first claim of sexism

So, I hope you can understand my anger and confusion when I received this first tweet about the copy on my landing page:

The way I see it is I was being straight-forward about wanting to help mothers in the same situation my mother has been in her entire life. In my family, the women literally love to cook, unless they’ve been lying to be numerous times of 20 years.

They’ve always been able to work on what they want (career), travel when they want, eat what they want, buy what they want (with their own money and with the money provided by the fathers) within reason (my family was financially responsible). The women have always had the option to do what they wanted, but maybe, as a maturer 23-year old, I can definitely recalls times when they DIDN’T want to cook at night or get up early to make breakfast before one of my athletic events. My step-father and father can cook, and have before, but it’s at least a 20–1 ratio of mom to dad.

The men in my family have worked, and continue to work, no less than 12 hours a day their entire lives, whether it was 8 to 12 hours at work followed by 2 to 4 hours a work maintaining our home (mowing, tree trimming, landscape for my mom, cleaning, weed eating, fixing issues, etc.).

In summary, unless forced, I don’t think it’s unfair to expect one partner to handle a set of responsibilities while the other partner handles another. The only reason I say it that way, instead of mothers handle inside jobs (cleaning, dusting, cooking, shopping, preparing the kids for school, laundry, etc.) and fathers handle outside or physical jobs is because I believe most of the people who have tweeted their disapproval (and we’ll get there) grew up in circumstances where there wasn’t a lot of outside and physical labor to be done OUTSIDE of their workplace. My fathers cut big trees, carried huge logs, pushed wheel barrows 300 yards from our front to back yard, and handled lumber and heavy equipment. This would have taken my mother an enormous amount of effort and time compared to the minutes or hours it took my fathers. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the father wanting a meal to be hot and ready after a 12-hour day of working his ass off, which in my experience, was for the benefit of the family (comfort, lifestyle, travel, eating home-cooked meals, reliable vehicles, etc.).

Everyone generally wants a sense of fairness. For example, I’ve been with my girlfriend for four years and we share ALL responsibilities as equally as possible, because if a week or two has gone by and I feel like I’m pulling most of the weight, I get frustrated and that hurts our relationship, and vice versa, if we’re pulling equal weight, I’m happier and I can focus on us having a good time, trying new recipes, etc.

My decision after the first claim

If you’re still reading, and not in total disbelief, this is where I will most likely lost you:

I believe this first claim was someone who was overly-sensitive (rightfully or not) on the topic. The term that came into mind was “snowflake.”

So rude, I know.

What I can’t understand is how she felt that it was sexist, because the copy was light hearted, kind, and I tried to add some humor:

We get it. You’ve got a hundred things to keep track of from kids to homework to taking care of the husband [laughing emoji]!

Moms are crazy busy and I understand that dad’s are too, but moms are still crazy busy! Women are generally better with kids. They nurture by nature instead of learning to. They have a way of unconditionally loving that a lot of guys can’t express or understand. Women are emotionally more powerful then men, and that makes them great at being mothers. I still don’t see how that could possibly be offensive! Yes, dads can do all of that. Both my fathers were great role models of how to work, behave, and treat women, but it was my mother who taught me what I know about love and compassion, which I wouldn’t have EVER learned from my fathers.

Also, until recent years, whether you want to admit it or not, the stay at home mom wasn’t a stereotype — it dominated the entire world. I agree or disagree with the idea of the stay at home mom. If that’s what you want to do as a mother, then do it! If you want to work and be the world’s best fucking marketer, do it!

Oh, it urks me knowing that some of my readers are thinking, “my dad raised me, loved me, cooked for me, and my mother wasn’t this magical person you think they all are.” Yes, of course, I understand, but you are more of an exception. You won’t find anywhere in this post that men or women are incapable of doing something.

The second claim of sexism

Turns out, I can’t recover the messages from Slack. It was essentially the exact same claim as the first with a less abrasive reply. However, it’s important to know there was a second claim.

The third and fourth claim of sexism

Then Wes replied:

I calmed down a bit and replied to Wendy:

I decided I needed outside opinions from people I respect as developers AND designers: ( I actually asked and go responses from 3)

I then thought, Wendy and Toma were really chill and calm about their opinions, maybe they’d be willing to help me understand an alternative:

Then this… (antagonist feminist) person replied to my tweet about asking a good friend:

Now, I’m just pissed, because I did some research, I asked some friends, I went back and let everyone know I was going to change it as it wasn’t my intention to hurt or offend anyone, and a friend of mine even said this:

But I replied to blank, above, like so:

Yes, I can be an asshole, but in this case, “no ragrets.”

My decision after the third and fourth claim

Although I understand the times have changed and men and women are sharing responsibilities more equally (I, for example, do all my grocery shopping), I am still so annoyed so many people are butthurt over . (how many readers did I lose from using ‘butthurt’?)

However, I do think Wendy and Toma are correct. I should change it to be with the times, as that would be better for my sales pitch anyways.

What I learned

First and foremost, Squash Tomato is an app for simplified grocery shopping, period. It’s target market is a member of a family who does the grocery shopping, not mothers. Lesson. Fucking. Learned.

I know I’m good at understanding another’s point of view. I understand the situations that formed the complaints against my copy, but I still don’t agree with the oversensitivity. The fact that someone was turned off because they’re a dad or their dad did the shopping and I implied mothers do the shopping is so ridiculous to me.

So, what I’ve learned is mothers and fathers equally share the shopping tasks and so much website and product copy is generic as fuck to avoid people complaining and reach a larger potential market (terrible for small/starting businesses/products).

If you have an opinion, which I imagine you do, leave it in a comment below — Also, if you leave something hateful and I reply in a defensive manner, and then you try to say I’m rude or whatever becuase I didn’t let you complain scot-free and accept you’re just instantly right for fighting for “justice,” you are the most annoying hypocrite.

(Sorry for the rest of you, I’m just expecting a lot of negative backlash)