Social media been in fits of laughter recently after discovering Prague-based beer company, Aurosa's promotional material advocating lady beer (that is, beer for women).
Despite the fact that women make up a very decent percentage of beer drinkers in most parts of the Western world (in the US, women account for 25 per cent of beer consumption, and 37 per cent of craft beer consumption), it appears that some beer companies sometimes still struggle with marketing aimed at women.
This succintly sums up Aurosa - a beer supposedly "for her".
Looking at Aurosa's Instagram profile, very few of the images actually include any women drinking beer, and if they are, it's in a delicate glass that looks similar to a champagne flute.
The marketing has an aesthetic of conventional 'femininity'; pink, roses, fashion models, jewellery, manicured nails. (It is probably worth, at this point, clarifying that there's absolutely nothing wrong with each of these things. It's simply the gendering of these things - they are no more exclusively 'for women' than going to a sporting match or liking the colour blue is exclusively 'for men'.)
Social media media users were floored by its existence, and began to discuss: beer is beer, and liking a particular beverage is in no way a gendered activity, surely?
After becoming the butt of many a joke online (and receiving some very legitimate criticism, obviously), Aurosa responded on their Facebook page by saying that the brand "never intended to take part in sexism, feminism, or the like".
The lesson here seems to be: it's 2017, women don't need their pint to be pink, they just want it to be tasty.
