Renée Graef, illustrator of the Kirsten books in the American Girl series, gets it. If the brewery wants to, as a press release reads, "pay tribute to the hard-working lumber industry that built the Midwest" by naming itself after Paul Bunyan's girlfriend, Lucette, perhaps she could be depicted as the badass pioneer woman that she almost certainly would have been had she existed. There's a reason "Son of a Preacher Man" doesn't hit quite the same note. But couldn't such creative folks come up with more interesting label art for its beers than a woman in a crop-top and Daisy Dukes? "The Farmer's Daughter" wouldn't be a cultural trope if women weren't once considered the property of their fathers until they married.
I love a good Shakira reference, and a double entendre reflecting a beer brewed with rose hips is exactly the sort of clever punnery I cherish and expect from the craft beer world. There's nothing wrong with being sexy, but as long as women's place in beer is on objectifying labels rather than in the brew house or boardroom, these names and images send a pretty clear message about where breweries like Horny Goat think we belong. A beauty contest.Įven though the mascots for its beers are anthropomorphized goats, that doesn't really change the effect of "Baby Got Bock" and other direct-from-Spencer's Gifts labels used by this brewpub in Milwaukee.
Not applications to help in the brew house or anything.
Why does the light beer have to be the one with the woman on it, Point? Oh, and the brewery has a Drop Dead Blonde of the Year award in which women submit their photos for a beauty contest. Honestly, the irritating thing about Drop Dead Blonde is that it's advertised as being only 110 calories. "I know! We'll brew a blonde ale, and we'll have a blonde woman on the label! Get it? Blonde?" Never saw that one coming. With this in mind, problematic names and labels can be found in Wisconsin’s craft beer scene too. Still, given that labels like "Barely Legal" come up in a discussion about "funny beer names," and that it can still be necessary to explain why having a women-centric beer event isn't itself sexist, this conversation is both overdue and ongoing. The city has Females Enjoying Microbrews, a wonderful women's beer appreciation group and the region's oldest craft operation, Capital Brewery, just crowned its first female brewmaster. Madison's not a bad place to be a woman in the craft beer industry, all things considered. That's what makes it so insidious, as the men behind these thoughtless beer names and labels too often think feminists are just being unfair to them when challenged on the issue. Sexism in beer is most often a reflection of utter ignorance on the part of a mostly homogenous industry rather than outright malice. These commentaries were met with varying responses, but overall have seen an encouraging level of support from the broader brewing community in the U.S., namely the overwhelmingly white, straight men who have been brew house gatekeepers since the Industrial Revolution.ĭiscussion of sexism in marketing isn't new in the craft beer world - but this year, perhaps because of the sheer shamelessness of some of the labels in question, more men started listening. Several essays published this year, including to some extent, one of mine, have called out sexism in craft beer culture, particularly in the form of problematic labeling. Unfortunately, the rise of craft beer has hardly proven to be an exception to this long-standing practice. From busty dirndl-clad blonde maidens to the Miller High Life Girl in the Moon, women's bodies have been used to sell beer to men since the dawn of advertising.
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