His and hers

“GENTLEMEN, it’s time for us to be done with women’s cleaning products,” suggests the website for Hero Clean, a line of American products aimed at men that Elizabeth Sweet, a professor at the University of California, Davis, came upon while shopping in California. “No more pastel bottles with puppies, babies and dewy meadows.”

Only a tiny group of products merit distinction by gender. “Anything meant for your genitals,” says another gender expert, Lisa Wade of Occidental College. Yet needlessly gendered items are proliferating. Q-TIPS now offers “men’s ultimate” cotton swabs for men whose earwax would overwhelm ladylike swabs. A firm in California called Daisy Rock hawks hot pink sparkle-coated “girl guitars” to women. Banana Boat, a sunscreen brand, sells black bottles of sun lotion to men who can’t touch its less masculine orange packaging.

There has been a huge shift towards gendered marketing since the 1950s when even beauty products were often gender-neutral, says Ms Sweet. One theory is that because men and women are increasingly doing the same things, such as attending the same universities, doing the same jobs and household duties, marketers see a chance to appeal to an older instinct, for differentiation.

Some firms are even trying to charge women more for the same products. A 2015 study in New York city found that women’s products cost more two-fifths of the time. But many of the new gendered products are for men. Powerful Yogurt, a food company, has begun producing high-protein yogurt in black tubs. Mammoth Supply, a New Zealand-based producer of bottled iced-coffee, urges men to embrace their new domesticised reality. “Don’t just clear the leaves: eliminate them. Don’t just do the chores: annihilate them.” Bulldog Skincare peddles moisturisers “built for men”.

Other firms are treading more carefully. Following complaints about gender-based signs last year, Target, an American retailer, removed mentions of it from the kids’ bedding and toy sections. Some firms, such as Johnson & Johnson, a health-care firm, via its Clean & Clear brand, are even embracing transgender themes in their marketing.

Many consumers are resisting the gender card. Reviews on the Amazon page of Bic for Her pens, which are like any other pen except pink and purple, are sarcastic. One reviewer told how his wife, attempting to use his man-keyboard, faints until he revives her with smelling salts. Men may be from Mars and women from Venus, but both seem to agree that when it comes to pens, everyone can share.