Has Man-Bashing Become the Hallmark of Greeting Cards?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 10, 2000 | by Cheryl Wetzstein

If a man belittles a woman, it could become a lawsuit; but if women belittle men, it's "a Hallmark card," says Warren Farrell, author of a new book, Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say. His point is well taken, judging by the increasing number of greeting cards that carry a "message of misandry," or man-hating.

Greeting-card companies insist that their mission is to help people express themselves -- even if their emotions are edgy. "Greeting cards are intended to help people communicate, share their feelings, open the door to communication, express their personalities and share emotions," says Rachel Bolton, spokeswoman for Hallmark in Kansas City, Mo.

Sometimes, she admits, the feelings being expressed are "frustration, hurt, all kinds of things." At times like that, "the humor, like love, is very personal -- and what appeals to one doesn't appeal to another."

"We're definitely hot man-haters," says American Greetings spokeswoman Laurie Henrichsen. "But we do offer women-to-women cards" -- where the humor tends to be similar "to the kind of humor that you might see in stand-up comedy."

Greeting cards are a $7 billion-a-year industry, based on sales of 6 million cards, according to the Greeting Card Association. Women buy 80 percent of the cards, although companies are pursuing new markets and men are a coveted demographic group. If the "gender war" in the greeting-card aisle winds down, it's because bashing potential customers is not good market strategy.

Elsewhere in the world of male and female humor, people are more lighthearted. "When I started using the Internet, there was a great domination by male users and the lists of `blonde jokes' were everywhere," says Helene Gullaksen, a "happily married mother" in Sweden who runs the popular Website www.menjokes.com. Since January, more than 10,000 e-mail greeting cards have been sent from her site, and the most popular one is hardly mean: "How do you get a man to do sit-ups?" Answer: "Put the remote control between his toes."