Thursday, October 05, 2006

Two Good Reasons Not To Buy Balfour Class Rings





The first one is easy: They're highway robbery and for NOTHING. They're $250 if you get the most expensive ones (basic most expensive ones, by the way), and about $220 if you get the basic "less expensive" ones. Then, they tell you that if you lose it, they'll replace it for like $80. Yeah, I think that just about tips everyone off to the fact that the ring only costs about $80 to make in the first place. Let's get out the chorus of "Rip-offf!!" please.

However, that's the least of my worries. What I found out about them today bothers me much more.

One of my friends is going to buy a class ring, so she had the brochure at lunch. She was lookin' through it trying to decide which ring style and what designs she wanted on her ring. I was looking over her shoulder because I was bored and some of the designs were kind of neat. She turned to the page with the samples of all of the designs that you can put on the side, and we looked them over. They had little names in the examples, just like in the image above. The names in my friend's brochure were "Bryan" and "Robin". Here's where things get ugly.

They have different sections for the designs. There's one for "Pride", such as Christian symbols and the flags of different countries that customers might have roots in, etc. There's also one for "Activities". As you all probably already knew, Bryan gets the good portion of the ring examples. However, sometimes Robin shows up. Bryan takes up nearly every space in this section, "President", "Calf Roping", "Academics", "Debate", etc. Here is the list of what Robin gets: "Dance", "Ballet", and "Secretary". That's all. That's it.

There are other categories as well. I also liked Robin's list of Careers: "Cosmetology", "Interior Design", "Child Care", and "Nursing" (As opposed to "Medical Services", which went to Bryan). Once again, that's all.

I find it amazing that in the few places that they could manage to place a female name, it had to be in what most would consider "frivolous" professions. If it wasn't frivolous or highly competitive (e.g. "Dancing" and "Ballet"), however, it was being a secretary, a nurse, or a child care professional. The first two are simply second-in-command positions which most often require subordination to men. Hell, even the examples themselves had poor Robin being subordinate to Bryan, as he's probably going off to be in Medical Services as a doctor! And if it wasn't pure subordination, it's a stereotypical "woman's job" as a child care professional, because that's the only thing us womenz think about is babies and nursin' people. We don't have ambitions outside of that.

So there it is. Two good reasons why Balfour sucks. Not only are will they rob you at gunpoint, but they'll fore gender stereotypes and women's subordination down your throat in the process.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

They could have at least used gender neutral names. Robin is an androgynous name, but when placed next to Bryan, Robin looks more feminine.

What's really dumb is that they would have saved some time by randomly placing Bryan and Robin in different professions and activities. The fact that they actually thought this sexism out shows how moronic they really are.

And how is nursing not a medical service?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I didn't really get it either. Why can't nursing be considered part of "medical services"? I reckon that's just the difference between the masculine doctor role and the feminine "nurse" role, aye?

But yeah, I wondered about that, too. that's why I figured it was sexism rather than just badly placed random names. The fact that the male name took up every other profession BUT the more "feminine" ones was quite telling. I would have been fine if they had been randomly placed, but this was obviously a planned placement of the female name.

Anonymous said...

You should write them. See if they can explain themselves.

Anonymous said...

You know, I thought about that and I think I'm going to. <3

Anonymous said...

That is soooooo dumb! Sorry...it's early and I'm fighting a migraine. That's the best I can do right now. Love ya!

Anonymous said...

Yes! Write them and post the conversation (if they even bother to reply)!

Anonymous said...

I actually think I'll just have to get in touch with my local seller. So, if they're still at my school tomorrow I'll try to remember what happened so I can post it. If that doesn't work, though, they do have an e-mail address on the website. I'm gonna see if I can get contact info for someone higher up than a local seller, though. They're not responsible for the brochure.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'd sort of feel bad for the local seller if you approached him/her. It's the marketing department or whatever that makes these decisions.

Anonymous said...

Wow,

You actually spend time thinking about topics like this? I visited your site via blogspot since I thought it might contain actual insight rather than meaningless drivel. Hammering corporate America is wasted time.

Megan said...

It's much more meaningful to leave bitter comments on a blog.

Anonymous said...

wow this is dumb i mean the money thing thats not a bad topic but the gender thing there just showing examples u can put ur name on any god dam thing so why bother being pissed off when u know ur gonna end up with a good job of some sort thats gonna be better than what they put or maybe u are going for those professions.