When Gender Discrimination is OK by Me

After a long (and much needed) holiday-related hiatus, I return once more to my modest corner store of overpriced and under-nutritious food. The first thing I notice is that their stock of chocolate bars appears extraordinarily low, to the point where there are even some empty spaces where once there were neat stacks of candy bars. Is it the return to work stress that's caused a run on cheap chocolate? Harried new year dieters giving up the resolution in a big way? A sign that it’s time to move on to a – gasp! – new shop?

As I surveyed the paltry wares, my gaze fell upon a bar (one of the few left) that I hadn’t tried before. And then out of sheer impatience with the entire process, I grabbed its variation. I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going to do ‘special’ versions of bars as they just seem like an unimaginative marketing ploy, but in this case, the two versions of Yorkies actually seem to be completely different bars.

Because the bars I picked were indeed Yorkies, both the original and the 'raisin and biscuit' versions. The first thing I noticed was that the original wrapper seemed to have lost its inexplicable ‘not for girls’ label - an obnoxiously large international sign for 'no' over the international sign for 'ladies room' replacing the 'O' in 'Yorkie'.  (When I commented on this to work colleagues, they pointed me in the direction of a weird 'Convoy'-esque ad involving a trucker and his Yorkie.) This thing that they do with dividing chocolate bars by gender in the UK is so weird - see Cadbury Galaxy ads - why would you bother alienating 50% of your potential market? 

Well, after trying an original Yorkie, I think I'm fine just leaving it to the men. What's the big deal with this bar? I kept waiting for something to happen but it’s just thick, overly sweet squares of milk chocolate and nothing else. Again, the point of bars like this eludes me – just buy a nice Milka bar or some Belgian chocolate if you’re craving milk chocolate! 

When I was about to think this week’s experiement was all for naught, I decided to try the second, more seductively packaged (purple) Yorkie (cross-section on the left above). Oooh. This was a totally different taste altogether. This was like a bar made of milk chocolate Raisinettes if someone decided to throw a couple cookies in with them as well. And good cookies, like shortbread or digestives, not an almost-substantial-but-not-quite wafer. Enough crunch to satisfy the ‘goodies’ craving, and enough chewiness from the raisins to give it a bit of variety. After about two sections, though, I had had about enough – the chocolate was so sweet it was a little too much for me.

How are these bars even related? The first has absolutely nothing to recommend it, and the second is downright tasty. Almost feels like trail mix – it’s practically healthy! And oddly true to marketing, the raisin and biscuit bar actually appeared to appeal more to women, as I was easily able to give sections away to my largely female colleagues, but had to hunt down one of the rarer male ones to get rid of the dull blue one. Although I used to be vaguely offended by the 'not for girls' marketing hook with the Yorkie, if you ask me now, I’m GLAD there's a candy bar that's only for men if it's going to be so unimaginatively bland.

Man Yorkie = 1/2 bar

Woman Yorkie - 3 bars

Average = 1.75 bars (inaccurately represented below)

Next week: the last bar on offer at my shop of choice! Excited yet?

Bar-o-Meter