In the wake of yesterday’s post concerning buying book reviews, comes a what-were-they-thinking product and the hilariously sarcastic consumer reviews that accompany it.

BIC For Her Ballpoint Pens is the type of product that sets back female equality a good twenty or thirty years.

“Designed to fit comfortably in the female hand” with “attractive barrel design available in pink and purple”, these pens look more like ink-filled tampons than writing instruments – “Write While You Menstruate!” should have been etched on the side.

Not to mention that their box looks reminiscent of every female targeted product. Ever.

But the real payoff comes with a glance at the reviews on Amazon:

What really confused me is that I had no problems in cookery or textiles. At the time I didn’t understand why I could grip and use a wooden spoon or sewing needle but couldn’t properly hold my black-coloured pen for more than 45 seconds without dropping it on the floor and weeping.

When I saw these I just had to have them, so I asked my Husband to buy them for me. He refused, as he said that owning a pen might make me Think, and then have Ideas Of My Own.

Oh. My. God. I’ve been doing it all wrong. There was me thinking I didn’t need to worry about whether my writing implement sufficiently reflected my gender.

And the genius continues on for another 16 pages.

The tongue-in-cheek humor will make you smile even if your occupation is a Chinese railroad worker in the 19th century. BIC has unknowingly unleashed a monster of humorous criticism that should have been stopped at the conference when this idea was pitched.

Honestly, who was whittling away at their desk, sketching concepts for fresh products when they shat out this gem?

Holding the paper in a slant of light with a chorus rising in the background and the simple words, “The world needs this” whispered as if in prayer. And then as a crowd gathers and a breeze ripples across the paper as it is held on high like Simba in The Lion King:

“Ahhhhhhhhhh savenyahhhhhhhh we’re all going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket!”