It's a Mann's world.
The Managing Partner of offshore law firm Harneys has celebrated International Women’s Day by sending pink ice cream makers to female lawyers and clients.
“Harneys delivered branded ice cream makers across the city to some of our most valued female leaders, friends, clients and colleagues”, announced Ian Mann, who is based in Hong Kong.
The Toffy Ice Cream Maker usually retails for $55 and “makes customizing desserts a cinch”, according to its website.
Harneys previously distributed branded puzzle books for children and Mann’s appliances come stamped with its name to ingeniously associate the offshore law firm with sweet treats. The ice cream maker also bears the instruction to “Pamper yourself everyday”.
A couple of recipients registered their delight with their IWD present. Hill Dickinson partner Yvette Yu commented that it was “the sweetest gift yet”, and disputes partner Christy Leung exclaimed “Love it”.
Sally Rochester, a people’s deputy in Guernsey, was less impressed. “I was wondering if an upgrade to a Dyson hoover and washing up brush might be offered too”, she commented.
“I know Harney’s will be working towards equality in the workplace so why not post about the work you are doing to advance equal participation across your firm and announce your ambition for the coming year? That would be a post I could truly celebrate!”, she added.
Mann replied that he was “working on a full house cleaning kit for husbands for Mother’s Day next 🤣”
Some law firms have struggled with the tone of IWD. CMS ordered its landlord to take down a beauty display offering Botox, while Shoosmiths was shooed for getting a panel of men to discuss gender equality, and in 2017 Withers offered female staff half-price salad. At least Harneys didn't revive its ASS Unit to mark the occasion.
The firm told RollOnFriday, “We were proud to celebrate International Women's Day across all our offices with each location adopting different approaches to raise awareness about this important day".
"Mindful of the 'give to gain' theme, we held events across the firm including team lunches and sharing cakes and gifts to celebrate the contributions of women across our firm and the wider community. These shared moments reflect our commitment to fostering an inclusive, supportive environment where everyone can thrive and succeed.”
As at 3.30pm, the results show minority support for the handy kitchen time saver, and that we spelt 'woman' wrong:
Comments
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It’s wonderful to see women calling this out. They deserve a huge pat on the bottom.
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Someone posts on LinkedIn.
An arse is shown.
Unfortunately there is insufficient empirical evidence to indicate that there is causation between the two events, but there does appear to be a strong correlation.
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I would quite like an icecream maker, but not as a corporate gift for IWD.
The fact the firm says that this is in keeping with the theme of "Give to Gain" says it all. What does that even mean? Give freebies for social media visibility? Photoshopping a glowing golden orb into your hands as per the marketing agency which owns the International Women's Day website and comes up with themes AI would be embarassed by isn't doing anything for women and girls.
The ACTUAL IWD theme is the rather more serious "Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL women and girls." https://www.un.org/en/observances/womens-day
Boast about what Daddy-daughter activities you're doing for that, tell your clients (if you must) the difference you are making (what's your family friendly leave and pay entitlements? What is the percentage of female employees/partners at Harneys?) and then we'll talk Ian. I might even buy you a 99.
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I have seen similar guffaws at several AmLaw100 firms.
Spa days or book clubs as “(Name of Law firm)-Women” client events. How wants to meet their client in a robe with cucumber 🥒 slices in their eyes????
Hoover and household appliances and handbags at partner events to spend your extra bonus on.
A cookbook for the chairwoman of the firm to which every female partner was asked to contribute a family recipe. Now, no shade for making a cookbook if the recipient likes to cook. However, the male partners were NOT asked to contribute.
The cringe is real.
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I identify as a woman when I put my silky underwear and stocking on at night.
Can I have an ice cream maker, too?
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I would be surprised, but again this is Harneys we're talking about
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ff
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ROF, sorry for the typos in 9:20 (autocorrect…)
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Will they be giving out gifts on International Men’s Day too? Or is that not worthy of equal marketing attention?
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Why do some people spend their lives looking for something to take offence at when it is clear none is intended nor, to any reasonable person, to be inferred.
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See this is why one should do the sensible thing and just ignore IWD* entirely.
If you try to do something nice your only reward is to have some attention seeking douchebag use it as a handle for their own self-publicising social media tripe.
Just ignore the whole thing and let the narcissists spend the day hooting at each other.
*and all other identity-posing days. It's important to equitably ignore all trans / black gay / women / wheelchairs / whatever days in exactly the same way so that you aren't unfairly prejudicing anyone.
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Asked my wife about this and she said she'd love an ice cream maker but it was not a clever gift for IWD. Then she had to get back to making my ice cream the old fashioned way.
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I think you get my point.
59
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Really missed a trick not calling this one a scoop
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> Will they be giving out gifts on International Men’s Day too? Or is that not worthy of equal marketing attention?
An employee of Sainsburys won £12k compensation after being left out of the IMD post (because he was off work with anxiety)
So that's also a dangerous area.
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The Financial Services Authority once published a personalfinance guide aimed at women. It was titled "Piling on the Pounds". It was withdrawn fairly quickly.
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It's the thought that counts. Oh, perhaps not.
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Who would have thought it. Mann showing a lack of judgment. This is the guy who was convicted by the Bar Standards Board for dishonestly billing a client for a hearing he knew he had not attended.
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I think anyone getting their knickers in a twist about this needs to get a life with urgency, and if the ladies don’t want their ice cream makers, I’ll certainly take one off their hands.
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I cannot wait to see what all the law firms do for Guinea Pig Awareness week ... held in October in case you're interested.
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The problem with these offshore firms is that they are full of second rate people who couldn’t make it in their home jurisdictions. Which explains the epic failure of judgment in this instance.
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I only knew it was IWD on LinkedIn. I would be grateful for any present. Get nothing these days.
I thought IWD is every day!
9
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That’s an ice cold way to treat your female staff
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I'm struggling to think of any way to mark IWD which could never be construed as offensive somehow, in some way, to some person. One option would be just to ignore the whole thing, but then what's the point of having it at all, and who wants to be the person who cancelled IWD?
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Reminds me of when Devonshires suggested all its female clients get their nails done. Top banter
8
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TBF he'd also have been crucified if he'd sent them all tickets for the rugby. What's a Mann to do?
16
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Classic women.
If you'd sent blokes a new hedge-trimmer on International Mens Day nobody would have moaned at all.
Is it really a surprise that nobody wants to promote grumpy ingrates to the partnership?
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The MP of Harneys is actually a standup guy, and everyone reads and likes his LinkedIn posts. He's great. I have zero affiliation with him. Someone I worked with recommended I review them, I added him years ago. No one says anything negative about the endless grimy bullshit parnters are generally vomiting out on the platform, this guy is pretty much the sole exception to it all. Leave him be.
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@16.22 I would have preferred a hedge trimmer for [...].
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Call me old fashioned but instead of sending women kitchen appliances maybe firms could just pay them fairly, promote them fairly and not sexually harass them?
Just a thought from a straight white man
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"instead of sending women kitchen appliances maybe firms could just pay them fairly, promote them fairly and not sexually harass them?"
I'm not sure I follow you. If we did all of that then what would be the point of hiring them at all?
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@Anonymous 13 March 26 12:02: yes, and then Mann flushed up in the BVI - a sunny place for shady people.
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How about committing to give pro bono advice for the whole year to a women's refuge? Hard to see that the outrage crew could get a handle on that as an option...
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No-one is taking much offence, but it is idiotic. It'd be like gifting all male employees beer tokens and a sub to pornhub
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"How about committing to give pro bono advice for the whole year to a women's refuge? Hard to see that the outrage crew could get a handle on that as an option..."
Ahh, but which kind of Womens Refuge?
The kind that only lets Women in? Or the kind that only lets 'Women' in?
One is a fascist-adjacent gathering place for despicable TERFs, the other is a re-education centre in which traumatised women are told that if they feel uncomfortable discussing their experience of sexual violence in the presence of men that the problem is that they haven't tried hard enough to remember that men can turn into women with the power of positive thinking.
I think that the outrage crew could probably get more mileage out of that sponsorship than you think.