It’s the Audi version of the swine flu: foot in mouth disease. It has reached pandemic proportions at the four-ringed brand. First, Audi of America’s Prez Johann De Nysschen called (rightly or wrongly) the Volt “a car for idiots,” insulting green leanings and national pride. Now, Audi Finland’s sales chief Esko Kiesi forgot that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In an interview with the Finnish woman’s magazine, Anna, Audi’s Finnish sales chief revealed that “Technical jobs can’t be mastered by women without the help of a man.” And that was one of the more benign statements. In a woman’s magazine.
Women are a bit like cars, quoth Kiesi, “the looks of a car are very dependent on the wheels and the suspension. With women, it’s shoes.”
In the world according to Kiesi, “a woman loses her shape if the heels are lower than 7 centimeters.”
As far as relationships go, “if a woman refuses to iron and clean up the house, the relationship is coming to an end.”
The perfect age of a woman? According to Kiesi, it’s the age of the man, divided by two, plus seven. The Finnish portal Finnland on-line calculated that “the suitable woman for Kiesi, who is 59 years old, would be between 36 and 37 years.”
According to Der Spiegel, the quotes unleashed “a storm of protest” in the Northern country. Finally, Kiesi was blown away by the tornado and he resigned.
An Audi spokesperson tried to distance the company as far as possible. This was “the private opinion” of Mr. Kiesi, it doesn’t reflect at all Audi’s position vis-à-vis the fairer sex. If at all, Kiesi is a Wolfsburg problem, because “Audi Finland doesn’t belong to Ingolstadt, they are owned by the Volkswagen Group.” (Lame, very lame.) Finland’s Minister of Culture, Stefan Wallin, who is also responsible for equality issues, says the resignation was “the right move.”
Anybody who has ever been on the inside of Volkswagen knows that these views are commonplace. The inexcusable sin Kiesi committed? He got caught.
Foot in mouth disease seems to be a genetic issue at Audi. The old-timers amongst us still fondly recall when Audi USA’s sales chief had to comment on the sudden acceleration syndrome that afflicted Audis in the late 80s. He said “those Americans just can’t drive.” He was recalled to Germany, where he was put in charge of Volkswagen’s advertising department as penance.
Good thing he didn’t get into the “Rule of Thumb”
…or “Bei Nasen eines Mannes…”
No thanks, Audi, this 32 year old will NOT be going out with any 23 year olds. Oh shit wait, my girlfriend is 25!
Thank god close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.
Sorry, Audi, my wife exceeds the limit by three years. And I’m a year older than the deposed Finn …
If he did not use the “i” word, nobody would bother to publicize his comments, which made sense, how many people are willing to pay $40,000 ($32,500 after robbing the taxpayer of the $7,500 credit) for a Corolla-sized econobox, when you can buy the excellent corolla and have higher quality, reliability, longevity and all for half that, for only $18k!
Opinions everyone has … but it’s not exactly a career-advancing move to make these kinds of statements to national media, no matter what company you work.
Has Esko Kiesi been reading the webcomic XKCD? On there it’s called the ‘Standard Creepiness Rule’.
http://xkcd.com/314/
Around here, the half-your-age-plus-seven rule is used to determine the minimum acceptable age. Anything less would be “robbing the cradle”.
Great link, Thagomizer.
The old “half a man’s age plus seven” was presented to me as coming from China. How it got to Finland I have no idea. Given that women live much longer than men, maybe the formula should be reversed. That’s the way Cher does it.
Mr. Kiesi should have used the Shaq O’Neal defense. When a controversial statement in Shaq’s autobiography came up, Shaq claimed he was misquoted.
Wonder what his thoughts are on Susan Docherty?
@Lorenzo:
Or the Tom Ridge, “I have no idea what the dust jacket on my book says” defense.
I had the happy privelage to tell something interesting to a small crowd of BMW drivetrain engineers (All PHDs of engineering) at table in a tent at Octoberfest 2006. Munich. I was there cause my nephew was their AWD engineering rep from Magna. They love him.
They were friendly and polite and all, but found me somewhat boring until I told them about the “French proverb”. One guy in particular was mooning over recent girfriend dump event (he was dumpee), he also looked like a too-reflective classic German soul. So, I tap him and shout at him “Have you heard the French Proverb? The correct age for a girlfriend is half your age plus seven years. …Unfortunately, while it is a robust principle, it requires recycling the women periodically.”
He worked it out age by age and smile slowly increased and he pats me and nods and tells his crew in German then they all grin and laugh like loons and wave quarts of beer around sloppily…
Women will usually complain about absolutely anything.
Feminists are generally bad sports with no sense of humor, and are sometimes considered women also.
Therefore, they will complain even more; regardless of what sense it makes.
In this case, all they had to do was act a bit more like a guy, crack a few jokes about Kiesi’s old balls or his beer gut, and it’d all be square.
So, the Finns have a minister of culture, as in a national government cabinet member, that gets involved in what an Audi sales guy says to a woman’s magazine?
“a woman loses her shape if the heels are lower than 7 centimeters.”
While not quite CFM range, that’s a pretty high heel, just a few RCHs shy of three inches.
I’m short statured for a male, only 5’6″, and while tall women don’t intimidate me (my ex is 5’11”), based on perusing the personals on Craigslist, many women prefer men taller than them. Around my age (54) the 50th percentile for women is 5’4″. With 3″ heels, that means a majority of women would be taller than me.
Thanks Esko.
# AdamYYZ :
September 5th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Good thing he didn’t get into the “Rule of Thumb”
You mean the lie about English common law that feminists like to trot out?
Just like the lie that women get beaten during halftime of the Super Bowl.
Or the lie that women make 79 cents per dollar men make. A woman actually tried to use that to rationalize the fact that in the current recession more than 80% of job losses have been to men. Of course when rationalized for education and job experience, the difference is one or two percent. Any of you know employers who pay men more for the same job?
Still, the feminists will (dare I say it?) continue to bitch and moan. That’s what they did to Obama when the stimulus money was first targeted at “shovel ready” projects. Apparently spending money on infrastructure meant construction jobs, which meant that some males might benefit. So the women’s groups pressured the White House, and now 60% of the spending is for health, human services and gov’t sector jobs, all sectors that have had job growth over the past 10 years (including since the start of the recession) and all have a majority female workforce. Oh, and Obama set up a special presidential commission on women and girls because 60% of undergraduate slots and a majority of all college degrees including masters, doctorates and professional, going to women somehow just isn’t “equal” enough.
After 40 years of being verbally beaten up in the school system, never getting a single positive message about masculinity or being male many young men are just saying “who needs more of that shit?” and going into technical fields like IT that don’t necessarily need a 4 year degree.
What funny is that if a woman executive said similarly disparaging things about men (like the aforementioned beer gut) she’d never get called out on it.
Now watch some beta “feminist” male tell me what a Neanderthal I am. There’s no shortage of men who will act like pussies in order to get some of the same.
The worm will eventually turn as women discover that a figurative girlfriend with a penis is no substitute for a man.
# seabrjim :
September 5th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Wonder what his thoughts are on Susan Docherty?
I don’t know about him, but I’d be happy to road test a GM backseat with her. Though she looked better as a brunette, but then I’m partial to dark haired ladies.
“Wonder what his thoughts are on Susan Docherty?”
Is she that Buick VP? If yes, and having seen her recent clueless comments on future product, I predict Buick will follow Oldsmobile, Saturn and Pontiac in the scrap heap, and so will hopefully she. And of all the brands above, I will feel sorry for Pontiac only- maybe for Olds a little. But sure not for Saturn and Buick.
Sexist paternalistic jacka**** at the top levels of a German company? No, couldn’t be!