An outraged Perth mother has vented her anger at the ‘sexist slur’ slogan a hire car company has been using for about 75 years.
When Nicole Van Dijken’s boy, aged 7, saw a car with the phrase ‘no birds’ written on its door he asked her what it meant, leaving her momentarily stumped.
The vehicle belonged to Bayswater Car Rental, which was founded in Perth in 1958 and adopted its famous catchphrase to gain a competitive edge.
The slogan was a reference to other car hire firms using young women to drive their rentals to customers. The women were called delivery girls, or ‘birds’.
Bayswater didn’t deliver – the customer had to pick the car up – so it was able to offer cheaper prices due to having ‘no birds’ to pay.
An outraged Perth mother has vented her anger at a ‘sexist slur’ slogan (pictured) that a hire car company has been using for about 75 years
At first Ms Van Dijken didn’t know what to say to her son, ‘because this is something that I really do get furious about every time I see it,’ she told ABC Radio Perth’s Jo Trilling.
‘It’s a sexist slur and I’m now in a position where I need to explain that to my son. Which I did do,’ she said, adding the phrase should have been ditched years ago.
She said the slogan belongs to ‘a shameful past’.
‘It’s not appropriate to be referring to a woman as a bird and I don’t know why it’s still on there.
‘I think it’s terrible that they’ve still got it there.’
The slogan has become so prominent in the company’s branding that it’s fleet in both WA and NSW feature a yellow arrowhead logo and the phrase ‘no birds…’.
The company is so used to getting asked about the origin of the phrase it now just directs people to its website, which says: ‘These days having hire cars delivered may seem excessive.
‘But when Bayswater Car Rental started, having “delivery girls” was a standard extra service in Australia.’
In a company video about it, brothers Ben and Arnold Kluck, whose father started the firm, skirt around the fact that the ‘no birds’ phrase had its origins in a word for young women now considered sexist by many people.
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Instead they focus on it meaning there are no frills, so the price is kept down.
But they still use the slogan and acknowledge that many people are unaware the company is even called Bayswater Car Rental.
The catchphrase has been complained about many times in the past, as has a poster it used for years which featured a topless woman wearing a yellow hat and the ‘no birds’ slogan.
At one point the company had an ad campaign showing a topless woman’s back, a picture of Monica Lewinsky – who became famous in the 1990s over an affair with then US president Bill Clinton – and the words ‘no frills’.
But the only complaint against it that was upheld was in 2000 when an ad with a picture of an Indigenous boy and the slogan ‘half the rate’ was found to have breached rules around ‘vilification of a section of the community on account of their race’.
While rebranding its fleet of around 3,000 cars to remove the ‘no birds’ logo would be very expensive, other companies have changed their names for similar reasons in recent times.
In 2020, Nestle renamed its Red Skins and Chicos lollies to Red Ripper and Cheekies. ‘Redskins’ is a pejorative term used to describe Native Americans, while ‘chico’ is a Spanish word meaning ‘boys’, ‘kids’ or ‘guys’.
Nestle said it wanted to ensure ‘nothing we do marginalises our friends, neighbours and colleagues’.
In 2021, Saputo Dairy Australia changed the name of Coon cheese to Cheer cheese after a long campaign by activists who said it had racist connotations.
Bayswater Car Rental got a mixed response online to the latest stoush over its slogan.
One man said ‘It was never a derogatory term as far as I’m concerned.
Brothers Ben (left) and Arnold (right) Kluck, whose father started the firm, skirt around the fact that the ‘no birds’ phrase had its origins in a word for young women now considered sexist by many people
‘Back in the day we called a girl a bird in a warm friendly way … unfortunately I guess it’s not appropriate in this crazy PC world.’
But a female commenter said ‘There was a very vocal opposition voiced against this when I was younger and feminist activism was finding its voice — even my mother wrote a letter to The West (newspaper) to object to it.
‘I can’t believe they are still getting away with using this slogan.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Bayswater Car Rental for comment.
