New Saskatchewan Roughriders ad using 'girl math' sparks backlash from some fans

A new Saskatchewan Roughriders ad is drawing negative attention from some fans who say it promotes negative stereotypes and toxic diet culture.

In an email to season ticket holders, the ad reads "Proficient in girl math it's basically free". It is followed by lines that read, "Literally the best excuse for cute matching outfits" and "Take the stairs. Earn the seltzers".

A new Roughrider ad has drawn some negative attention from fans. (Saskatchewan Roughriders)

The ad pulls from a popular social media trend on Tik Tok called "girl math". It's a social media hashtag that is used when people explain mental accounting decisions that aren't always mathematically sound.

Some examples include returning a dress and then buying another item with the returned money or preloading a coffee card and later buying a coffee, which is considered free, because the money didn't come directly from your account.

One of the people who received this email was Anne Marie Sauer, a 15-year-long season ticket holder with her husband and she was not happy when she opened her email.

"I lost my mind. It was a case of stereotype after stereotype, negative against girls, against women. I was gobsmacked that they would take that approach to their promotional material," Sauer said.

"Take the stairs and earn the seltzers did it to me. Toxic diet culture, how you have to look a certain way and you have to just eat certain things," she said.

Some other fans expressed their dismay on social media, saying the ad missed the mark, calling it "misogynistic".

CBC News has reached out to the Saskatchewan Roughriders for comment but did not hear back before publication.

WATCH| Long-time Sask. Roughriders fan offended by football team's #GirlMath campaign:

Vanessa Vakharia, who has a math tutoring studio in Toronto called the Math Guru, said that trends like girl math reinforce the idea that girls can't do math or manage their finances.

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"It's actually harmful. Sure, it's funny, but it's funny because it's based on a stereotype," said Vakharia, who also has a masters in mathematics and a degree in marketing.

Vakharia said if the trend was boy math instead, it wouldn't have gone viral because it doesn't riff off a stereotype. She said a lot of people think of purchases in that way. For example, if you buy a car and drive it every day for 10 years then it only costs $5 a day.

"That's not a gendered way of doing mental accounting, but it's being positioned as something that only girls do," she said.

She said playing on such stereotypes such as women watching their weight and wearing matching outfits to get girls interested in football is an out-of-touch approach.

"One of the main reasons we're finding that women do not enter a STEM field is literally this kind of stuff," Vakharia said.

"When trends like girl math come up, you're just kind of like, Oh my God, it's like one step forward, 10 steps back here."

Vanessa Vakharia is founder and CEO of The Math Guru, a Toronto-based tutoring service. (Racheal McCaig)

Vakharia suggested naming trends something that is not gendered, like "shopping math" or "deal math".

Some investment advisers and personal finance experts say "girl math" is a fun trend not to be taken to seriously. They say as long as the explanations are treated as just for fun, the trend can actually encourage financial transparency and open up discussions about money.

Katie Lafreniere, assistant professor at the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta, said while it's always good to create a campaign to target different audiences, placing it on Tik Tok instead of sending it to season ticket holders would have made more sense in this case.

"Season ticket holders generally aren't young women," she said, adding there's a disconnect between the Roughriders' brand personality, which can be perceived as rugged and masculine, and the ad.

"It's because it comes from a masculine brand personality that it comes off as a more sexist, controversial perspective and if it was one of those more female brands, it probably wouldn't have come off that way," she said.