Radio 538 is under heavy fire. The male employees of the radio station, including stars such as Coen Swijnenberg and Sander Lantinga, appear to pee in Amy Winehouse’s mouth.
De Volkskrant made three visits to Talpa’s head office to research the corporate culture. Those visits led to a extensive report with the central question: how do the female employees of Talpa experience the working atmosphere?
Peeing in Amy
One thing is certain: there is still room for improvement. When one of the Volkskrant journalists enters the men’s room of Radio 538, he discovers that the male employees there pee in Amy Winehouse’s mouth (see tweet below). “One of the toilets, a urinal, has a questionable shape.”
The newspaper continues: “It must represent a full, red-marked woman’s mouth. The wall behind the toilet bowl is filled with a large portrait of a well-made brunette, the late British singer Amy Winehouse – the ‘mouth urinal’ sits exactly where her lips are. Whoever pees here does so in a woman’s mouth.”
‘Point of discussion’
What does Talpa bobo Paul Römer think about this? After all, in the same article he talks about how woman-friendly he has made the glass staircase in the central hall of Talpa. There, matte black plates have been placed over the steps, so that men standing downstairs can no longer see under women’s skirts.
Paul on the Amy Winehouse urinal: “That toilet is still up for debate. Located in the heart of Radio 538, it still has a bit of rock ‘n’ roll to it. We have not received any complaints about it, but we do have it on the list of things to look into.”
“This is disgusting!”
People are outraged on social media. “Who ever thought that this was okay?”, says Trouw columnist Emine Ugur. And one Jeroen: “This says a lot about the creator of this ‘joke’ and his view on women.”
Adjunct professor Casper Albers: “They really need a working group to think about whether something like this is possible? That seems to me to be the crux of the problem.”
And Grey: “’Infantile’, ‘derogatory’ and ‘disgusting’ were the words just before my brain needed a reset.”
Nikita: “Just to cry.”
Amy urinal
The Amy urinal with the angry reactions below: