Popular Aldi Facebook group denies membership based on gender

A popular Facebook group that discusses sale items at Aldi is blocking memberships based on sex.

Aldi Mums is a busy posting board of more than 65,000 members who talk about bargains at Aldi and other grocery shopping hacks. Approval is required to join.

While current members have told Yahoo Finance there is no hidden gender-specific content outside of shopping tips, a ban on male members is explicitly stated when a new person tries to join.

"Are you aware this is a female only fan page? And only female accounts will be approved. Do not message admin asking for entry if you're not female," states the membership application window.

A Facebook Australia spokesperson told Yahoo Finance that denying membership based on gender is not a violation of its terms, as there could be perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so.

"There are many all women’s or all men’s groups on Facebook – for example, breast cancer survival groups, testicular cancer survival groups," said the spokesperson.

"I know that I am a member of a number of women’s only groups… I personally find the conversation can be different than when men are in the group."

Aldi Mums' founder Laura Mazza told Yahoo Finance that she wanted to make a "safe space" for women to discuss grocery deals and hacks.

"There’s been many years of men’s groups only, so this is nice for women to explore, communicate and be respected," she said.

"It’s about a community for women. We accept trans women as well."

Mazza also pointed out that there is an Aldi Dads group. Yahoo Finance has observed that Aldi Dads is open to the public and no membership is required.

Aldi Dads only has 61 likes, compared to Aldi Mums' 65,000 members, and as such the content has been dormant since June last year. Aldi Mums has seen 1,104 posts in the past 30 days.

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