On the 8th March my social media feed was inundated with posts from various brands with #IWD added on the end, yours was probably the same. But I’m finding it hard to appreciate the sentiment from companies whose actions don’t necessarily reflect their warm-and-fuzzy social media posts. HSBC’s twitter is a deluge of retweeted IWD-spiration but it’s not exactly a company you’d think of as particularly ethical, and it’s hard to take any messages about equality from G4S seriously (just visit the Controversies surrounding G4S Wikipedia page and you’ll see why).
Plus, as active as these companies were on the 8th March, I’m still waiting for some form of meaningful follow-through. Are they all sat in boardrooms discussing gender neutral toilets and flexible working hours for parents, or are we done with equality until the next awareness day now?
It feels like International Women’s Day has been commandeered by brands seeking to boost sales and make themselves look good. It’s becoming an opportunity for brands to tell customers how forward-thinking they are, a once-a-year thing (like Christmas) where women are a tool unashamedly brandished for marketing purposes. Even more frustratingly, a lot of the people behind the social media posts are representing businesses with no intention of addressing equality issues within their own teams, let alone beyond.
Christmas, Easter, and pretty much any other holiday may feel like a seasonal marketing opportunity now, but working towards equality shouldn’t be a once-a-year thing. We can use March 8th as a trigger for positive actions rather than an opportunity for some one-off content, but it’s all too easy to forget what they day is about and get lost in self-promotion. Funnily enough that message has been the same since 1911, it’s about positively making a difference for women. Equality is a timeless message.
Josie Cox puts all this much better than I do in her article for the Guardian: ‘International Women’s Day is an opportunity to raise awareness of the barriers we’re still facing in our pursuit of gender parity. It’s an occasion to honour role models and trailblazers. In some places it’s a day of protest, but it shouldn’t be an excuse to try to link your own product or service to the cause in the most creative and tenuous way possible. ‘
Sure, the world has changed: in the UK women have the vote, we can own property, we can go to school and university. How far we’ve come is without doubt worth celebrating, but there are still many steps we can make towards equality, and we can use that equality to help us support people the world over who don’t have access to the rights we do.
International Women’s Day 2019 may have passed, but we can still get excited and make positive changes in our workplaces, communities and beyond. Here are a few examples of stuff you can easily do throughout the year, not just 8th March: (feel free to add suggestions in the comments!)
- Educate yourself, do some research, try to gain the perspective of someone in circumstances unlike your own. (This article by Raifa Rafiq is a a good place to start, and here’s another by Ellie Mae O’Hagan)
- Make a statement of intent detailing the positive steps you’re committed to making to promote equality.
- Share relevant articles all year round, not just on International Women’s Day.
- Campaign for change that will help us move towards equality, like a more robust welfare system, better childcare provisions.
- Donate resources (time, money, things) to a group promoting gender, class and racial equality.
- If you have to buy new items of clothing, check that they’re not made in a sweatshop. If you have a supply chain, check that it’s ethical.
- Look into how you can support marginalised women in your community (with your time or donations).
- Share the values of international women’s day with your children/employees.
- Run some free/supplemented sessions for women to gain skills in new areas.
- Advocate for more gender neutral bathrooms in your work/university.
- Share the hashtag: there is still value in raising awareness, especially if you can inform others about what you’re raising awareness for.
And remember brands, you’re still allowed feature women doing gnarly stuff in your marketing for the rest of the year too. Please just put your money where your mouth is.
– Hati
PS. An extract from the worldwide marketing handbook:
Chapter 104: Brand Identity
#IWD is a hashtag that you can use on the 8th March to make you feel like you’re nobly furthering the feminist cause. This is best shared on social media, accompanied by a photo of a woman doing something typically un-womanly (riding a bicycle or wearing a suit). If you want to go the extra mile, you can dig out some old content that was written by or about some women. You should probably also put a few things on sale, get the ladies in the shops and empower them to express their gratitude by buying your products.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything like (for example) reflecting on your own or your company’s ethics and addressing gender stereotyping in your marketing. Saying something on social media once a year is quite enough.
Hati Whiteley 