If International Women’s Day was a ‘how it started/how it’s going’ meme – it would have plenty of content to illustrate the vast gulf between its socialist start and what is an increasingly corporate present. What started with action has now, in too many cases, been diluted into a performance.
To be clear, International Women’s Day, the organisation, is as dynamic, thoughtful and dedicated as you’d expect from something which bloomed from socialist roots and was first marked on the 8 March, 1911. It is a “global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity”.
The work they do furthers women in every conceivable way from better healthcare to women in tech. Take a look at the website and prepare to be in awe.
I have no beef with IWD. But I have a huge problem with the vast majority of us – individuals and brands alike – who choose to celebrate by falling over ourselves to showcase feminist credentials with low risk, minimal efforts.
I’m talking about T shirts emblazoned with excruciating slogans like “shero” or “on Wednesdays we smash the patriarchy” and vulva motif jewellery and the endless Instagram scroll of Michelle Obama quotes.
There’s distinct sense of smugness: like, here we all are just being very feminist really with a spot of “she believed she could so she did” energy in a whimsy calligraphy-inspired font.
But it’s the aesthetically-pleasing retro black and white images of women’s marches from decades past which grind my gears most when used today because they beg the question how much has really changed since then? And how much will change if the best we can do is post a picture to social media?
Mine is hardly a piping hot take and yet, it bears repeating if my inbox is anything to go by: teeming with press releases shamelessly coat-tailing onto IWD using astonishingly tenuous links to sell someone or something.
Meanwhile we are, in 2022, living in country where two women each week are killed due to domestic violence. Almost two thirds of UK mothers who return to their careers are forced to reduce their hours, change their jobs or quit due to unaffordable childcare. Victim blaming and ‘acceptable victim’ narratives when women are raped and killed are rife. There is still significant gender pay gap: On average, working-age women in the UK earned 40% less a week and £3.10 less an hour than men in 2019. People still say “is dad babysitting?” when mums go on nights out, as if fathers aren’t de facto parents.
Mothers in Afghanistan are literally selling their children because they are starving.
Misogyny – micro, macro or murderous – is an all day, every day issue.
And yet what we’re seeing on IWD is this reductive, disingenuous onslaught where the true scale of inequality is masked or diverted by slick branding. Meaning and reason are lost in a craven desire be seen as good, right and honourable.
Isn’t this worse than doing nothing? Or is bad faith publicity is truly considered better than nothing?
Personally, I’ve had my fill of glossy brands performing feminism.
The discourse on IWD from so many brands feels at best big sisterly and at worse like a lecture. It feels robotic and scripted, a chorus of parroted aphorisms and you just think: Stop telling us how much you support women and show us instead.
How many brands who flaunt their IWD endeavours can truly say they are about more than profiting - whether financially or via publicity? Companies should not make money from International Women’s Day. It should not be a marketing opportunity.
Campaigning for women’s rights is exhausting. It can be demoralising. It’s rarely glamorous.
I think we all need to pull focus from brands and performance and onto the people who work tirelessly year round for women. Those who run women’s refuges. Midwives. Aid workers.
We need to see beyond the hashtags and the polished marketing and ask what we can do when no one is looking?