One week out from International Women’s Day and the press releases about women “embracing equity” and information regarding upcoming events exploring the theme are coming hot into the inboxes of any reporter with a slight interest in women.
Some such press releases include women doing the “embrace equity” action post – wrapping their arms around themselves, demonstrating they are here for the cause.
The only problem is that ‘Embrace Equity” is not the official theme for IWD 2023, rather the official UN Women’s theme is “Cracking the Code: Innovation for a gender equal future’.
And once again, the “embrace equity” theme is a weapon of mass distraction.
As I wrote last year, Google “International Women’s Day” and you’ll come across a very official-looking, we-own-all-of-this website, that claims to determine each year’s theme. The website continues to share very little information regarding who is behind it, how it’s funded and how and why it determines its theme. There is no “About Us”, no names listed or clear contact information given – other than a form you can fill out regarding sponsorship opportunities.
However, it does list a number of “corporate partners” and declares the “global campaign theme” continues all year to encourage action, and proudly declares that International Women’s Day “has been around since 1911”.
John Deere is a “proud part of International Women’s Day” – its own ad is featured there on the website. Other partners include engineering firms and at least two weapons manufacturers on the IWD partner list, including Northrop Grumman, which “specialises innovating low-cost, highly reliable and precise weapons and ammunition for artillery and mortar systems”.
What a year for partnering with a manufacturer of hypersonic and strike missiles!
So where does the money from these partners go? What do they get in return for listing their brand on the non-official internationalwomensday.com website?
Indeed, despite outranking the UN Women page on Google for many years (although that seems to have changed this year) which suggests a group behind it with savvy SEO skills, there’s little else that can be gleaned from the information available online regarding who is behind the website – the missions that have been selected, the slogans that have been given every year, and sponsorship agreements that the listed partners agree to.
So who is behind the non-official internationalwomensday.com website, that will support your event with merchandise, determine what it believes should be the theme for the year and choose official charity partners?
The clue sits within the “Privacy Policy” found at the bottom of the homepage. This page mentioned the words “we” and “us” numerous times when nutting out what’s required of it legally in Europe. Scroll to the end, and it lists its “contact” details – a generic email address, followed by a postal address with a company name: Aurora Ventures (Europe) Limited.
Google Aurora Ventures and you’ll land on options for getting in contact for some “women’s equality marketing” services. Aurora lists more on its partners, as well as a number of case studies and work it does around the women’s equality space – this includes “delivering the International Women’s Day platform” – and working with stakeholders on producing the annual IWD campaign them, and managing the IWD merchandise for event managers worldwide.
Meaningless slogans like “embrace equity” and “press for progress” are, so often, used as words to hide behind. Slogans that become hashtags, that give leaders and employers something to write about when they realise they need to write something on women and equality as March 8 rolls around. They enable organisations to tap into a pre-existing marketing campaign to try and claim they are prioritising diversity and equity within their workplaces, when they are not always doing so.
As I suggested last year, perhaps the slogans are even worse. A weapon of distraction intentionally designed to enable big businesses and governments to avoid addressing more challenging political matters around the 8th March every year.
The internationalwomensday.com website declares that “IWD beongs to everyone, everywhere. Inclusion means all IWD action is valid” — but just to show how valid your own is, you can put in orders for Event packs including things like purple stickers, balloons and various items featuring a non-official IWD logo.
The UN Women’s theme on innovation is timely and needed, especially given the fast rise of language-based AI tools like ChatGPT, as well as other forms of AI, robotics, and automation that simply must be developed with diversity in mind.
In 2022, it was distressing to see how the climate theme was being ignored by many organisations across Australia, especially as climate change has a history of being forgotten about on International Women’s Day — despite its catastrophic consequences for progress on women.
But in 2023, we’re pleased to see more organisations ignoring themes like “embrace equity” that are taking away from the greater meaning and point behind international women’s day.
You don’t need to pose for a selfie while hugging yourself — as internationalwomensday.com wants you to do. You’ve likely got enough on your plate.