I hope you are all enjoying your tokenistic International Women’s Day cupcakes, and newsfeeds filled with performative gestures and glowing posts about female team members.
Friday, March 8 was International Women’s Day, and here’s what’s noteworthy in PR this week: the curse of the cupcakes.
It is important that we celebrate progress, highlight success, and agitate for long-awaited change. But if you choose to reduce the day to noise, without any substance behind it, you are better off not saying anything and working on efforts that show, not tell.
In other words, if you aren’t celebrating the achievements of both men and women any other day of the year, don’t be tokenistic and promote International Women’s Day. If you genuinely care about telling the stories of the women in your organisation, you would already be doing it. You wouldn’t be saving up their posts and PR for one allocated day of the year.
And if you aren’t dedicated to understanding the unique challenges that women face around the world any other day of the year, then don’t try to fit yourself into a noble position regarding women this week.
If you do use the rest of the year to match your care with actions, such as addressing the recently announced Gender Pay Gap data, then, by all means, consider participating in a meaningful way.
But if a business’ only action is to invest in cupcakes, then I suggest you invest in women instead.
If you are looking for an impactful, authentic way to celebrate your business, Pure Public Relations can help. Get in touch with us today to find out how.
