Question: what’s the ‘theme’ for International Women’s Day (8th March) this year? As we wind up for the annual roster of events, panel talks, initiatives and Instagram posts that mark the international day for championing gender equality, you could be forgiven for being a little confused. Is your workplace honouring International Women’s Day under the theme “Cracking the Code” or “Embrace Equity”? Why are there two themes, especially ones that are so different?
It’s an example of what happens when we allow important movements to be turned into corporate, commercial opportunities.
Competing IWD Themes
Let’s start in a palace of certainty. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – aka UN Women – is the international organization most would recognise as the main coordinator of advocacy for global gender equality.
UN Women officially recognised International Women’s Day in 1977, establishing a set date and turning what had been a collection of grassroots feminist movements into one global, mainstream event.
In 2023, the UN Women’s theme for IWD is: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality. While the UN Women’s Australia organisation expresses it slightly differently (Cracking the Code: Innovation for a gender equal future) the intent of the theme is clear: as digital technologies contribute to gender biases and widen economic and social inequalities for women, achieving a gender-equal world in the future requires including women and other marginalized groups in the development of tech now.
So why is #EmbraceEquity used as the IWD theme in many social media and corporate spaces?
That’s the 2023 theme of InternationalWomensDay.com – a website that appears in the top position when you search “international women’s day” on Google. There is no organisation listed on the website itself (but someone is behind it – more on that in a moment).
On this website, the elaboration of the Embrace Equity theme says that “equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA.” The site’s full explanation of its ‘theme’ is 400-odd words worth of empty platitudes like “being included, and belonging, feels good” and ends with the dictionary definition of the word ’embrace’.
Usually with international ‘days of action’, one international organization will take the lead by setting a focus or theme, and others will follow suit by interpreting the overarching theme in a way that makes sense for them.
But the themes from UN Women’s and the InternationalWomensDay.com are very different – and this has consistently been the case. Compare the past few years:
UN Women’s 2022 Theme: ‘Changing Climates: Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’
IWD.com 2022 Theme: #BreakTheBias
UN Women’s 2021 Theme: ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving Equality in a COVID-19 World’ (addressing the fact that women were more impacted by COVID in economic and health terms)
IWD.com 2021 Theme: ‘#ChooseToChallenge’
UN Women’s 2020 Theme: ‘I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights;
IWD.com 2020 Theme: ‘#EachForEqual’
2019 UN Women’s theme: ‘Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change’
IWD.com theme: #BalanceforBetter
So who owns the IWD.com website and why do they run their own themes?
Who owns internationalwomensday.com?
The website itself makes no clear references to who owns or operates the website. It does list 21 companies as ‘partners’ for 2023 (fewer than the 32 companies they partnered with in 2022) and three ‘charities of choice’. It does not indicate whether or how it supports those charities, but does include links for you to donate to them yourself.
In 2020, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that a company called Aurora Ventures appeared to be behind the website. Aurora Ventures is a consulting agency that says it is “focused on social and economic change”, working with companies on “campaigns and collaborations, to platforms and products.” The internationalwomensday.com website is listed as one of its projects – the company was founded in 2000, and internationalwomensday.com was first registered in 2001. Health advocate Christine McNab reported that Aurora appeared on the internationalwomensday.com as early as 2003 (as Aurora Gender Capital Management).
So, mystery solved (kinda).
Does this matter? Corporatisation of social causes
The internationalwomensday.com and Aurora Ventures websites both say their purpose is to “support the supporters” who are driving social change and equality for women. There is nothing inherently wrong with that – it’s an admirable mission, and the more voices we have collectively calling out inequality and injustice, the better. Their focus is clearly on the corporate sector – again, nothing wrong with that.
However, we should be critical of the dominance of corporate campaigns that drown out the more specific and inclusive discussions that take place under the UN Women’s theme. The latter isn’t as catchy, but directs us to take actions that benefit all women, not only those working jobs in established economies. The contrasting themes of 2022 illustrate this best: when it comes to the most vulnerable women in the world, which issue is likely to be the most pressing: bias due to their gender, or the climate crisis?
We should also question why the corporate sector needs a separate theme. Vague calls to action like ‘breaking biases’ and ’embracing equity’ are easy setups for big corporations to point to initiatives as proof that they are making a difference. On the other hand, the specificity of the themes UN Women ask us to focus on each year – like eliminating the gender biases baked into technology, climate action efforts, and the impact of COVID-19 on women – are more challenging for profit-based businesses to meaningfully address.
Like every important social justice issue, the origins of IWD is in grassroots activism. UN Women acknowledges this by recapping the history for the movement; intertnationalwomensday.com reiterates that “no one” owns the day.
It’s true, no one ‘owns’ IWD. But turning political and liberation movements into corporate, commercial opportunities often ends up distracting from the cause – like brands that participate in ‘pinkwashing’ during Mardi Gras and Pride month, while the Australian government attempts to legalise discrimination against trans people. By pushing a separate theme and campaign, internationalwomensday.com draws attention away from UN Women’s work and more inclusive themes, which could be seen as going against its own mission to “support the supporters” of gender equality.
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