IWD - STOP USING WOMEN FOR MONEY FOR 1 DAY
- marybolingbroke
- Mar 8, 2017
- 2 min read
It's International Women's Day! A day for honouring the greatest achievements of women all over the world. It is also a day for businesses to throw us pity employment opportunities to make them look good and earn them some extra dollar.
Listen, I understand that you want to honour us. You can't just not say something on International Women's Day and risk looking like a misogynist! So you fire out emails to all the women you knew were available for work and hadn't contacted previously, and you ask if they're interested in collaborating. That'll definitely show you care about us! But I can't help but feel like you putting on gigs each month with all-male line ups kind of shows you don't? But maybe that's just me...
My proposal is something revolutionary: hire women all year round, then when the 8th of March rolls around, keep doing it!
The thing is, women do actually need to work. On account of us earning so much less regardless of output, we need to work quite a lot. But beyond that, we also want to work. Every single day women all over the world are fighting for education, for jobs, and for the progression of social, political, and scientific fields that continually sideline them. Women continue to pursue careers in male-dominated areas because they know their worth. So you should know it too.
To all the promoters who plan on booking female DJs this year: please consider rebooking them and featuring more all-female line ups. In fact, don't consider it, just do it. If you don't intend on showing the same drive to promote female talent then don't pretend to care for one day out of the year. Taking women's money and labour with faux-feminism is definitely more exploitative than whatever you were doing before.
To all the media outlets and corporations who plan on using us for free advertising on the internet today, consider directing funding to women's charities or education and internship programmes. If you're getting money by promoting the achievements of famous women (who have literally nothing to do with your company), the least you could do is some of it back to us.
The icons who we admire on International Women's Day like Frida Kahlo and Ida B. Wells fought hard against oppression. This day doesn't exist for you to throw some lighthearted event or post out into the social media world for some gratification. This day doesn't exist for you to offer some one-off employment for struggling freelancers. This day exists to draw attention to the sheer talent and ability of women around the world. If your attention had been drawn, you would have hired us long ago.
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