Inspiring inclusion this International Women’s Day? Don’t get duped by corporate phantoms

Another year and another pointless catchcry is being shared by CEOs, event organisers and PR professionals in the lead-up to International Women’s Day.

That catchcry is “Inspire Inclusion”, which is 2024’s IWD theme only according to the phantoms who own the domain name internationalwomensday.com. They are the same people who came up with last year’s creation, ‘Embrace Equity’ and previous efforts, including ‘Break the Bias’.

The UN Women theme for 2024 is actually Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress.

This correct theme is getting more traction than in previous years. But if you Google ‘International Women’s Day,’ the first result will push you to a domain encouraging you to ‘Inspire Inclusion’. Ask ChatGPT, and you’ll also be told the theme is to ‘Inspire Inclusion’.

If you leverage the ‘Inspire Inclusion’ theme for your marketing or event efforts, you are complying with a UK-based firm that runs the internationalwomensday.com domain but offers no transparency on who is behind it and how they chose their themes, charities and partners.

The corporate-theme hijacking of IWD first bothered me in March 2022 when UN Women’s official theme, which centred around climate change, was drowned out by calls to “break the bias” instead. Especially frustrating given Australia was experiencing significant flooding and weather events during that period. At the time, I described themes like ‘break the bias’ as weapons of mass distraction.

As I also wrote in 2022 and remains true today, when you Google ‘International Women’s Day’ you come across this official-looking, we-own-this-IWD-thing website that claims to determine each year’s theme and resources to support messaging and ideas around the day.

The website, in 2024, continues to share very little information on who is behind it, how it is funded, and how and why it determines the theme. There is no ‘About Us’, only an ‘About IWD’. There are no names listed or clear contact information given, other than a form you can fill out regarding sponsorship opportunities, which are now positioned as a place to submit a ‘partnership proposal’. The website’s footer describes IWD as running since 1911, and “IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. IWD is not country, group or organisation specific”.

You’ll need to go into the privacy policy for more information with privacy laws requiring a contact option and physical address. While a generic email address is given, the physical address is listed as Aurora Ventures (Europe) Limited, based in London. Aurora Ventures lists its work as including delivery of the International Women’s Day (IWD) platform and working “with stakeholders to produce an annual IWD campaign theme”.

What we do know is that those behind the IWD URL boast excellent SEO skills to compete against the UN Women’s resources and themes. They go further, infiltrating stock libraries to get their hashtags in images and a range of women from diverse backgrounds doing the “inspire inclusion” pose.

This year’s corporate hand actions include creating a heart shape with your fingers. You can “strike the #InspireInclusion pose to show solidarity” because “When we truly value difference, it comes from the heart”.

As of late 2023, those who own the IWD domain name also featured several “Prime Employers” associated with International Women’s Day that the website writers said “maintain a deep and continuous focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) all year round”. Some notable exemplars included Siemens Healthineers, Diageo, Honeywell, John Deer and Northrop Grumman in association with IWD 2023.

The website has since been updated, presumably to focus more on employers that don’t make things like intercontinental ballistic missiles because “weapons and women’s empowerment” doesn’t roll off the tongue so well in 2024.

Catchy themes like Inspire Inclusion are a concern not just because they overshadow the real issues that need addressing around IWD, but also because we are at a real risk of running out of diversity-related words to put a verb in front of. Especially when the World Economic Forum says the world has 152 years to wait for gender equality.

UN Women’s 2024 theme centred around ‘Count Her In’ has substance and intention. It’s based on the priority outlined by the United Nations 68th Commission on the Status of Women to examine and open pathways for greater economic inclusion of women and girls.

But rather than addressing awkward areas like the investment and gender pay gaps, the need for gender-responsive financing and the necessity to shift to a green economy and care society, wouldn’t it be easier to try and “inspire” some inclusion, instead?

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.