Speaker 1: What I really hope is that what the works that
Speaker 1: we've done with the boss has been able to inspire
Speaker 1: companies and just thinking like, well, we've we've ignored our
Speaker 1: problems and it's not worked, So you know, maybe this
Speaker 1: is a bit of a kick up for bum to
Speaker 1: do something about it. There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: As a production of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative,
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Toad and this is there are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. March eighth is International Women's Day, a
Speaker 1: global holiday to commemorate the achievements of women, and I
Speaker 1: have to say, I really really hate it. And if
Speaker 1: we're being completely honest, I have always been a little
Speaker 1: bit of a grinch about pretty much any and all
Speaker 1: holidays or commemorative months meant to celebrate marginalized people, because
Speaker 1: it always seems that they get call up that by
Speaker 1: brands and corporations making empty gestures towards solidarity that are
Speaker 1: pretty much meaningless. So I usually stay away from social
Speaker 1: media on International Women's Day because I really can do
Speaker 1: without the tweets from brands about how I should celebrate
Speaker 1: women by using their discount code to buy lingerie or whatever.
Speaker 1: But this international Women's Day, something a little bit different happened. Yes,
Speaker 1: the brand still did their thing, unleashing their hollow tweets
Speaker 1: assuring us how much they love women. But when they did,
Speaker 1: they were retweeted by a Twitter account called the gender
Speaker 1: pay gap bot that added some very important context how
Speaker 1: much of a gender wage gap exists at the very
Speaker 1: same companies tweeting about how they're celebrating women. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: when the fashion retailer Misguide had tweeted, we're paying it
Speaker 1: forward this International Women's Day and we're giving away prizes
Speaker 1: throughout the day, including one thousand pounds cash, gender pay
Speaker 1: gaff retweeted their tweet, adding, in this organization, women's media
Speaker 1: and hourly pay is lower than men's. Out Now, many
Speaker 1: of the Women's Day tweets made by companies that gender
Speaker 1: pay Gap put on blasphere paying women less were curiously deleted.
Speaker 1: It was social media chaos, and as a messy bitch,
Speaker 1: of course, I loved every minute of it. I spoke
Speaker 1: to Francesca Lawson, the social media marketer based in Manchester
Speaker 1: who built the gender pay Gap alongside her partner Ali,
Speaker 1: about how it came to be. So Francesca, I have
Speaker 1: to tell you your project really just stuck something inside
Speaker 1: of me. I guess I'm a little bit of a grinch.
Speaker 1: I really hate holidays like Pride, I hate International Women's Day,
Speaker 1: and I just feel that these days have kind of
Speaker 1: become so co opted in a lot of ways. Um,
Speaker 1: is this something that you can relate to? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Like in my line of work in like social media marketing,
Speaker 1: I have been that person that's made myself really unpopular
Speaker 1: when I've you know, being asked to update all our
Speaker 1: logos to Pride flags, for instance, and I've been like,
Speaker 1: hold on a second, why do you want to do that?
Speaker 1: You know, you want to sort of make sure that
Speaker 1: we're promoting ourselves as being really good for like LGBT rights,
Speaker 1: But what do we have to show for that? Can
Speaker 1: we really sort of put out a flag and that
Speaker 1: be it, that'd be all our contribution. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just another example of kind of you know, where this
Speaker 1: sort of performative kind of marketing comes about, and it
Speaker 1: really frustrates me. It just doesn't sit sit right with
Speaker 1: like my values. You know, I believe that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's up to all of us to be kind of
Speaker 1: working towards a more inclusive worlds through our actions. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's not enough to and change your profile
Speaker 1: picture to a Pride flag, and it's not enough to
Speaker 1: like post inspirational women webinar for International Women's Day. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's really important that m our words are
Speaker 1: backed up by our actions, whether we are speaking as
Speaker 1: an individual or a business or like a kind of
Speaker 1: a government body or something like that. It's and so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what inspired the creation of the gender pay gap.
Speaker 1: But you know, we've got the gender pay gap data
Speaker 1: available for UK companies with more than two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty employees. So you know, by putting that back into
Speaker 1: the spotlight, back into the public eye, it just helps
Speaker 1: helps members of the public see through these messages of
Speaker 1: corporate solidarity and you know, make their own minds up
Speaker 1: about how well an employer is doing for equality. On Twitter,
Speaker 1: the gender pay gap bats bio reads employers, if you
Speaker 1: tweet about International Women's Day, I'll retweet your gender pay
Speaker 1: gap looking as emog using purposeful unemotional language. The gender
Speaker 1: pig app that tweets publicly available data to highlight the
Speaker 1: actual values of the company's proclaiming the champion women and
Speaker 1: it was one from the same kind of frustration that
Speaker 1: I feel about empty platitude about uplifting women and other
Speaker 1: marginalized voices. It was basically the weekend before International Women's
Speaker 1: Day twenty one is when you know, if things started
Speaker 1: coming through again and you know, people promoting their their resents,
Speaker 1: people offering you discount codes to you know buy like
Speaker 1: lingerie or something for International Women's Day, and it just
Speaker 1: sort of made me so frustrated because it seems like
Speaker 1: no one's facing any accountability for these claims. And so
Speaker 1: I knew that the data was there. I don't think
Speaker 1: that many of the people did know that the data
Speaker 1: was there. So yeah, myself and my partner and Ali,
Speaker 1: we sort of wanted to come up with a way
Speaker 1: of putting that data back into the spotlight, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we built a box. In the UK, any company that
Speaker 1: employs more than people has to publish their figures comparing
Speaker 1: men and women's average pay across the organization. You can
Speaker 1: see it at gender Pay Gap, that service that gob
Speaker 1: at UK. Now, this transparency is a great step, but
Speaker 1: Catsca says it still has a long way to go.
Speaker 1: So in the UK, any company that has more than
Speaker 1: two fifty employers has to make their pay their gender pay.
Speaker 1: Uh is it just pay generally or is it specifically
Speaker 1: pay in relation to the gender pay gap. It's just
Speaker 1: in relation to the gender pay gaps. So we don't
Speaker 1: have like a record of, um, what employees are getting paid,
Speaker 1: what wages within that company. All we've got is sort
Speaker 1: of the average the difference between the average man's earnings
Speaker 1: and the difference between the average women's earnings. And so
Speaker 1: it's a useful it's a useful way to sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, compare kind of companies actions, faces, their words.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not enough to truly get a
Speaker 1: scale of where the inequalities exists in a company. Um.
Speaker 1: And it also just covers gender as well. And you
Speaker 1: know what I would really like to see is you know,
Speaker 1: more different types of inequalities being included in that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, just getting a handle on the ethnicity pay
Speaker 1: gap as well, and you know what sort of um,
Speaker 1: kind of barriers people of color face in these organizations
Speaker 1: for you know, getting good wages and kind of progressing
Speaker 1: up the career. Laddin data is so powerful. You know,
Speaker 1: data dos a lie. Numbers are numbers do, but they're
Speaker 1: meaningless if people don't know about, then if people are
Speaker 1: engaging with it, And so I wonder do you sort
Speaker 1: of see this bad as a kind of data visualization
Speaker 1: project where you're really trying to bring more visibility and
Speaker 1: more awareness around the cold hard kind of depressing numbers
Speaker 1: around the pay gap. Yeah, definitely, it's um the data
Speaker 1: on the government site is quite inaccessible. I think it's
Speaker 1: like you've got to first of all, find the find
Speaker 1: where it's stored, you know, Google Search. You've got to
Speaker 1: know what you're looking for, and then when you're on there,
Speaker 1: you've got to search for a specific company who's pay
Speaker 1: gaps that you want to look at, and then you've
Speaker 1: got to sort of click through every different and every
Speaker 1: different year that they've reported. Some of them will have
Speaker 1: five years worth the data, some of them, say, you know,
Speaker 1: newer companies or companies that have recently expanded might only
Speaker 1: have one or two. So it's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information there, but you've got to do a lot
Speaker 1: of work to get it. And Yeah, what we wanted
Speaker 1: to do is make sure that you know, people knew
Speaker 1: that that information was there, and you know, it was
Speaker 1: in a way that they could understand. It's not hidden
Speaker 1: a way. It's here on Twister, you know, when everyone
Speaker 1: is kind of seeing all these International Women's Day supportive posts,
Speaker 1: it's just the data is there for them to make
Speaker 1: their own minds up about kind of what that means.
Speaker 1: It's completely devoid of any emotion or judgment. It's just
Speaker 1: here's a very nice emotional post from a company, and
Speaker 1: here's the fact behind it. There is something so thrilling
Speaker 1: to me about brands having to scramble to delete a
Speaker 1: tweet because everybody is hating on them. So the gender
Speaker 1: pay gap bot kind of made my International Women's stay.
Speaker 1: Brands were scrambling to delete their perhaps well meaning tweets
Speaker 1: once the pay gaps at their organizations were revealed, and
Speaker 1: hopefully it caused them to reflect on why they felt
Speaker 1: the need to weigh in in the first place. Some
Speaker 1: of the tweets that ended up being deleted when you
Speaker 1: when the when the box you know retweeted them with
Speaker 1: the actual data around how crappy they are in terms
Speaker 1: of a pay gap. Some of them were so wild
Speaker 1: to begin with, like women are the fabric of what
Speaker 1: makes this sweater company run and blah blah blah. It's
Speaker 1: like some of us like, okay, keep your flowery bullshit.
Speaker 1: What are you actually paying the women who are working
Speaker 1: at your company? Like, what are your actual values? Was
Speaker 1: that your intention? Did you? Were you trying to inject
Speaker 1: a little like honesty into the conversation on social media
Speaker 1: around women and pay or like a little bit of
Speaker 1: chaos because it was a little it was a little
Speaker 1: bit like I was like, oh, this is like chaotic
Speaker 1: and I love it. Yeah, I think the focus is
Speaker 1: mainly on honesty. I think we never expected there to
Speaker 1: be so much chaos because we didn't expect it to
Speaker 1: kind of spread so wide and sort of have so
Speaker 1: many different people from around the world engaging with it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was really fantastic to see. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that we at all anticipated. So yeah, honesty
Speaker 1: was definitely the focus. But then I will admit like
Speaker 1: the kind of seeing the chaos and fold who was
Speaker 1: just like the ice and on the cake ap it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm here for a little bit of especially as everything
Speaker 1: to like brands and corporations, I'm here for a little
Speaker 1: bit of messiness, a little bit of chaos. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're gonna say we value women, okay,
Speaker 1: let's have to really have the conversation about you valuing women.
Speaker 1: You chose to tweet it like people can respond and
Speaker 1: especially respond with the cold hard facts of the way
Speaker 1: that women are valued within your organization. And so I
Speaker 1: think it really I think why I loved the project
Speaker 1: is that it really exposed this hypocrisy that I think
Speaker 1: that frankly, we've all just gotten used to. We've just
Speaker 1: gotten used to this idea that brands and corporations and um,
Speaker 1: you know, government agencies are going to these things that
Speaker 1: started in liberation, they're going to take that co opted
Speaker 1: give it back to us in the form of a
Speaker 1: platitude or like a shirt with a rainbow flag on it,
Speaker 1: or they change their you know icon on Twitter or
Speaker 1: whatever like that. I think we have just gotten used
Speaker 1: to and accepted that that is the way it is.
Speaker 1: And your bot, I feel like the kind of woke
Speaker 1: us up. But like we hate We don't have to
Speaker 1: accept this, we can reject this. Yeah, that's totally it.
Speaker 1: Like I've seen so many people just sort of in
Speaker 1: my own social circles say things like you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like check out of social media on
Speaker 1: International Women's Day because you know, I can't cope with
Speaker 1: the bullshit, Like it's just too much to sort of
Speaker 1: get angry about anymore, because it's everywhere, you like, people
Speaker 1: don't have the energy to sort of fight back with
Speaker 1: every every single sort of empty gesture, which you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to like take advantage of like a liberation movement. Um. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been really lovely to see some of the feedback
Speaker 1: that we've had of people saying that, you know, they
Speaker 1: really value it and actually it brought them like much
Speaker 1: needed both entertainment and transparency on a day when you know,
Speaker 1: you lose a bit of lose a bit of hope
Speaker 1: and start like despairing for the future because you know,
Speaker 1: despite all the you know, nice branding and you know
Speaker 1: logos on T shirts, conditions aren't really improving for any
Speaker 1: marginalized group, both in work and in wide society at
Speaker 1: the THENT. Yeah, and you know, and I think it's
Speaker 1: conditions are not improving, and I think it's an imperative
Speaker 1: to point to some of the culprits of why that is,
Speaker 1: especially when they want to talk out of both sides
Speaker 1: of their face and say, oh, we value women, but
Speaker 1: we're not actually doing that in we're saying that in
Speaker 1: words but not in deeds. You know, here in the
Speaker 1: United States there are a whole host of huge corporations
Speaker 1: that put up International Women's a post or Black History
Speaker 1: Month posts or you know, back in during the racial
Speaker 1: justice protests, were like, oh, we stand with our black
Speaker 1: employees and then turn around and give lots and lots
Speaker 1: of money to politicians who go on to champion legislation
Speaker 1: that makes our lives so much harder. I just feel
Speaker 1: like we have all gotten so used to this corporate
Speaker 1: hypocrisy that that brands its whitewash is liberation as I
Speaker 1: don't want to be celebrated by a company that is
Speaker 1: like making my life harder materially. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: want a company like that to celebrate me. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, and they shouldn't be doing those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: You know, they shouldn't be either, you know, celebrating if
Speaker 1: they're not actually following out through with you know, supportive
Speaker 1: action throughout the year. They need to sort of look
Speaker 1: at kind of what processes are that they are responsible
Speaker 1: for and can they change to you know, improve people's
Speaker 1: lives within their organization, Like what barriers are kind of
Speaker 1: people coming up against which are limiting their success, and
Speaker 1: how can they be removed because it's not enough to
Speaker 1: just sort of like wait for legislation to do it. Like,
Speaker 1: there are things which companies can do themselves, um to
Speaker 1: sort of improve the lives of um of women, of
Speaker 1: people of color, and disabled people, and they're not doing them.
Speaker 1: But they're still sort of, you know, trying to ride
Speaker 1: the ride the trend for a bit of a few likes.
Speaker 1: Really it's so empty, and I guess that's what I
Speaker 1: don't even realize this until you said it. That International
Speaker 1: Women's Day, I don't even really I just check out
Speaker 1: basically from February to the end of March UH in
Speaker 1: the United States, that's Black History Month, Women's History Month.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to see it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see the brand. I don't want to see It's
Speaker 1: just so hollow. And it makes me sad that these
Speaker 1: days that are meant to be amplifying our voices and
Speaker 1: champion us, championing us to have just been become so
Speaker 1: co opted that it's like I'm not even excited for it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I just like tune it out. Such a
Speaker 1: shame that you know that's the way it's gone. I
Speaker 1: can because I did like a little blog post of
Speaker 1: my own kind of for my freelance business before actually
Speaker 1: launching the part, and one of the things that I
Speaker 1: wrote in there was like some pointers of, you know,
Speaker 1: for brands that are planning to do campaigns around International
Speaker 1: Women's Day and any other sort of liberation event, you know,
Speaker 1: by them taking up space in that conversation, whose voices
Speaker 1: aren't getting hurt? And that's kind of I think that's
Speaker 1: what's a bit worrying for me, is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the people that we really need to listen to, those
Speaker 1: that are struggling the most, those that you know, these
Speaker 1: days are made for like you know, trying to acknowledge
Speaker 1: their struggles and work to fix them. They're not getting
Speaker 1: hurt because all we've got is um, you know, discount
Speaker 1: codes on stocks and you know others other types of
Speaker 1: you know, reasonably meaningless efforts from companies. So yeah, really
Speaker 1: interesting that, like the way that you mentioned um, you know,
Speaker 1: how things get co opted and you know, things just
Speaker 1: get lost in the noise, And yeah, he was those
Speaker 1: were the most sort of um influence on the people
Speaker 1: that necessarily need their voices amplified on these days. Let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break utter back. So, how do we
Speaker 1: get to this place where things like Black History Month,
Speaker 1: International Women's Day, and Pride have been co opted by
Speaker 1: brands and corporations. It's viewing empty rhetoric and performative bullshit. Well,
Speaker 1: Francesca says, it has a lot to do with the
Speaker 1: rise of social media. When everyone, including brands, can easily
Speaker 1: add their voice to the converse station, they feel the
Speaker 1: need to weigh in on issues that otherwise they probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have or shouldn't have before social media, and our
Speaker 1: liberation becomes just another online trend to jump in on,
Speaker 1: and today's consumers are much more attuned to the values
Speaker 1: of A brand study by the consumer research agency Verity
Speaker 1: found that most about of consumers want to do business
Speaker 1: with companies that take values based stances. So brands struggling
Speaker 1: up an International Women's Day tweet and doing pretty much
Speaker 1: nothing else is a lazy way to woo that audience
Speaker 1: of consumers without actually having to do anything of substance.
Speaker 1: In other words, it basically turns liberation into a quick
Speaker 1: cash grab. How do you think we got to this
Speaker 1: place where these days that were meant to be about
Speaker 1: real liberation and real solidarity have just become empty. And
Speaker 1: and how how do you think we got to a
Speaker 1: place where brands feel like it's okay to add their
Speaker 1: voice on a subject that they really don't champion in. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the reactions it's got a lot to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: how social media has grown sort of over you know,
Speaker 1: the last few years. I think that you know, prior
Speaker 1: to all brands being on like Twitter and Instagram, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't they probably wouldn't have done sort of a more
Speaker 1: traditional media campaign on these sorts of events. I think
Speaker 1: one because you know, when you're talking to the press,
Speaker 1: that sort of implies a lot more scrutiny. You've got
Speaker 1: to have more data to be able to back up
Speaker 1: your story. Yeah, because they're not just gonna print anything
Speaker 1: that's you know, poorly research, for instance. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think social media gave all of us, but also
Speaker 1: kind of brands a platform to just say and do
Speaker 1: whatever they want without really much scrutiny over it. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, what I think has maybe I think we've
Speaker 1: slept walked into this sort of situation where, like, you know,
Speaker 1: people's liberation is kind of celebrated by companies that aren't
Speaker 1: sort of doing anything meaningful towards it, and because it's
Speaker 1: it's trending, because you know, people talk about talk about
Speaker 1: say like um, Black History Month and with International Women's Day, Pride,
Speaker 1: they talk about all those things on social media, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think that it's often seen as a
Speaker 1: bit of an opportunity of you know, we can muscle
Speaker 1: in and kind of expand our reach if we also
Speaker 1: kind of show that that's what we're into. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I think that the second thing is that consumer
Speaker 1: habits are think are starting to shift a bit, and
Speaker 1: I think people want to buy from and work with
Speaker 1: companies who support similar values to themselves. And and I
Speaker 1: think that you know, when you know us the society says, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we do believe that kind of all, all people
Speaker 1: have a right to live in you know, safety and equality,
Speaker 1: and they all have a right to thrive. So we
Speaker 1: want companies to u to kind of reflect those values too.
Speaker 1: And so but I think that that's that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: translating into Okay, we need to actually be acting on,
Speaker 1: you know, how we can promote equity within our organizations,
Speaker 1: and instead it's just like, well, people want to see
Speaker 1: that we are doing something so that they shop from us,
Speaker 1: So we're going to show them that we are, even
Speaker 1: if even if it's not true. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: And as you were speaking, I wrote down in my
Speaker 1: notes like social liberation is not a trend, right. I
Speaker 1: think that you're exactly right that before social media, I
Speaker 1: don't think that a company that had mostly when mostly
Speaker 1: men in their leadership and the women that were there
Speaker 1: were underpaid and that their funding politicians that like make
Speaker 1: women's lives harder, would put out a press release about
Speaker 1: how they like women. It wouldn't make any sense. But
Speaker 1: social media has really made these brands feel like that
Speaker 1: they can have a voice in every conversation and should
Speaker 1: have a voice in every conversation, but maybe they really
Speaker 1: fucking shouldn't one. And then I also think that you're
Speaker 1: the data is very clear that particularly young consumers really
Speaker 1: do want to shop and spend money with organizations that
Speaker 1: have similar values. Like that's very clear, and I think
Speaker 1: these companies want that money without having to do any
Speaker 1: of the work to get that right, and so they
Speaker 1: just they say like, okay, well, young consumers that and
Speaker 1: most consumers want to spend money at organizations that also
Speaker 1: have share their values, so we'll just say we share
Speaker 1: their values, but not really share their values, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think it's such a lazy, empty way of
Speaker 1: just really getting more money. It's it's such a it's
Speaker 1: such a lazy, obvious cash grab that I find it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I'm only now just realizing my detest for
Speaker 1: days like this because it just illustrates what a lazy
Speaker 1: cash cash grab it is. And I find it offensive. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, partially thanks to social media,
Speaker 1: I guess that you know, anything that is possibly worth monetizing,
Speaker 1: then the companies have found a way to monetize it.
Speaker 1: And you know that's that's not right. You know, it's
Speaker 1: you can't sort of profit from people's liberation when there
Speaker 1: are people still fighting for it. I think I was
Speaker 1: reading an interview with you with you where you said
Speaker 1: I don't want to have liberation co opt and sold
Speaker 1: back to me up by way of a smash the
Speaker 1: patriarchy T shirt, right, Like, I don't want a slogan,
Speaker 1: I don't want a T shirt. I don't want to
Speaker 1: discount code. I want liberation. I want a quality. I
Speaker 1: want inclusion. I want real things that make a tangible difference,
Speaker 1: not a fucking T shirt, not a sucking slogan. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's totally it. It's you know, nice words don't
Speaker 1: really make a difference. You know, I would much rather
Speaker 1: that you know, companies held those kept those nice words
Speaker 1: themselves and instead sort of focused on, you know, what
Speaker 1: they can do. And what I really hope is that
Speaker 1: what the works that we've done with the Bath has
Speaker 1: been able to inspire companies and and just thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: we've we've ignored our problems and it's not work. So
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is a if a kick up
Speaker 1: for bum to do something about it. Do you think
Speaker 1: the policy in the UK around transparency and the and
Speaker 1: the gender pig app like, do you think that's made
Speaker 1: at difference? Because if it's if that information data is
Speaker 1: that data is very powerful, but if it's so inaccessible,
Speaker 1: can it really do you think it's really made a difference.
Speaker 1: I don't think that it has yet. I think that
Speaker 1: it's marvelous that we've got the data there, um, but
Speaker 1: I think that the drawbacks are the fact that it's
Speaker 1: not really all that in your face, and I think
Speaker 1: that limits the impact that it's able to have. You know,
Speaker 1: like I kind of have conversations with people that didn't
Speaker 1: know it existed until we started pushing out the tweets
Speaker 1: on International Women's Day, and we've had quite a lot
Speaker 1: of questions back about like, oh, where's the data from?
Speaker 1: And you know, I think sometimes that's coming from international
Speaker 1: audiences now, so that's kind of understand all that it's
Speaker 1: um not well, the UK regulations aren't known worldwide. But
Speaker 1: you know, people that I've worked with, I like, how
Speaker 1: did you manage to get all this data? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: how do you not know it's there? Like and especially
Speaker 1: because you know, I've made no secret of kind of
Speaker 1: my um kind of politics in the types of places
Speaker 1: where I've worked, and so this is types of things
Speaker 1: that I've brought up and talked about. And I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember sort of the first year that it came in.
Speaker 1: I was working at a it was like a financial
Speaker 1: services company in their marketing department, and I saw the
Speaker 1: figures come in and they had like, I think it's
Speaker 1: about twenty two pay gap, and so I just said
Speaker 1: around the desk, like, oh, have you seeing this? We've
Speaker 1: got a twenty two percent gender pay gap, and honestly,
Speaker 1: like no one, no one seemed to care for one.
Speaker 1: I think that was potentially because there was only I
Speaker 1: was one of two women in the team. But then
Speaker 1: also it just sort of it became a bit of
Speaker 1: a dirty word, like all I was getting was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is why we've got a gender pay gap, and
Speaker 1: oh it's the education system's fault, and it's like all
Speaker 1: attempts to shut down any meaningful discussion. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that the impact of it is limited by
Speaker 1: the fact that it's not although it's publicly available, that
Speaker 1: it's not accessible. And also the regulations only require companies
Speaker 1: to declare it, they don't require like them to actually
Speaker 1: fix it. So I think that you know, if well,
Speaker 1: for them to have more of an impact, I think
Speaker 1: that the next step would be too and well one
Speaker 1: includes other types of inequality as well, especially so that
Speaker 1: we can get a handle on the ethnicity wage gap.
Speaker 1: And two, I think that we need to um, you know,
Speaker 1: legislate to force companies to act on that data. Um
Speaker 1: because you see as well, like we've got five years
Speaker 1: worth of data now and it's a lot of the
Speaker 1: time not going in the right direction. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a couple of percent either way, and so
Speaker 1: you think, well, that's you know, not not too bad.
Speaker 1: It means that you're not doing anything about it, but
Speaker 1: at least it's not getting worse. More. After a quick break,
Speaker 1: let's get right back into it. Even though gender pay
Speaker 1: gap data is publicly available in the UK and thanks
Speaker 1: to Francesco's but more people are paying attention to it,
Speaker 1: it's meaningless without actual accountability. It is so easy for
Speaker 1: companies to playing away, whether paying women less or to
Speaker 1: ignore it altogether. We looked at one and kind of
Speaker 1: sports retailer and who went from having a no point
Speaker 1: three gender pay gap in and the data this year
Speaker 1: is I think about forty eight. So that's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: massive difference. Yeah, so that's really worrying. That's like, you know,
Speaker 1: the reason that this regulation was brought in was to
Speaker 1: sort of make companies not like act on their gap
Speaker 1: and like reduce it. But then it's just gone the
Speaker 1: complete opposite direction in some cases. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: really demonstrates your point that data transparency needs to be
Speaker 1: needs to have some transparency is a good start, a
Speaker 1: good first start, but unless it's couple with some kind
Speaker 1: of accountability, which I think that your bad is really
Speaker 1: kind of pushing the needle forward, and so good, good
Speaker 1: job there, but like it has to come with some
Speaker 1: kind of impetus for change. Otherwise it's just transparency. And
Speaker 1: even you know, when you're from within the company bringing
Speaker 1: that to their attention that hey, we have a big
Speaker 1: pay gap, they can just ignore it or give some
Speaker 1: other reason for it, or just frankly pretend like it
Speaker 1: didn't happen, pretend like those facts are not the reality
Speaker 1: of their company, even though they are. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: we've had a couple of kind of responses from companies
Speaker 1: that have you know, said things like, oh, no, you know,
Speaker 1: our data rescued by the fact that it was the
Speaker 1: pandemic and we had sort of more staff absences, we
Speaker 1: had UM the Fellow scheme where like UM a lot
Speaker 1: of employees were getting their full salary. And it's just
Speaker 1: like these on justifications like yes, they may sort of
Speaker 1: their factors which contribute to it, but then it's we're
Speaker 1: moving beyond the pandemic, hopefully this year, and so now
Speaker 1: you've got to focus on pul what's next. You know,
Speaker 1: you can look back and think of all the things
Speaker 1: which you know may have contributed to your problem in
Speaker 1: the past twelve months. But that's useless if you're not
Speaker 1: also going to look at what are you going to
Speaker 1: do in the next twelve months to you know, correct
Speaker 1: for that and make sure that you know there's not
Speaker 1: a lasting economic impact specifically on women in marginalized groups
Speaker 1: beyond the pandemic. So I'm obviously here for shaming the
Speaker 1: companies that need to be shamed. Were there companies that
Speaker 1: you found from us from this bat that we're actually
Speaker 1: walking the walk as well as talking the talk where
Speaker 1: the that that bat revealed that they actually we're paying
Speaker 1: women equally in their company. Yeah, we did, actually, um,
Speaker 1: we don't actually publish a few tweets where there was
Speaker 1: equal pay and a few where there was a slight
Speaker 1: gap in favor of women, And so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that was there definitely in the minority those um those companies.
Speaker 1: In the one and jenipe gap data from the UK government,
Speaker 1: there was seventy seven percent of companies and reported that
Speaker 1: and women's average pay is less than men's. So obviously
Speaker 1: that's that's really significant. It's a really small number that
Speaker 1: are sort of the other direction or that are equal,
Speaker 1: but like we wanted to make sure that they got
Speaker 1: highlighted as well. Like we've used the same sort of
Speaker 1: mutual text for um for both you know, where there
Speaker 1: was a big pay gap or where there was a
Speaker 1: small pay gapple where there was no pay gap, Because
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do was take all of the
Speaker 1: emotion out of it. We're just pushing out the data
Speaker 1: and then it's for like Twitter users and the general
Speaker 1: public to kind of make up their own mind. And
Speaker 1: if they see sort of a company or like a
Speaker 1: government organization or whatever that's got a equal pay, then
Speaker 1: you know, that's what we've actually done, is we've really
Speaker 1: amplified their distribution because you know, we've turned into quite
Speaker 1: a big account over a really short pit space of time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just personally, what is that been like for you?
Speaker 1: I know that you said that you didn't think this
Speaker 1: this would blow up the way it has, and boy
Speaker 1: has a blown up. What is it been like for
Speaker 1: you and your partner just personally seeing this thing become
Speaker 1: such an Internet sensation. It's a really incredible feeling to
Speaker 1: see that, Like so many people have been enjoying the
Speaker 1: works that we've done and have been like engaging in
Speaker 1: the data and using it to spark kind of productive conversations.
Speaker 1: That's an absolutely amazing feeling. M I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm only just starting to come to terms with like
Speaker 1: the impact that it's had. Like last week was absolutely
Speaker 1: chaos for me. It was like, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: just get on with them some bits of freelance work,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I'd be getting like messages from
Speaker 1: friends saying like, oh, hey, I've just seen you in
Speaker 1: UM in this news outlet, like that's incredible, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh cool, you know we're in the times, like that's
Speaker 1: what was not expecting that. So, yeah, it's been really
Speaker 1: difficult to sort of like keep track of UM, keep
Speaker 1: track of everything that's going on. And but at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's been so so rewarding to see like
Speaker 1: all the messages of support that we've had. And you know,
Speaker 1: I even got like an email message of someone who
Speaker 1: worked on like a project with the government when they
Speaker 1: were setting up this gender pay gap kind of service
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and seventeen, and and he said
Speaker 1: that they were having meetings with like creative agencies for
Speaker 1: like more a million pound contracts to do something with
Speaker 1: the data. And his message said that, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: so pleased that you know, you've been able to produce
Speaker 1: this because it's so much better and more effective than
Speaker 1: any of the ideas that those creative in those creative
Speaker 1: agencies pitched. And it was all sort of well, very
Speaker 1: low cost, like you know, the only money that we've
Speaker 1: put into it is you know, the our time, um
Speaker 1: kind of completely nonprofit. We've kind of had no intention
Speaker 1: of you know, ever using it for like promotion or
Speaker 1: anything like that. So yeah, it's on a shoe string budget.
Speaker 1: We've been able to produce some thing that like multimillion
Speaker 1: pound agencies could not. Apparently I love that, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's because you're authentic, you care about this,
Speaker 1: and you you know, I think really if attestament to
Speaker 1: what creativity and creative marketing and a little bit of
Speaker 1: you know, no how around the data can really be
Speaker 1: more effective than you know, a huge marketing a huge
Speaker 1: marketing budget and all of that. Like it really comes
Speaker 1: down to just creativity and authenticity, which I think you
Speaker 1: have in Spain. So I'm so thrilled with how people
Speaker 1: are reacting to this. I think it's so cool I
Speaker 1: guess one of my last questions for you is what's next?
Speaker 1: You have plans to make more bats, like what can
Speaker 1: we expect? So yeah, I would absolutely love to be
Speaker 1: able to like copy this concept for like other sort
Speaker 1: of liberation events throughout the year when and we see
Speaker 1: a lot of this performative marketing come through. So you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about and we talked about Pride, we talked
Speaker 1: about and Black History months and our issue is that
Speaker 1: we don't have data to kind of to do that yet.
Speaker 1: But we have had a couple of people get in
Speaker 1: touch with some potential data sources that we're we're looking into,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, hopefully over the next twelve months we
Speaker 1: will be able to find a way to kind of
Speaker 1: be able to highlight the truth behind the supportive messages
Speaker 1: on other issues. And greenwashing is another one we've got.
Speaker 1: We've had sort of a message from a like environmental
Speaker 1: charity in the UK and interested in kind of potentially
Speaker 1: working together too and do something to highlight what's going on,
Speaker 1: what what companies are really doing for the environment, despite
Speaker 1: you know, they'll claim that they're really really sustainable and
Speaker 1: of course you know it's rarely possible to operate a
Speaker 1: like for profit business in a truly sustainable way, and
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, there's a lot of companies
Speaker 1: trying to pretend that that isn't the case. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if we were able to kind of work with them
Speaker 1: to get some data and around like Cobb admissions for instance,
Speaker 1: and we'd love to be able to replicate it for
Speaker 1: rewashing too. I think a lot of companies are gonna
Speaker 1: have to make sure their social media teams are ready
Speaker 1: to go because especially around greenwashing, because that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of deleted tweets. Got a story about an
Speaker 1: interesting thing in tech, I just want to say Hi.
Speaker 1: You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tang
Speaker 1: godi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet
Speaker 1: was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Ary Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato
Speaker 1: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Tod. If
Speaker 1: you want to help us grow, rate and review us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts for more podcasts from iHeart Radio check
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