My problem is with the false sense of activism that women’s day provides to companies for thinking they are contributing to the women’s movement.
Apparel discounts, spa packages, free haircuts and free cocktail offers — these are the texts I found my phone inbox flooded with under the pretext of women’s day celebration from various brands. All of these companies were telling me to treat myself because I deserve it, while none of them actually offered me what I need.
International Women’s Day is celebrated on 8 March every year across the globe to commemorate the women’s suffrage movement. However, every special occasion in this society comes with an opportunity to capitalise on it, and brings a new market of its own. Today, it happens to be us!
Can you imagine the possibilities this day brings for the industry targeting women as a consumer base by making them feel special?
I would imagine discounted sanitary napkins, packages for health check-ups, two free visits to a gynaecologist, maybe. But the promotion messages popping up on my phone acknowledge my womanhood through completely different parameters, like whether I’m getting enough alcohol.
I am not asking for more, but I am asking for better. The opportunist commercialisation of a day that is supposed to be about women’s rights and representation reveals a much larger problem. It tells us that our economy, primarily built on a male-dominated commodity market, completely misreads the needs of women as target consumers. It turns out, men really don’t know what women want. It also doesn’t help that the vanity sector is the most active during this time when the health sector for women just isn’t.
Women have significantly lower access to health and sanitation than men in the country — a sector where gender parity has been declining over the years. India ranked fourth-lowest in the world on health and survival, remaining the least-improved country in a decade.
In a country where women are fighting for lower taxes on something as basic as sanitary pads, it seems like a mockery to our collective struggle to be offered concessions on commodities and services that are irrelevant to our gender experience.
One of the many messages in my inbox offered me a discounted haircut. I remembered how my friend once had to fight at a unisex salon because she was charged Rs 200 for a trim on her short hair, when a male friend, with hair longer than hers, was charged Rs 50 for the same haircut. For a woman, it was four times the price. So when you offer me a discount on an already inflated figure that was raised for me, just because I happen to be a woman, it doesn’t make me feel ‘special’, it makes me feel disappointed. It reminds me that the whole game is rigged.
Also, besides the rigged concession, my problem is with the false sense of activism that it provides to companies for thinking they are contributing to the women’s movement. They offer us free spa packages to make us feel special, but when we continue to ask for our rights, then they call us ungrateful angry feminists.
A guy once told me that I had it easy because I didn’t have to pay for my drinks at clubs on ‘ladies nights’ or because entering the clubs wasn’t a task for me (because clubs love single women). That’s true. I don’t have to shell out money on drinks, but the price I pay is the risk to my safety. I don’t quite enjoy that alcohol when I’m anxious about getting harassed by the men around who are too drunk to remember my agency. So free cocktails are hardly an incentive to celebrate women’s day, and more of a sorry note from clubs saying: “We’re sorry you don’t feel safe enough to come here and have a good time on your own, but we wouldn’t attract enough male paying consumers if we didn’t have any female customers around. So here’s a coupon for vodka diluted in synthetic syrup and water.” It just dilutes the whole cause like that awful syrup.
Also, if you really want to capitalise on women’s day as an apparel brand, I bet that the introduction of pants that finally have real pockets will make women much happier than discounted scarves for the sake of feminism.
The point is, there was a plethora of opportunities for brands and companies to sell women goods and services they would have appreciated this women’s day, and yet none made a great pitch.
Maybe next year, they can try asking women what they want.