International Women’s Day: A Scam
On Tuesday, 8th March 2022, the internet was abuzz with several pictures, tweets and graphics praising and “celebrating” women on International Women’s Day. This was coupled with companies spamming their social media pages with their handful of female employees. As wonderful as all of that might seem, the entire day is mostly an opportunity for misogynistic companies to use flowery words to “save face” or for them to display their utter lack of regard for women. Just take a look at some of the highlights of this year’s IWD.
1. Whatever First Bank thought they were doing.
These people really woke up on the morning of the day before IWD and chose to place men in the spotlight. Please, what on earth are “he4shes”? Are they not embarrassed? Why are you choosing to stroke the egos of “progressive” men on IWD of all days?
2. Sterling Bank’s absence of effort.
While some companies were pretending and overdoing their supposed love and support for women, Sterling Bank decided no effort was the way to go. The tweet could initially be funny but it goes to show how little they care. Not even a poster! It won‘t take an amateur an hour to come up with an IWD poster on Canva and yet, here we are.
3. The Gender Pay Gap Bot.
These screenshots do not even skim the surface of the huge discrepancy in the hourly pay of women in several organizations. These organizations with their once-a-year fancy women panels and their carefully worded tweets about how much they adore the women working in their companies when they cannot be bothered to pay them as well as their male counterparts. Tueh! Scam! I am just glad that so many tweets were deleted by companies after they were dragged by their fictional wigs.
4. Vanguard’s disgraceful reporting.
That headline right there shows how far behind we are in upholding and respecting the rights of women. Please explain to me what Bamise’s body count has to do with the fact that she was murdered. A woman lost her life in a very gruesome way and the important detail is the state of her sex life? And what if Bamise was not a virgin? Would her story lose importance? Would she not deserve justice then?
5. Icing on the cake? Lip Service.
Promote women’s interest in politics in a country that has never witnessed the swearing-in of a female president. In a country whose legislators rejected a bill that would allow Nigerian women to transfer their citizenship to their alien spouses which is the bare minimum the country can do for its women. Whose legislators continually shut down any bill that can affirm or promote the rights of women in the country. Promote women’s interest indeed.
We are not saying IWD should not exist but the way it currently exists is nothing short of a scam. A sham. A day filled with the rehashing of old issues with no real action or solutions. A day companies and organizations can pretend to care about their female employees. Instead of the bucketful of lip service, lies and ridiculous slogans women have to deal with year after year, how about some real action and owning up?
