The Tyranny of Corporate Women’s Day Campaigns

It seems as though there is an attempt by organizations to out-worse each other’s horrible campaign while simultaneously beating the absurdity from the previous year. Companies have photoshopped wigs on Mark Zuckerberg and a hijab on Aliko Dangote; they have portrayed a woman holding out her debit card on a date and put a giant lipstick side by side with a double-ended spanner all to signify equality.

Last year, the Wema Bank copy which featured a woman holding out a debit card with an obvious masculine name on a date, received backlash on Twitter and the bank had to explain their ‘intentions’ in a thread; but what is the point of wasting all that time explaining when they could easily have avoided the backlash by only tweeting ‘Happy International Women’s Day’ or some other derivation of the message.

First Bank, whose chairman until 2021 was a woman, found a way to centre men in the 2022 #BreaktheBias campaign by putting out posters of some of their male executives and a caption appreciating ‘He4Shes’. Before that, the bank had reminded us in an email on International Men’s Day that it was indeed not International Women’s Day. This was problematic because it suggested the existence of a rivalry; even if unintentionally, it diminished the purpose of the International Women’s Day observance to just being about men vs women.

The foregoing weak attempts to show inclusivity bring to the fore, questions about how represented women are in the spaces where the decisions to publish these campaigns are made. They also force us to wonder how empowered women are (if they are present in such meetings) to speak up against the flagrant corporatization of the single day set aside to celebrate female achievements and to highlight the plethora of obstacles that stall the advancement of women’s rights.

Since these campaigns have to pass through levels of approval before they are released to the public, it is safe to assume that the problem trickles down from the top, where even though there are a growing number of female corporate leaders, women remain relatively underrepresented.

Let’s look at the numbers: reportedly, the participation of Nigerian women in the workforce is nearing parity. In 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics noted that women made up 42.10 per cent of the total number of employees in federal ministries, departments and agencies, and 31.97 per cent of them were on the highest-ranking levels (grades 15–17).

In a 2021 assessment of the top thirty companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) reported that in terms of representation of women in leadership positions and the workforce in general, Nigeria performed fairly on the global scale. According to the IFC, Nigeria had eleven per cent more female board chairmen, three per cent more women in executive positions, and only four per cent fewer women in the total workforce than the global average.

The numbers look good overall, maybe even progressive, if you ignore sexism and institutional misogyny in the workplace. A UN perception survey shows that 93.73 per cent of Nigerians hold at least one sexist bias against women; and these biases transcend across all aspects of society including the workplace. Among these barriers, Jobberman reports, are near absence of gender specific organizational policies and the failure of existing policies to account for the highly patriarchal nature of the Nigerian society. As a result, women are left to waddle through culturally imposed prejudices that undermine their abilities. Overt sexism enforces not only the notion that men are more suited to hold leadership positions, but also that women lack the desire and drive to do so, hence, are given less opportunities to participate in leadership development programmes that are critical for career advancement.

The proportion of women in the workforce starts to decline, moreover, as we progress up the corporate ladder. The World Economic Forum reports that Nigerian women make up over 64.6 per cent of skilled workers but only 30.3 per cent in senior corporate positions. This disparity lays credence to the barriers that hinder women’s progression to leadership positions. According to the International Labour Organization, the barriers holding women back from career progression also relate to discrimination and unconscious gender biases, not just overt sexism. Stereotypical beliefs like lack of ruthlessness and ambition, cultural restrictions that prevent them from socializing and building networks, and prioritizing domestic responsibilities are some of the highlighted factors that hold women back.

Organizational practices, like project assignments based on perceived ability, can rely heavily on these stereotypical impressions. Merit-based performance evaluations based on unfailing availability and high mobility, according to McKinsey & Company, puts male employees at an unfair advantage in a society where women remain primary homemakers and are forced to combine domestic and professional responsibilities.