International Women’s Day: Another marketing gimmick or what women want?

Women don’t just need a day! They need the whole year and half the planet! Yes, we are ultimately occupying not just time, but space as well. In the battle for resources on our little blue planet spinning on its orbit around the sun, we need to understand that time, and space are both finite resources and not necessarily dispensed with fairly!

Which also brings us to Public Relations and Women’s Day! What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, nothing. Except how many times have we discussed our PR strategies for women’s day and how many of them are genuinely beneficial to women? If you are already shaking your head while reading this, then I have made my point.

What do women really want? More! More space, less flowers; more understanding, less judgement; more free will, less moralising, and last but not the least, more impactful change and less marketing! Do I want a judge who sentences a rape perpetrator to marry his victim or do I want more discounts on skin cream? I can live with a few blemishes if the law is actually on my side. So can most women. Unfortunately over the years, most women’s day activities have become the playing field for marketing and PR (as this a PR Blog still) to sell more products and insecurities to more women! This is so sad. It’s even sadder because the media, the pr industry, and to some extent marketing is dominated by women, who can make an actual difference. But, what do most of us do with the power and big budgets we have? Yes, you got it, we sell more face cream.

If I were to make a wish on International Women’s Day, I would make a wish for less photoshopped images of impossible body types. I would make a wish for no discounts on women’s products, because how many of you go shopping on the 8^th of March? I would ask for less impossible standards of lifestyle and perfection and I would ask all of us to focus on the immense wealth of talent and skill this industry has to work on creating real change. Let’s do campaigns against patriarchy. Let’s say no to using this day as another marketing gimmick where women are offered coupon codes and discount vouchers and free drinks on meals.

Instead, let’s look at the ground realities women face. Let’s use real women, the unsung heroes of our society, who work two jobs, one at work, another at home, and let’s tell them it’s ok to have a few greys in their hair, some extra pounds on their bodies, and that the skin cream they are being sold is mainly a placebo that can be replaced by self love! Let’s help everyone understand that women deserve more than a free drink and voucher this day, they deserve the stars, the skies, and yes definitely half the planet!

– Sonali Sokhal

PRPOI Co-Founder