A Twitter account won International Women’s Day this year when it took to social media to hold businesses accountable for their gender pay gaps. On March 8 of every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated, but it also represents a day to highlight pressing issues in gender inequality, including within the workplace.
Companies across the world took to Twitter to raise their own profiles by highlighting women who work for them and how their company supports women. Some posted about hosting events, panels, and competitions.
But performative activism met its match on Twitter with the Gender Pay Gap Bot, an entire account dedicated to highlighting pay disparities between men and women.
When an organization tweeted about IWD, the Bot quote tweeted the company with its gender pay gap. Any time a UK-based organization tweeted about the holiday, @paygapapp was there to automatically reply with salary disparity. It gathered data from the UK government’s website, which had to be published after a 2017 mandate required every company in the UK with 250 employees or more to calculate and report the difference in earnings between male and female workers.
Organizations from corporations to non-profits, from government organizations to universities, from healthcare employers to finance employers, everyone was put on display for performative activism.
The hollowness of IWD empowerment messages rang out as companies tweeted #StopTheBias, and then were exposed for having enormous gaps in their pay. Pub chain company Young’s Pubs, for example, pays male employees a whopping 73.2 percent more than women. The Surrey Police force pays women 21.5 percent less than men.
The bot tweeted with neutrality. Some organizations had very small gaps or even paid women more, a refreshing sight on a day filled with stats showing how much less women are typically paid. A leisure center in Newham, for example, pays women 21 percent more.
Many organizations immediately deleted their social media posts in order to do damage control after being called out. The HM Revenue & Customs deleted their post instantly and never posted again on IWD. One thread exists simply to collect everyone who deleted their tweets, showing how many companies would rather ‘delete all’ than deal with the consequences of their gender gaps.
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