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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

i think i have a way to change the world...

29 replies

smittenkitten · 20/04/2010 20:29

so , I was thinking this morning that something like 80% of purchasing decisions are made by women, so very, very slowly, companies that have women in leadership/decision making roles will start to have an advantage. but why as powerful consumers don't we speed this up. why don't we find out what companies don't have a good proportion of women at senior levels, don't have flex working, enhanced maternity or have lost sex discrim claims, and then boycott them actively.

i think it's unlikely that we'd have enough for a really effective boycott, but Mumsnet is high profile and if we named and shamed and investigated one company a month, we might be an effective pressure group?

this would then force companies to offer more flex working and family friendly policies to get women to a senior level, and we'd all benefit.

what do you reckon?

OP posts:
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Quodlibet · 21/05/2010 14:25

I think this is a brilliant idea - look at how much retailers have changed in the last 5 years or so since they clued on that environmentally sound practice was important to consumers.

I would definitely try to channel my money towards women-friendly businesses and away from unequal/exploitative ones if I had a clear idea about this.

What would be excellent to aspire to I think is retailers bragging (like they do with environmental issues) about their achievements in implementing best practice fair employment policy.

I also think now's a really good time to start this as lots of people are still more politically aware than normal off the back of the general election. (wonder how nice Smythson are being to preggers Samcam...)

Let me know if there's anything practical I can do.

happysmiley · 17/05/2010 12:53

Have you got the link so that we can take a look and the contact address?

Original poster
smittenkitten · 16/05/2010 18:21

I've had a response that they won't give out salary info because it's confidential, but they did send me a link to their website which does have a page under CSR about women working at Boots, and shows their numbers of women in senior management are increasing (but still less than 40%).

Please, others on this thread drop them an email so they know this important to the people who fund their business!

OP posts:
Original poster
smittenkitten · 07/05/2010 21:21

OK, I'm off to contact Boots. I'll let you know what response I get, but please all join me - if they get a lot of the same email, they will realise something co-ordinated is going on

thanks!

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wubblybubbly · 04/05/2010 12:31

A brilliant idea!

Many years ago, doing my sociology GCSE I wrote to a load of big companies to find out about their female friendly policies/number of women in management positions etc.

Almost everyone completed and returned my questionnaire. So we should be able to find out exactly who is doing what.

Xenia · 03/05/2010 14:17

www.allianceboots.com/About_Us/Our_directors.aspx

Xenia · 03/05/2010 14:17

If they want to improve the numbers of female non execs on their boards they can always have me.
You might even be able to do is as a kind of shareholder thing too - in the way that some investors not happy with one issue such as director pay buy a few shares and then lobby to get their own candidate on the board. I am available to advise on that too.

sk, those are good questions.

allegrageller · 02/05/2010 20:43

brilliant idea smitten, will be following thread

LynetteScavo · 02/05/2010 20:42

I have enough trouble remembering Cheerios are made by Nestle. [tired]

Can someone just provide me with a list of all companies I need to boycott (or better still those I can buy from, it'll probably be a lot shorter)? Thanks.

Original poster
smittenkitten · 02/05/2010 20:38

bump for the evening crowd

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Original poster
smittenkitten · 02/05/2010 10:29

Ok, sorry for the delay in getting back to you all.

MNHQ have got back to me and said there's an update on why WHS and Next have declined the let girls be girls campaign.

In terms of making this a mumsnet campaign, they are having a look, but have other campaigns they are also thinking about.

On a slightly arbitrary basis, I had a look at the Boots corporate website (look for AllianceBoots as that's the group company name). on the directors, they have one woman who heads up the wholesale pharmaceutical business. others, including non exec directors (which is often a way to get a token woman on the Board) are all men. though to be fair, the guy who runs the Boots retail business does have very thick lustrous hair.

In terms of Boots the retailer, I reckon well in advance of 80% of all its money must come from women. why else would their advantage card be pink and their ads be women centric? the majority of staff in store are women, but only one has made it to the Board. Not good enough. So let's email them (contact us button on the corporate site), and ask for change. their margins are already being squeezed by supermarkets (who are probably no better, but we have to start somewhere!) so they might be receptive.

help me decide what points we want to make

  • cross that money spent not helping advance the careers of women in their business
  • really not a single talented female non exec who could add value to their business?
  • what are their flexible working and family friendly policies
  • what proportion of people earning more than £50K and then more than £100K are women and what proportion work part time or flexibly?

Anything else?

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foreverastudent · 26/04/2010 22:58

I wish there was a list of the top companies in terms of women ie employment practices, non-stereotypical advertising, not investing in mysogynistic industries etc

I have already boycotted OK magazine since I found out the owner made his fortune from porn.

SkaterGrrrrl · 26/04/2010 11:38

I think this is a good idea. I regularly write to companies to complain about sexist advertising for instance, but you have to hit 'em where it hurts - in the till!

By the way have you read the Green Party's new manifesto? With regard to corporate governance, the manifesto contains the pledge to "require 40% of board members of larger companies to be female within five years".

Also on changing the world, there are slightly more women than men in the world's population - so why arent we voting in women presidents?!

Original poster
smittenkitten · 23/04/2010 12:57

Sakura - I was just having the same thought on reading the update. I'll see if we can get Next and WHS's responses posted so we can decide what we want to do as consumers.

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ElephantsAndMiasmas · 23/04/2010 11:32

Brilliant idea, will def do this. Like "Hero/Villain of the month" Maybe a week is too short a time for everyone to hear about it and make their absence felt?

HerBeatitude · 23/04/2010 11:18

Ah. Does that mean I need to go back to boycotting WHSmith then?

I stopped going in there for a while when they stocked the playboy pencil cases, but then they announced they weren't going to stock them anymore so I started buying from them again.

Sakura · 23/04/2010 08:09

Off topic but I can't believe that some shops flat out refused to support the mumsnet campaign.
Question: " Will commit to not selling products that prematurely sexualise children?
WH Smith: No!

Original poster
smittenkitten · 22/04/2010 20:34

Hurrah - just come back to this after a couple of days and delighted to see a few like minded souls.

I like the idea of making it an official MNHQ campaign - does anyone know how we might go about that?

where to start? I think we should target companies which are wholly or mainly reliant on womens' spending. Supermarkets? Boots? women and childrens' clothing stores? And what do we want to know - gender make up of the board, proportion of women in senior roles (more than £60K a year?), a copy of their family friendly policies, the number of people working part time or flexibly and the number of sex discrim cases brought and the number lost or settled? What else?

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SethStarkaddersMum · 22/04/2010 15:42

and not just look at the policies but find out if they actually stick to them.

HerBeatitude · 22/04/2010 15:37

This idea is blardy brilliant.

How to do it?

Choose a sector eg telecommunications and look at their family friendly policies?

I think it's important to look at their paternity rights policy as well.

SethStarkaddersMum · 22/04/2010 10:35

you know in a way I feel a bit funny about boycotts as a key form of action, perhaps because it underlines how powerless women are in other respects. (As you know there used to be something called a union that got results in quite a few industries....) But in the world as it stands there is a certain honest elegance to it. Brands have huge marketing budgets to get us to buy into their values and therefore buy their products. Well, if we don't like their values we don't buy their products, if we do we do. Simple. It's playing them by their own game really but with the addition of making things public and known that might not otherwise be widely known.

However I am really really hoping that in a few years there will at some point be a really really big fuck-off enormous march, that gets publicity the way the Countryside Alliance march and the Stop the War protests did....

SethStarkaddersMum · 22/04/2010 09:59

you could have a hero and villain of the week/month

and all post about the purchasing decisions we have made as a result.

D'you remember when Boden were really lovely and gave something free to a MNer who had recently been bereaved? And there was a huge thread of people saying 'oh Boden are so lovely, I'm going to order a load of stuff from them now!'

Imagine something like that with MNers saying 'Right I have never bought my tea from Fred Bloggs Tea Co before but I am going to this week because of their fabulous equality policies'

KinderellaTristabelle · 22/04/2010 08:18

I'm interested.

Sakura · 22/04/2010 02:36

I think this is a very good idea

Heathcliffscathy · 22/04/2010 02:01

fantastic plan...could we get mnhq on board with this, bet onebat would be into this idea.

i also like the positive rather than neg idea, but do think it would be worth identifying real villains in terms of women at board level and work/life balance for employees.