The UN Women theme for 2024 is actually Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress.
This correct theme is getting more traction than in previous years. But if you Google ‘International Women’s Day,’ the first result will push you to a domain encouraging you to ‘Inspire Inclusion.’ Ask ChatGPT, and you’ll also be told the theme is to “Inspire Inclusion’.
If you leverage the ‘Inspire Inclusion’ theme for your marketing or event efforts, you are complying with a UK-based firm that runs the internationalwomensday.com domain but offers no transparency on who is behind it and how they chose their themes, charities and partners.
The corporate-theme hijacking of IWD first bothered me in March 2022 when UN Women’s official theme, which centred around climate change, was drowned out by calls to “break the bias” instead. Especially frustrating given Australia was experiencing significant flooding and weather events during that period. At the time, I described themes like ‘break the bias’ as weapons of mass distraction.
As I also wrote in 2022 and remains true today, when you Google ‘International Women’s Day’ you come across this official-looking, we-own-this-IWD-thing website that claims to determine each year’s theme and resources to support messaging and ideas around the day.
The website, in 2024, continues to share very little information on who is behind it, how it is funded and how and why it determines the theme. There is no ‘About Us’, only an ‘About IWD’. There are no names listed or clear contact information given, other than a form you can fill out regarding sponsorship opportunities, which are now positioned as a place to submit a ‘partnership proposal’.
While a generic email address is given, the physical address is listed as Aurora Ventures (Europe) Limited, based in London. Aurora Ventures lists its work as including delivery of the International Women’s Day (IWD) platform and working “with stakeholders to produce an annual IWD campaign theme.”
As of late 2023, those who own the IWD domain name also featured several “Prime Employers” associated with International Women’s Day that the website writers said “maintain a deep and continuous focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) all year round”. Some notable exemplars included Siemens Healthineers, Diageo, Honeywell, John Deer and Northrop Grumman in association with IWD 2023.
The website has since been updated, presumably to focus more on employers that don’t make things like intercontinental ballistic missiles because “weapons and women’s empowerment” doesn’t roll off the tongue so well in 2024.
Source: ‘Inspire Inclusion’ and you’ll get duped again on International Women’s Day