There Are No Girls on the Internet - Gender Pay Gap Bot calls out performative tweets on International Women's Day (and spreads a little social media chaos along the way)

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00:01:51.900 What I really hope is that the work that we've done with the boss has been able to inspire companies and just thinking like, well, we've ignored our problems and it's not worked.

00:02:06.840 So, you know, maybe this is a bit of a kick up the bum to do something about it.

00:02:13.380 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:26.340 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:31.740 March 8th is International Women's Day, a global holiday to commemorate the achievements of women. 0.59

00:02:36.800 And I have to say, I really, really hate it. 0.99

00:02:40.060 And if we're being completely honest, I have always been a little bit of a grinch about pretty much any and all holidays or commemorative months meant to celebrate marginalized people.

00:02:49.260 Because it always seems like they get co-opted by brands and corporations making empty gestures toward solidarity that are pretty much meaningless.

00:02:58.420 So I usually stay away from social media on International Women's Day because I really can't do without the tweets from brands about how I should celebrate women by using their discount code to buy lingerie or whatever.

00:03:10.060 But this International Women's Day, something a little bit different happened.

00:03:14.860 Yes, the brand still did their thing, unleashing their hollow tweets, assuring us how much they love women.

00:03:20.900 But when they did, they were retweeted by a Twitter account called the Gender Pay Gap Bot that added some very important context.

00:03:28.160 How much of a gender wage gap exists at the very same companies tweeting about how they're celebrating women?

00:03:34.780 So for instance, when the fashion retailer Miss Guided tweeted,

00:03:37.840 We're paying it forward this International Women's Day, and we're giving away prizes throughout the day, including £1,000 cash.

00:03:45.580 Gender Pay Gap retweeted their tweet, adding,

00:03:48.640 In this organization, women's median hourly pay is 40% lower than men's.

00:03:54.340 Ouch.

00:03:55.600 Now, many of the Women's Day tweets made by companies that Gender Pay Gap put on blast for paying women less were curiously deleted.

00:04:02.920 It was social media chaos. And as a messy bitch, of course, I loved every minute of it. 0.98

00:04:10.780 I spoke to Francesca Lawson, the social media marketer based in Manchester, 0.97

00:04:15.560 who built the gender pay cap alongside her partner, Ellie, about how it came to be.

00:04:20.380 So, Francesca, I have to tell you, your project really just stuck something inside of me, I guess.

00:04:27.900 I'm a little bit of a Grinch. I really hate holidays like Pride. I hate International Women's

00:04:33.980 Day. And I just feel that these days have kind of become so co-opted in a lot of ways. Is this

00:04:40.680 something that you can relate to? Yeah, definitely. Like in my line of work in like social media

00:04:47.000 marketing, I have been that person that's made myself really unpopular when I've, you know,

00:04:52.000 been asked to update all our logos to Pride flags, for instance. And I've been like, hold on a

00:04:57.640 second why do you want to do that you know you want to sort of make sure that we're promoting

00:05:03.480 ourselves um as being really good for um like LGBT rights but what do we have to show for that

00:05:09.940 can we really sort of um put out a flag and that be it that be all our contribution so yeah that's

00:05:17.080 just another example of kind of you know where this sort of performative um kind of marketing

00:05:24.000 comes about and it really frustrates me it just doesn't sit sit right with like my values as

00:05:30.540 you know I believe that you know it's up to all of us to be kind of like working towards a more

00:05:36.980 inclusive world through our actions and so yeah it's not enough to um change your profile picture

00:05:46.300 to a pride flag and it's not enough to like host a inspirational women's webinar um for

00:05:53.240 International Women's Day um you know it's really important that um our words are backed up by our

00:06:00.780 actions whether we are speaking as an individual or a business or like a kind of a government body 0.98

00:06:08.160 or something like that it's and so yeah that's what inspired um the creation of the gender pay

00:06:14.200 gap but you know we've got the gender pay gap data available for UK companies with more than 250

00:06:20.460 the employees. So, you know, by putting that back into the spotlight, back into the public eye,

00:06:25.960 it just helps members of the public see through these messages of corporate solidarity and,

00:06:33.760 you know, make their own minds up about how well an employer is doing for equality.

00:06:39.900 On Twitter, the Gender Pay Gap Bot's bio reads,

00:06:43.660 Employers, if you tweet about International Women's Day, I'll retweet your gender pay gap. 0.78

00:06:48.820 Looking eyes emoji.

00:06:51.280 Using purposeful, unemotional language, the Gender Pay Gap bot tweets publicly available data to highlight the actual values of the companies proclaiming to champion women.

00:07:00.840 And it was born from the same kind of frustration that I feel about empty platitudes about uplifting women and other marginalized voices.

00:07:07.040 It was basically the weekend before International Women's Day 2021 is when, you know, things started coming through again.

00:07:16.720 and you know people promoting their their events people offering you discount codes to you know

00:07:23.320 buy like lingerie or something for International Women's Day and it just sort of made me so

00:07:29.000 frustrated because it seems like no one's facing any accountability for these claims and and so

00:07:35.880 I knew that the data was there I don't think that many other people did know that the data was there

00:07:42.120 So, yeah, myself and my partner, Ali, we sort of wanted to come up with a way of putting that data back into the spotlight.

00:07:51.960 And, yeah, we built a bot.

00:07:54.800 In the UK, any company that employs more than 250 people has to publish their figures comparing men and women's average pay across the organization.

00:08:03.380 You can see it at genderpaygap.service.gov.uk.

00:08:06.960 Now, this transparency is a great step, but Francesca says it still has a long way to go.

00:08:11.320 So in the UK, any company that has more than 250 employers has to make their pay, their gender pay, is it just pay generally or is it specifically pay in relation to the gender pay gap?

00:08:25.440 It's just in relation to the gender pay gap. So we don't have like a record of what employees are getting paid, what wages within that company.

00:08:34.600 all we've got is sort of the average the difference between the average man's earnings

00:08:39.120 and the difference between the um average woman's earnings and so it's a useful it's a useful way

00:08:44.820 to sort of you know compare kind of companies actions versus their words but you know it's

00:08:51.400 not enough to truly get a scale of where the inequalities exist um in a company and it also

00:08:58.320 just covers gender as well. And, you know, what I would really like to see is, you know,

00:09:04.300 more different types of inequalities being included in that, like, you know, just getting

00:09:09.580 a handle on the ethnicity pay gap as well. And, you know, what sort of kind of barriers people

00:09:16.940 of color face in these organizations for, you know, getting good wages and kind of progressing

00:09:22.520 up the career ladder. Data is so powerful. You know, data doesn't lie. Numbers are numbers.

00:09:28.320 But they're meaningless if people don't know about that, if people aren't engaging with it.

00:09:33.120 And so I wonder, do you sort of see this bot as a kind of data visualization project where you're really trying to bring more visibility and more awareness around the cold, hard, kind of depressing numbers around the pay gap?

00:09:46.520 Yeah, definitely.

00:09:48.580 The data on the government site is quite inaccessible, I think.

00:09:52.760 It's like you've got to, first of all, find where it's stored.

00:09:57.280 you know google search you've got to know what you're looking for and then when you're on there

00:10:01.540 you've got to search for a specific company whose pay gap that you want to look at and then you've

00:10:07.240 got to sort of click through every different and every different year that they've reported

00:10:11.760 some of them will have five years worth of data some of them say you know newer companies or

00:10:17.240 companies that have recently expanded might only have one or two so it's a there's a lot of

00:10:22.680 information there but you've got to do a lot of work to get it and yeah what we wanted to do is

00:10:28.960 make sure that you know people knew that that information was there and you know it was in a

00:10:34.280 way that they could understand it's not hidden away it's here on twitter you know when everyone

00:10:40.440 is um kind of seeing all these international women's day supportive posts it's just the data's

00:10:46.960 there for them to make their own mind up about kind of what that means. It's completely devoid

00:10:53.460 of any emotion or judgment. It's just, here's a very nice emotional post from a company

00:11:00.020 and here's the fact behind it. There is something so thrilling to me about brands having to scramble

00:11:06.820 to delete a tweet because everybody is hating on them. So the gender pay gap bot kind of made my

00:11:11.760 International Women's Day. Brands were scrambling to delete their perhaps well-meaning tweets 0.95

00:11:16.340 once the pay gaps at their organizations were revealed.

00:11:19.340 And hopefully, it caused them to reflect

00:11:21.460 on why they felt the need to weigh in in the first place.

00:11:24.440 Some of the tweets that ended up being deleted

00:11:28.020 when the bot, you know, retweeted them

00:11:31.300 with the actual data around how crappy they are

00:11:34.360 in terms of the pay gap,

00:11:36.040 some of them were so wild to begin with. 1.00

00:11:38.420 Like, women are the fabric of what makes 1.00

00:11:41.460 this sweater company run and blah, blah, blah. 1.00

00:11:43.420 it's like some of it's like okay keep your flowery bullshit what are you actually paying 0.99

00:11:48.220 the women who who work at your company like what are your actual values was that your intention 0.99

00:11:52.700 did you were you trying to inject a little like honesty into the conversation on social media 1.00

00:11:58.420 around uh women and pay or like a little bit of chaos because it was a little it was a little bit

00:12:03.320 like i was like oh this is like chaotic and i love it yeah i think the focus is mainly on honesty

00:12:10.600 and I think we never expected there to be so much chaos because we didn't expect it to kind of

00:12:16.580 spread so wide and sort of have so many different people from around the world engaging with it so

00:12:22.620 yeah that was really fantastic to see but it wasn't anything that we at all anticipated so

00:12:28.100 yeah honesty was definitely the focus but then I will admit like the kind of seeing the chaos

00:12:35.100 unfold was just like the icing on the cake a bit yeah i'm here for a little bit of especially

00:12:41.600 as it pertains to like brands and corporations i'm here for a little bit of messiness a little

00:12:47.000 bit of chaos like yeah if you're if you're gonna say we value women okay let's have let's really

00:12:52.020 have the conversation about you valuing women you chose to tweet it like people can respond and

00:12:57.420 especially respond with the cold hard facts of the way that women are valued within your

00:13:01.900 organization. And so I think it really, I think why I loved the project is that it really exposed

00:13:07.340 this hypocrisy that I think that, frankly, we've all just gotten used to. We've just gotten used

00:13:12.880 to this idea that brands and corporations and government agencies are going to, these things

00:13:19.940 that started in liberation, they're going to take that, co-opt it, give it back to us in the form of

00:13:26.120 a platitude or like a shirt with a rainbow flag on it or a they change their you know icon on

00:13:31.920 Twitter or whatever like that like I think we have just gotten used to and accepted that that is the

00:13:38.060 way it is and your bot I feel like it kind of woke us up that like we hate it we don't have to accept

00:13:43.240 this we can reject this yeah that's totally it like I've seen so many people just sort of in my

00:13:48.840 own social circle say things like you know oh I'm just gonna like check out social media on 0.97

00:13:54.300 International Women's Day because you know I can't cope with the bullshit like it's just too 0.98

00:14:00.120 much to sort of get angry about anymore because it's everywhere it you like people don't have the 0.98

00:14:06.500 energy to sort of fight back with every every single sort of empty gesture which you know

00:14:14.420 seems to like take advantage of like a liberation movement um so yeah it's been really lovely to

00:14:20.420 see some of the feedback that we've had of people saying that you know they really value it and

00:14:26.100 actually it brought some like much needed both entertainment and transparency um on a day when

00:14:33.600 you know you lose a bit of lose a bit of hope and start like despairing for the future because

00:14:39.840 you know despite all the you know nice branding and you know logos on t-shirts conditions aren't

00:14:48.980 really improving for any marginalized group, both in work and in wider society at the minute.

00:14:58.500 Yeah. And, you know, and I think it's conditions are not improving. And I think it's imperative

00:15:05.000 to point to some of the culprits of why that is, especially when they want to talk out of both

00:15:11.820 sides of their face and say, oh, we value women, but we're not actually doing that in, we're saying

00:15:17.700 that in words, but not in deeds. You know, here in the United States, there are a whole host of

00:15:23.580 huge corporations that put up International Women's Day posts or Black History Month posts or,

00:15:29.040 you know, back in 2020 during the like racial justice protests were like, oh, we stand with

00:15:32.980 our Black employees and then turn around and give lots and lots of money to politicians who go on

00:15:39.480 to champion legislation that makes our lives so much harder. I just feel like we have all gotten

00:15:46.100 so used to this corporate hypocrisy that that brands it whitewashes liberation as I don't want

00:15:57.040 to be celebrated by a company that is like making my life harder materially I don't I don't want a

00:16:01.580 company like that to celebrate me yeah absolutely you know and they they shouldn't be doing those

00:16:07.020 sorts of things you know well they shouldn't be either you know celebrating if they're not actually

00:16:12.360 following out through with you know supportive action throughout the year they need to sort of

00:16:18.080 look at kind of what processes are that they are responsible for and can they change to you know

00:16:26.280 improve people's lives within their organization like what barriers are kind of people coming up

00:16:33.120 against which are limiting their success and how can they be removed and because it's not enough

00:16:39.340 to just sort of like wait for legislation to do it like there are things which companies can do

00:16:44.900 themselves um to sort of improve the lives of um of women people of color and disabled people

00:16:54.040 and they're not doing them but they're still sort of you know trying to ride the ride the trend for

00:17:02.820 a bit of um a few likes really it's so empty and i guess that's what you i didn't even realize this

00:17:10.720 until you said it that international women's day i don't even really i just check out basically

00:17:15.740 from february to the end of march uh in the united states that's black history month women's history

00:17:22.160 month i just don't want to see it i don't want to see the brands i don't want to see it's just so

00:17:28.360 hollow and it makes me sad that these days that are meant to be amplifying our voices and

00:17:34.160 championing us to have just become so co-opted that it's like I'm not even excited for it in

00:17:40.720 fact I just like tune it out such a shame that you know that's the way it's gone like um because

00:17:46.600 I did like a little blog post of my own kind of um for my freelance business and before actually

00:17:53.320 launching the bot and one of the things that I wrote in there was like some pointers of you know

00:17:58.780 four brands that are planning to do um campaigns around um International Women's Day and any other

00:18:05.300 sort of liberation event you know by them taking up space in that conversation whose voices aren't

00:18:13.680 getting heard and that's kind of I think that's what's a bit worrying for me is that you know the

00:18:20.840 people that we really need to listen to those that are struggling the most those that you know

00:18:26.620 these days are made for like you know trying to um acknowledge their struggles and work to fix

00:18:34.800 them they're not getting heard because all we've got is um you know discount codes on socks and

00:18:43.160 you know other other types of you know reasonably meaningless um efforts from companies so yeah

00:18:53.200 really interesting that like the way that you mention um you know how things get co-opted and

00:18:59.920 you know things just get lost in the noise and yeah who are those with the most sort of um

00:19:07.900 influence aren't the people that necessarily need their voices amplified on these days

00:19:14.960 let's take a quick break

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00:19:37.860 come home at all and will you finish episode eight before you're done slicing the cucumbers

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00:21:25.100 See you between the pages.

00:21:27.020 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:21:32.960 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:21:39.340 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:21:43.040 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:21:48.460 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:21:51.120 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:21:55.660 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

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00:22:07.660 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

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00:22:18.200 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:32.140 And we're back. 0.98

00:22:34.440 So how did we get to this place where things like Black History Month, International Women's Day, and Pride have been co-opted by brands and corporations spewing empty rhetoric and performative bullshit? 0.88

00:22:44.480 Well, Francesca says it has a lot to do with the rise of social media.

00:22:48.200 When everyone, including brands, can easily add their voice to the conversation, they feel the need to weigh in on issues that otherwise they probably wouldn't have or shouldn't have before social media.

00:23:00.440 And our liberation becomes just another online trend to jump in on.

00:23:05.400 And today's consumers are much more attuned to the values of a brand.

00:23:08.520 A 2021 study by the consumer research agency Verity found that most, about 54 percent, of consumers want to do business with companies that take values-based stances.

00:23:19.400 So brands throwing up an International Women's Day tweet and doing pretty much nothing else is a lazy way to woo that audience of consumers without actually having to do anything of substance.

00:23:31.040 In other words, it basically turns liberation into a quick cash grab.

00:23:35.240 How do you think we got to this place where these days that were meant to be about real liberation and real solidarity have just become empty?

00:23:46.620 And how do you think we got to a place where brands feel like it's okay to add their voice on a subject that they really don't champion in deeds or actions?

00:24:02.160 it's got a lot to do with you know how social media has grown sort of over you know the last

00:24:10.280 few years i think that you know prior to all brands being on like twitter and instagram

00:24:17.200 they wouldn't they probably wouldn't have done sort of a more traditional media campaign on

00:24:22.220 um these sorts of events i think one because you know when you're talking to the press it sort of

00:24:29.580 implies a lot more scrutiny you've got to have more data to be able to back up your story

00:24:35.400 because they're not just going to print anything that's you know poorly researched for instance

00:24:41.380 um so yeah I think social media gave all of us but also kind of brands a platform to just say

00:24:51.840 and do whatever they want without really much scrutiny over it and so yeah what I think has

00:25:00.620 maybe I think we've slept walked into this sort of situation where like you know people's liberation

00:25:09.240 is um kind of celebrated by companies that aren't sort of doing anything meaningful towards it

00:25:16.240 um because it's it's trending because you know people talk about um talk about say like um

00:25:25.700 black history month um international women's day pride they talk about all those things on social

00:25:31.420 media and you know i think that it's often seen as a bit of an opportunity if you know we can

00:25:37.800 muscle in and kind of expand our reach if we also kind of show that that's what we're into

00:25:46.760 um and then i think that the the second thing is that consumer habits i think are starting to shift

00:25:53.820 a bit and i think people want to buy from and work with companies who support similar values

00:26:02.300 to themselves um and i think that you know when you know us as society says actually yeah well

00:26:12.540 we do believe that um kind of all all people have a right to live in you know safety and equality

00:26:23.180 and they all have a right to thrive so we want companies to um to kind of reflect those values

00:26:31.480 too and so but i think that that's that's not necessarily translating into okay we need to

00:26:39.660 actually be acting on you know how we can promote um equity within our organizations

00:26:46.160 and instead it's just like well people want to see that we are doing something so that they

00:26:52.480 shop from us so we're going to show them that we are even if um even if it's not a hundred percent

00:26:57.800 true. Yeah, I think you're right. And as you were speaking, I wrote down in my notes,

00:27:04.480 like social liberation is not a trend, right? I think that you're exactly right that before

00:27:10.720 social media, I don't think that a company that had mostly men in their leadership and the women

00:27:17.200 that were there were underpaid and that they're funding politicians that like make women's lives

00:27:21.620 harder would put out a press release about how they like women. It wouldn't make any sense.

00:27:25.520 But social media has really made these brands feel like that they can have a voice in every conversation and should have a voice in every conversation when maybe they really fucking shouldn't, one.

00:27:37.440 And then I also think that the data is very clear that particularly young consumers really do want to shop and spend money with organizations that have similar values.

00:27:47.400 Like, that's very clear.

00:27:48.640 And I think these companies want that money without having to do any of the work to get that, right?

00:27:54.180 And so they just, they say like, oh, okay, well, young consumers and most consumers want

00:27:58.760 to spend money at organizations that also have shared their values.

00:28:01.920 So we'll just say we share their values, but not really share their values, you know?

00:28:06.780 And I think it's such a lazy, empty way of just really getting more money.

00:28:10.800 It's such a lazy, obvious cash grab that I find it, yeah, I think I'm only now just

00:28:18.480 realizing my detest for days like this because it just illustrates what a lazy cash grab it

00:28:23.940 is and I find it offensive yeah totally I think that you know partially thanks to social media

00:28:31.400 I guess that you know anything that is possibly worth monetizing then the companies have found

00:28:39.020 a way to monetize it and you know that's that's not right you know it's you can't sort of profit

00:28:46.760 from people's liberation when there are people still fighting for it I think I was reading an

00:28:51.100 interview with you with you where you said I don't want to have liberation co-opted and sold

00:28:57.100 back to me by way of a smash the patriarchy t-shirt right like I don't want a slogan I don't

00:29:03.780 want a t-shirt I don't want a discount code I want liberation I want equality I want inclusion I want 0.98

00:29:10.140 real things that make a tangible difference not a fucking t-shirt not a fucking slogan yeah yeah 0.95

00:29:16.500 that's that's totally it it's you know nice words don't really make a difference you know I would 0.98

00:29:23.360 much rather that you know companies held those kept those nice words themselves and instead sort

00:29:30.860 of focused on you know what they can do and what I really hope is that um what the work that we've

00:29:38.460 done with the boss has been able to inspire companies um into thinking like well we've

00:29:45.920 we've ignored our problems and it's not worked so you know maybe this is a bit of a a kick up the

00:29:54.160 bum to do something about it do you think the policy in the uk around transparency and the

00:30:00.580 and the gender pay gap like do you think that's made a difference because if it's if if that

00:30:06.260 information so data is that data is very powerful but if it's so inaccessible can it like do you

00:30:12.360 think it's really made a difference I don't think that it has yes I think that it's marvelous that

00:30:18.300 we've got the data there um but I think that the drawbacks are the fact that it's not really all

00:30:26.160 that in your face um and I think that limits the impact that it's able to have you know like I kind

00:30:33.520 of have conversations with people that didn't know it existed until um we started pushing out the

00:30:38.660 tweets on international women's day um and we've had quite a lot of questions back about like oh

00:30:43.680 where's the data from um and you know i think sometimes that's coming from international

00:30:49.220 audiences now so that's um kind of understandable that it's um not well the uk regulations aren't

00:30:56.960 known worldwide but you know people that i've worked with are like how did you manage to get

00:31:02.600 all this data and I'm like how do you not know it's there like and especially because you know

00:31:08.940 I've made no secret of kind of my um kind of politics in the types of places where I've worked

00:31:16.480 and so this is types of things that I've brought up and talked about and I distinctly remember

00:31:21.900 sort of the first year that it came in I was working at a um uh it was like a financial

00:31:28.100 services company in their marketing department and I saw the figures come in and they had like

00:31:33.740 I think it's about a 22% pay gap and so I just said around the desk like oh have you seen this

00:31:40.700 we've got a 22% gender pay gap and honestly like no one no one seemed to care for one I think that

00:31:50.280 was potentially because there was only and I was one of two women in the team but then also it just

00:31:56.360 sort of it became a bit of a dirty word like all I was getting was like oh well this is why

00:32:02.320 we've got a gender pay gap and oh it's the education system's fault and it's like all

00:32:07.540 attempts to shut down any meaningful discussion um so yeah I think that the impact of it is

00:32:14.780 limited by the fact that it's not although it's publicly available that it's not accessible

00:32:22.220 and also the regulations only require companies to declare it they don't require like them to

00:32:30.980 actually fix it so i think that you know if well for them to have more of an impact i think that

00:32:38.660 the next step would be to um well one includes um other types of inequality as well especially so

00:32:47.680 that we can get a handle on the um ethnicity wage gap um and two i think that we need to um

00:32:54.080 you know legislate to force companies to act on that data um because you see as well like

00:33:01.720 we've got five years worth of data now and it's a lot of the time not going in the right direction

00:33:08.260 um you know sometimes it's um a couple percent either way and so you think

00:33:14.840 well that's you know not too bad it means that you're not doing anything about it but at least

00:33:20.560 it's not getting worse more after a quick break

00:33:27.220 behind every night spent making the kids lunches there's a lot of suspense will they finally eat

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00:34:30.760 that's 844-844-iheart if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your

00:34:36.700 personality welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part

00:34:44.320 group chat for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and

00:34:48.480 prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're

00:34:53.760 connecting the dots between books the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having

00:34:58.660 i'm gonna have to look up this story i'm obsessed so obsessed from best-selling authors and your

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00:35:21.240 of readers who love to think a little too much you're in the right place listen to pro society

00:35:26.740 on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts see you between the pages

00:35:34.140 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:35:39.520 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:35:45.900 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:35:49.600 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:35:54.740 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:35:58.060 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:36:02.220 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:36:06.680 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:36:14.300 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:36:18.200 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:36:21.660 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:36:24.780 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:36:38.340 Let's get right back into it.

00:36:40.760 Even though gender pay gap data is publicly available in the UK, and thanks to Francesca's bot, more people are paying attention to it. 0.84

00:36:48.340 It's meaningless without actual accountability.

00:36:50.780 It is so easy for companies to explain away why they're paying women less or to ignore it altogether.

00:36:57.420 We looked at one kind of sports retailer who went from having a 0.3 gender pay gap in 2017.

00:37:08.300 And their data this year is, I think, about 48 percent.

00:37:12.160 So that's, yeah, yeah, a massive difference.

00:37:16.160 Yeah.

00:37:17.060 So that's really worrying.

00:37:18.800 that's like you know the the reason that this regulation was brought in was to sort of make

00:37:24.760 companies not um like act on their gap and like reduce it but then it's just gone the complete

00:37:32.840 opposite direction for in some cases yeah i think that really demonstrates your point that

00:37:38.760 date transparency needs to be needs to have some transparency is a good start a good first start

00:37:46.460 But unless it's coupled with some kind of accountability, which I think that your bot

00:37:50.720 is really kind of pushing the needle forward on.

00:37:53.380 So good, good job there.

00:37:55.020 But like, it has to come with some kind of impetus for change.

00:37:59.760 Otherwise, it's just transparency.

00:38:02.000 And even, you know, when you're from within the company, bringing that to their attention

00:38:06.140 that, hey, we have a big pay gap, they can just ignore it or give some other reason for

00:38:09.980 it or just frankly, pretend like it didn't happen.

00:38:12.340 Pretend like those facts are not the reality of their company, even though they are.

00:38:16.460 yeah and like we've had a a couple of um kind of responses from companies that have you know

00:38:24.040 said things like oh no you know our data was skewed by the fact that it was the pandemic and

00:38:29.980 we had sort of more staff absences we had um the furlough scheme where like um a lot of employees

00:38:36.960 weren't getting their full salary and it's just like these aren't justifications like yes they

00:38:45.180 may sort of they're factors which contribute to it but then it's we're moving beyond the pandemic

00:38:52.880 hopefully this year and so now you've got to focus on well what's next you know you can look back and

00:39:00.160 think of all the things which um you know may have contributed to your problem in the past 12 months

00:39:06.800 but that's useless if you're not also going to look at what are you going to do in the next 12

00:39:11.020 months to, you know, correct for that and make sure that, you know, there's not a lasting

00:39:16.700 economic impact specifically on women and marginalized groups beyond the pandemic.

00:39:24.140 So I'm obviously here for shaming the companies that need to be shamed.

00:39:27.980 Were there companies that you found from this bot that were actually walking the walk as

00:39:34.260 well as talking the talk where the bot revealed that they actually were paying women equally

00:39:40.300 in their company?

00:39:41.020 yeah we did actually um we did actually publish a few tweets where um there was equal pay and a few

00:39:48.380 where there was um a slight um gap in favor of women and so yeah I think that was they're

00:39:54.780 definitely in the minority those um those companies um in the 2021 um gender pay gap data from the UK

00:40:05.000 government there was 77 percent of companies um reported that um women's average pay is less than

00:40:13.380 men's so obviously that's that's really significant it's a really small number that are

00:40:19.500 sort of the other direction or that are equal but like we wanted to make sure that they got

00:40:25.620 highlighted as well like we used the same sort of mutual text for um for both you know whether

00:40:34.020 it was a big pay gap or whether it was a small pay gap or whether it was no pay gap because what

00:40:39.040 we wanted to do was take all of the emotion out of it we're just pushing out the data and then it's

00:40:44.820 for like twitter users and the general public to kind of make up their own minds and and if they

00:40:52.440 see sort of a company and or like a government organization or whatever that's got a equal pay

00:40:59.640 then, you know, that's what we've actually done is we've really amplified their distribution

00:41:05.320 because, you know, we've turned into quite a big account over a really short space of time.

00:41:12.020 Yeah, just personally, what has that been like for you? I know that you said that you

00:41:15.780 didn't think this would blow up the way it has, and boy, has it blown up. What has it been like

00:41:20.140 for you and your partner just personally seeing this thing become such an internet sensation?

00:41:24.740 it's a really incredible feeling to see that like so many people have been enjoying the work that

00:41:31.940 we've done and have been like engaging in the data and using it to spark kind of productive

00:41:37.820 conversations that's an absolutely amazing feeling and I think you know I'm only just starting to

00:41:43.800 come to terms with like the impact that it's had like last week was absolutely chaos for me it was

00:41:49.460 like you know trying to just get on with then some bits of freelance work and then you know

00:41:56.280 i'd be getting like messages from friends saying like oh hey i've just seen you in um in this

00:42:04.000 news outlet like that's incredible and i'm like oh cool you know we're in the times like

00:42:11.620 that's was not expecting that so yeah it's been really difficult to sort of like

00:42:18.540 keep track of um keep track of everything that's going on um and but at the same time it's been so

00:42:26.360 so rewarding to see like all the messages of support that we've had and you know I even got

00:42:32.780 like an email message of um someone who worked on like a project with the government when they

00:42:40.020 were setting up this um gender pay gap um kind of service back in 2017 and and he said that um

00:42:48.220 they were having meetings with um like creative agencies for like multi-million pound contracts to

00:42:55.020 do something with the data and um his message said that you know i'm so pleased that you know

00:43:03.420 you've been able to produce this because it's so much better and more effective than any of the

00:43:09.940 ideas that those creative in those creative agencies pitched and it was all sort of well

00:43:17.960 very low cost like you know the only money that we've put into it is you know the uh our time

00:43:24.720 um kind of completely non-profit we kind of had no intention of you know ever using it for like

00:43:32.920 promotion or anything like that so yeah it's on a shoestring budget we've been able to

00:43:40.580 produce some things that like multi-million pound agencies could not apparently

00:43:44.780 I love that and I mean it's because you're authentic you care about this and you

00:43:51.340 you know I think it really is a testament to what creativity and creative marketing and a little bit

00:43:58.580 you know know how around the data can really be more effective than you know a huge marketing

00:44:05.700 a huge marketing budget and all of that like it really comes down to just creativity and

00:44:12.260 authenticity which I think you have in spades so I'm so thrilled with how people are reacting to

00:44:17.480 this I think it's so cool I guess one of my last questions for you is what's next do you have plans

00:44:22.780 to make more bots like what can we expect so yeah I would absolutely love to be able to like

00:44:29.320 copy this concept for um like other um sort of liberation events throughout the year when

00:44:36.260 um we see a lot of this performative marketing come through so you know we've talked about um

00:44:41.420 we talked about pride we talked about um black history month and our issue is that we don't have

00:44:48.100 data to kind of to do that yet but we have had a couple of people get in touch with some potential

00:44:56.580 data sources that we're looking into and so yeah hopefully over the next 12 months we will be able

00:45:05.380 to find a way to kind of be able to highlight the truth behind the supportive messages on

00:45:13.200 other issues and and greenwashing is another one and we've got a we've had sort of a message from

00:45:21.660 a like environmental charity in the UK and interested in kind of potentially working

00:45:27.360 together to do something to highlight what's going on what what companies are really doing

00:45:33.920 for the environment despite you know they'll claim that they're really really sustainable

00:45:38.280 and of course you know it's rarely possible to operate a like for-profit business in a truly

00:45:47.860 sustainable way and I feel like you know there's a lot of companies trying to pretend that that

00:45:52.680 isn't the case so yeah if we were able to um kind of work with them to get some data and around like

00:45:58.500 carbon emissions for instance um we'd love to be able to um replicate it for greenwashing too

00:46:05.500 I think a lot of companies are going to have to make sure their social media team are ready to go, especially around greenwashing, because that's going to be a lot of deleted tweets.

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00:47:05.640 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:47:14.400 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:47:17.920 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:47:25.560 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

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00:48:09.220 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - March 22, 2022

Gender Pay Gap Bot calls out performative tweets on International Women's Day (and spreads a little social media chaos along the way)

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