Women share @paygapapp to mark International Women’s Day: Twitter account shames companies for claiming to celebrate IWM – while female staff suffer huge disparity in pay compared to men
- The Gender Pay Gap Bot shares the median pay difference at various companies
- Women have slammed some of the worst offenders with gaps near to 70 percent
Women around the UK are marking International Women’s Day as they share tweets from Twitter accounts highlighting pay disparities at organisations compared to male colleagues.
Information is being shared online about the gender pay gap at governmental bodies, emergency services, educational institutions and corporate firms.
Women also shared experiences of inequality or sexual harassment in the workplace on social media, as well as wishing one another a happy International Women’s Day.
Many shared tweets by the Gender Pay Gap Bot, an account that shares the gender pay gap of almost all organisations with bases in the UK.
Meanwhile hundreds of women went cold water swimming on the Scottish coast to raise money for charity, many dressed in costumes themed around female empowerment, braving air temperatures below freezing amid blizzards set to blast Britain for much of the day.
For those who did not brave the fiercely cold waters, many women took to social media to call out gender pay gaps and point out the hypocrisy of many companies appearing to celebrate International Women’s Day.
On Twitter, the Gender Pay Gap Bot shared hundreds of tweets from organisations who had shared posts in celebration of the day, using pay data to highlight how large the pay gap between men and women remains.
Francesca Lawson, 28, set up the bot in 2021 with Ali Fensome, also 28, after being inspired by other automated Twitter accounts and wanting to force ‘a bit more accountability’ around International Women’s Day.
Businesses often use the platform on the day to proclaim their support for their female workforce.
Their system pulls from published government data – accessible to all – to shine a light on the pay gap and make sure people ‘think a bit more critically’ and do not ‘take these sorts of messages of empowerment and inspiration at face value’.
The bot highlighted figures from government departments and organisations such as the DCMS, which has a median pay gap of almost 10 percent, and the Department of Transport, which has a gap of almost 13 percent – more than seven percent higher than in the previous year.
It also shared data from police forces including Leicestershire Police with a gap of 30 percent and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary at 11.3 percent.
Women slammed some of the worst offenders on social media, with one woman writing: ‘Hurrah! It’s the day we recognise all the efforts to reduce the pay gap between men and women. Or not.’
Dozens of women shared a post about Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust, which was found to have a massive 64 percent pay gap between men and women.
‘If your pay gap is 64 percent just shut up and hope nobody notices till you’ve fixed it, don’t tweet empty nonsense,’ one woman wrote.
Ann Mroz, who used to edit Times Higher Education, said: ‘Another ouch. Just stay silent with figures like that.’
Educational organisations had some of the worst gender pay gaps according to the bot, with other examples including independent Shrewsbury School in Shropshire, which has a gap of more than 50 percent.
One Twitter user named Kate Lockhart said: ‘Wow. What a message for the students.’
Users also criticised organisations aimed at women for their current pay gap.
Domestic violence charity Refuge’s latest available data shows a gender pay gap of 23.9 percent in favour of men – which was described as ‘unbelievable’ by women, given the charity helps women and children escape violence.
Investment firm Scottish Widows also sparked outrage after using International Women’s Day to promote its services to close the ‘pension gap’ – while paying its female employees 14 percent less than its male employees.
Meanwhile trade union GMB was found to have a 30 percent pay gap between men and women.
One female member of the union said: ‘No wonder my union was a bit slow with helping me with my equal pay claim. Absolutely no excuse for 30 percent gap in a union.’
Francesca Lawson, 28, set up the bot in 2021 after being inspired by other automated accounts
She works with Ali Fensome, also 28, to force ‘more accountability’ from companies appearing to celebrate International Women’s Day
‘We can’t rest on our laurels and just sort of pat ourselves on the back,’ Ms Lawson, a freelance copywriter and social media manager, said.
‘If I’m that inspirational then pay me properly.
‘I think (the Gender Pay Gap Bot has) potentially tapped into something. This frustration is not unique to me.
‘People are getting wise to the kind of corporate virtue signalling and having the wool pulled over their eyes a bit in terms of how businesses talk about themselves versus how they actually act the other 364 days of the year.’
Women widely praised those calling out gender pay inequalities. One social media user said the bot is ‘doing God’s work.’
Another added: ‘Morning, it’s that time of year again where organisations embarrass themselves.’
The Gender Pay Gap Bot uses statistics from the designated service on the official gov.uk website, through which UK companies with more than 250 employees are required to publish their payroll data, and takes a comparison of men’s and women’s average pay across the organisation.
Some of the companies the bot has already called out in 2023 for their most recently available pay gap data include St Mary’s University, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and airline Emirates.
Some were also found to have equal pay for men and women, like Barnsley Council and Derby City Council in 2023.
One of the worst discrepancies Ms Lawson recalled was from Ryanair, where last year the Gender Pay Gap Bot tweeted its 2020/2021 gender pay gap data – that ‘women’s median hourly pay is 68.6 percent lower than men’s’ – when the company had tweeted a message of support for its female staff.
‘I always feel this sense of frustration from seeing all these lovely supportive messages from companies but the needle doesn’t seem to be shifting that much on gender equality more generally, but specifically, we can see in the gender pay gap data, it’s still a massive problem,’ Ms Lawson said.
‘(We were) just looking for a way to actually get this data back into the spotlight.
‘By keeping it front of mind, we can use it as a bit of a catalyst just to keep that pressure on companies to act on their data and to use it to inform what they do in their organisations to challenge inequality.’
Ms Lawson, the creative strategist behind the bot, and Mr Fensome, who handles the data and tech side, have included another aspect in this year’s batch of automated tweets.
To make it ‘a little less embarrassing’ and give companies ‘positive PR,’ the bot now adds the percentage points decrease in the gap compared with last year.
‘We’ve had some really good examples already,’ she said.
‘Like Hastings Borough Council, they’ve reported no gender pay gap this year.
‘And they reported a 1.4% pay gap favouring men last year. So (that is) next to their tweet this year.
‘And that’s great – that’s absolutely wonderful.
‘It really is quite useful to see who’s making the process, who’s genuinely putting in the work, and who’s letting it widen.’
The account is also providing a request feature in 2023, which lets users tweet at them asking for the data from a specific company – as opposed to just the organisations who are tweeting International Women’s Day messages.
Hundreds of swimmers take a sunrise dip in the Firth of Forth at Portobello Beach, Edinburgh, for International Women’s Day
Many swimmers arrived to the beach in costumes such as these carnival-style outfits
All money raised by the Edinburgh swimmers will be donated to Women’s Aid
One woman dressed as superwoman to celebrate female empowerment on International Women’s Day
Ms Lawson said the work of the Gender Pay Gap Bot will continue for years to come, never with the goal to stop any companies from tweeting, Ms Lawson said, but to encourage them to provide ‘a bit more of a considered response’.
Meanwhile in Edinburgh hundreds of swimmers took to the North Sea at Portobello Beach to make a statement on International Women’s Day despite the tough weather conditions faced by millions around the UK.
As well as celebrating their own achievements, those taking the sunrise dip teamed up with the Outdoor Swimming Society to encourage groups to take part in wild swimming events across the UK to raise money for women who need it.
All money raised from the event is to be donated to the charity Women’s Aid, with its Edinburgh branch celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Similar events are expected elsewhere around the country.
The mood was cheerful as the sun arrived over the city, with one woman dressed in a superwoman outfit, while others had co-ordinated carnival-style costumes as they posed in the surf.
As the day began, women were pictured holding hands raised towards the sky in a show of solidarity for one another.
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