PINKWASHING: THE HYPOCRITICAL FEMINISM OF FOR-PROFIT BRANDS - LOVE-E-PSYCHOLOGY

Pinkwashing: self-righteous feminism for profit

The struggles for equality, rights and women's emancipation are all noble causes, when genuine. When, on the contrary, oriented towards ulterior motives, they lose credibility and cause further damage to a category that is already disadvantaged in itself. In the latter case, we are faced with a phenomenon better known as pink-washing, very widespread especially in the commercial and advertising fields. In this article we will explain in detail what this technique consists of and why it is important to know how to recognize hypocrisy. basically.

And to stay on the subject, watch this video and discover Armani's statements against the exploitation of women in fashion.

What is pinkwashing?

Pinkwashing is a practice with which brands and companies carry out fake feminist campaigns only to attract the attention of consumers who are more sensitive to the social issue and increase their sales. This is a marketing strategy born in the wake of another similar phenomenon and which we had already talked about previously, namely greenwashing, for which multinationals aim to increase turnover by simulating an environmental change. In both cases, what ends up under accusation is the underlying hypocrisy of some companies that promote facade activism, without taking concrete action to change things and improve the conditions of both the environment and women. In the case of pinkwashing, we speak of "commodity feminism".

The origin of the term

The term pinkwashing is a neologism of the English language and comes from the crasis between the adjective "pink", "pink", and the verb "whitewashing", which can mean both "whiten" and "hide". It was used for the first time in 2002 by the Breast Cancer Association and, more precisely, by one of the association's historical members, Barbara Brenner. The woman, also affected by breast cancer and carried away by the disease in 2013, had always fought against companies that, over the years, had speculated on a serious and delicate issue like that of breast cancer only for their own economic return. . In this regard, Brenner had carried out an impact campaign entitled "Think before you pink" to eliminate from the market the presence of products marked with the pink ribbon. As reported on the dedicated website, the purpose of this initiative was to obtain "more transparency and accountability from companies that participate in breast cancer fundraisers" and encourage consumers "to ask critical questions about promotions with a pink bow" . The cosmetic companies that had commodified the feminist cause and cancer research to divert the attention of buyers from the poor quality of the ingredients used, often at the origin of the disease itself, ended up in the activist's sights.

Pink and rainbow washing: what changes?

You know those products that, especially on the occasion of Pride Month, or the month of pride for the LGBT community, are painted with the colors of the rainbow? Here, in this case we are talking about rainbow washing, a further declination of pinkwashing. It is, once again, a commercial gimmick with which companies show off a gay-friendly side that has very little adherence to the reality of the facts. Their proximity to the gay, lesbian, queer and trans communities around the world is, in fact, apparent and, only rarely, accompanied by tangible actions in support of the rights of these people and committed to the fight against discrimination and homotransphobic violence. So, as with "environmentalism and facade feminism, the" LGBTQIA + activism promoted by rainbow-washing is only a "marketing operation for profit.

Famous examples

Over the years, several brands have been guilty of this practice to make their products more appealing to the "politically committed" customer. For example, there is a well-known Swedish clothing brand that, in the past, has put on the market t-shirts with the words "We Should All Be Feminists" (transl. "We should all be feminists"). Nothing wrong with that, you will think. Too bad that those same T-shirts were made in textile workshops located in Asia, where employees worked in conditions of inhumane exploitation and for a shamefully poor pay.

Recently, however, it was another big fast-fashion brand that was accused, this time of rainbow-washing. Yes, because the brand in question has seen fit to launch a collection called, precisely, "Pride" right in the vicinity of Pride Month. The company in question justified this choice, stating that it would donate 20% of the profits to Stonewall, a British charity that has always fought for the rights of the LGBT community over the years. However, the clumsy attempt to hide the economic aims of the initiative was unmasked by the community itself, realizing that Stonewall would not have participated in the London Gay Pride of that year and that, therefore, the association had been chosen only by virtue of the popularity, and that the same garments were produced in Turkey and Myanmar, countries where tolerance for homosexual, bisexual, queer and trans people is close to zero.

Pinkwashing and Israel

However, the contradictions underlying these phenomena do not only concern advertising campaigns and marketing strategies, but also politics. An emblematic case is represented by Israel. Over the years, in fact, this nation has stood out for its openness towards the LGBTQIA + community, an extraordinary behavior if we consider the geolocation of the country, located in the heart of the Middle East where the rights of these people are often trampled on by force and repressed with the violence. However, over time the suspicion has crept in that Israel has created this self-inclusive image only to hide from the eyes of public opinion around the world the misdeeds carried out at the expense of the Palestinian population, expropriated their land in favor of the Israeli settlers.