Over recent years, there has been a huge public growth and display of PRIDE, LGBTQIA+, and other related movements, such as London’s Pride event (happening this year on July 2nd) and Nottingham’s Pride Festival (on July 30th).
The LGBTQIA+ movement has rightly received, and is receiving, huge momentum and support in the twenty-first century. Yet, it seems perhaps many of us have been ignorant to the virtue of some companies’ and even governments’ LGBTQIA+ and PRIDE campaigns.
After the 1980s, brands began to receive success by tapping into the LGBTQIA+ community through advertising themselves as an ally to the movement, and so other prominent companies began branding themselves as “LGBTQIA+-friendly” as well.
Ultimately, this was to appeal to larger proportions of the consumer market and to capitalise on the “pink dollar”.
Additionally, certain political groups/companies used their “alignment” to LGBTQIA+ community and other campaigns, as a mask to conceal and gloss over controversies within their operations. This is known as Pinkwashing.
“In short: Pink washing is a brand reaping the benefits of selling diversity without actually doing the legwork to better the lives of the LGBTQIA+ community”
In today’s world I think that this is something that we all need to be aware of. Particularly, in PRIDE month, when numerous mainstream brands/companies label themselves as an ally, through affiliated and recognisable symbols (such as the PRIDE rainbow) of the LGBTQIA+ movement.
As I mentioned before, this action is not only in the corporate field but in the political one as well, something which I find unnerving.
As we can perhaps see, there are much darker and sinister agendas and motivations behind governmental and corporate public support for the LGBTQIA+ community which NEEDS to be questioned.
Are such huge operations really in support of condemning prejudices and systemic oppression towards marginalised individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community? Or are they rather chasing the “pink dollar”, or the support given to these campaigns for their own personal gain?
In my opinion, there are some brands out there in mainstream culture who are trying to demonstrate their condemnation of homophobia and support of equality. One example is Converse; who donate all sale profits on their PRIDE merchandise to projects which help support members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Over the last six years the brand has donated more than 1.3 million dollars to LGBTQIA+ communities.
Other companies who demonstrate their support and alignment with the LGBTQIA+ community (but more importantly actually have substance behind their claims to be an ally) are Ben and Jerry, Mac, Michael Kors, and Levi’s – who have funded projects and donated to charities such support and are making a change to LGBTQIA+ members.
However, as I mentioned before there are numerous brands/companies who appear to advertise “support” toward the LGBTQIA+ community but evidently show no concrete or substantial evidence that they do so…
Firstly, Coca-Cola, who assert that they support the LGBTQ+ community by doing everything “from supporting LGBTQI pride parades to running rainbow-coloured billboards”, actually were discovered to be donating to anti-LGBTQIA+ legislators…
Popular mainstream clothing shops such as Urban Outfitters – and their LGBTQIA+ support – seem to be misleading their consumer. On their website there is a Pride Month page which highlights the store’s products that are available for purchase, whose proceeds go to LGBTQIA+ organisations… however, their current CEO Richard Hayne has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ actions.
Moreover, H&M is another brand whose claims to be a “supporter” of the LGBTQIA+ community – but could be labelled as a pink-washer. The company was criticised for donating only 10% of its sales to the U.N Free and Equal Campaign, when it is a multi-billion-dollar company. This leads to questions around whether the company is a legitimate supporter of the LGBTQ+ community – or is simply promoting themselves as “LGBTQ+-friendly”.
As I mentioned Pinkwashing is not only prevalent within brands and other companies, but also has itself rooted within politics.
For example, Israel displayed overt pinkwashing in its public relations campaign which advertised the country as the melting pot for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Middle East. The Israeli government were prompted to initiate this campaign to combat and dust over the country’s controversial human rights violations against Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. However, Israel’s so-called LGBTQ+ support is paradoxical as Israeli same-sex marriage and adoption is illegal.
Looking closer to home, our current government and the Prime Minister could be said to employ Pinkwashing as a means to mask controversies and to gain political support.
Boris Johnson has made many public homophobic comments, for example, in 2000 he complained in The Spectator about “Labour’s appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it”, as well as referring to gay men as ‘tank-topped bumboys’.
The government labels itself as LGBTQ+-friendly, by displaying the PRIDE Flag or wearing the PRIDE badge as a symbol of solidarity. Recently the government has initiated ‘The Safe To Be Me‘ conference, in support of promoting LGBTQ+ rights.
However, I am uncertain over the whether the government and the Prime Minster are truly motivated by the desire to support the LGBTQIA+ community and their campaigns.
Are they Pinkwashing the symbol the PRIDE Flag and prompting other gay rights legislations to act as a mask to hide their past mistakes and to appear inclusive?
I’d like to finish up by stating that Pinkwashing is something very serious. Brands, companies and governments who claim to be in support of the LGBTQIA+ community need to go much further than just wearing a badge or creating a line of PRIDE clothing – which is only in available in PRIDE Month.
These big operations need to show substance to their claims by financially supporting projects and charities, as well as integrating diversity and promoting equally within their teams.
Further Reading:
https://www.lbbonline.com/news/were-over-the-rainbow-its-time-to-stop-pinkwashing