International Women’s Day Should Be More Than A Diversity Marketing Ploy

Posted on March 8, 2022 Updated on March 8, 2022

March 8^th marks International Women’s Day, designed to reflect on our values as a society and honor multicultural women globally. As an aspiring author, creative professional, and multi-ethnic Asian-Hispanic woman, I see the call for diversity as a major focus in the publishing world as it seems to be throughout all businesses.

While wanting diversity is an important step, as a woman of color (WOC), I have experienced the hypocrisy in the call for people of color (POC) to have the same opportunities as white writers and working professionals. Yes, #diversity, #POC, #BLM are all fun, #woke little hashtags, and look really 21st-century-cool. Yet the need for inclusion is more than the preferred pronouns someone lists on their social media. Inclusion goes beyond an antidote to an EEOC claim brought about because an applicant was pre-judged based on their race, age, gender, or sexuality. But the scream for diversity has started to feel like a trendy marketing ploy. It has been my own experience that brown people are becoming exploited in superficial marketing claims from companies to be more inclusive with no legitimate intention of following through.