Reclaiming International Women’s Day: Rejecting Commercial Slogans, Restoring Human Rights

Every year, International Women’s Day is an opportunity to reflect on the state of gender equity and the work still required to achieve justice for all marginalized genders. Yet once again, the public conversation has been dominated by a theme promoted not by the United Nations, but by a privately owned, for‑profit marketing company operating under the domain internationalwomensday.com. This organization has no affiliation with the United Nations (which sets its own theme for International Women’s Day), no mandate grounded in human rights, and no accountability to the global women’s rights movement. Its themes are not official and not rooted in any evidence-based framework. They are marketing slogans: pithy, catchy, and designed for corporate uptake.

The website internationalwomensday.com began as a commercial venture operated through a series of private marketing companies: first Busygirl Ltd, then Aurora Ventures (Europe) Ltd, and now IWD Support Ltd. Though it gives the appearance of a not-for-profit organization, its purpose has always been commercial rather than rights‑based. Over the years, the site has built a business model around selling International Women’s Day as a branded product, offering corporate sponsorships, licensing packages, event toolkits, and a wide range of merchandise. Organizations can purchase ready‑made campaigns, downloadable graphics, and promotional materials that allow them to “participate” in IWD without engaging in any substantive gender‑equity work. The site’s themes are crafted to support this marketing ecosystem (short, catchy, and universally palatable) because their primary function is to drive traffic, sell merchandise, and secure corporate partnerships. Its global visibility comes not from legitimacy or alignment with human‑rights frameworks, but from aggressive search‑engine optimization and branding strategies that have allowed a private marketing enterprise to overshadow the UN’s official theme and insert itself into a global justice movement.

This year’s commercial theme, “Give to Gain,” is a perfect example. It is vague enough to hold little meaning, soft enough to offend no one, and empty enough to require no action. Along with an accompanying pose for social media consumption (either two hands held out in a gesture to give or receive, or one hand held out and one hand over the heart), it gains traction each year, not because it is meaningful, but because it is marketable. It is easy for corporations and governments to adopt precisely because it demands nothing of them. It replaces meaningful action with theatrics and systemic change with personal uplift. In short, it is a branding exercise masquerading as progress.

It is disappointing, though not entirely surprising, that Canada has chosen to adopt this commercial theme instead of developing its own, as it has done in previous years. This choice reflects a broader pattern in the current government’s gender policy landscape: symbolic language without substantive action, corporate‑friendly messaging without structural commitments, and a preference for optics over outcomes. When a government chooses a marketing slogan over a human‑rights‑based framework, it signals a retreat from the harder work of justice.

In contrast, the United Nations’ official theme for International Women’s Day, “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls.”, is grounded in international law and human rights obligations. It reflects the reality that gender equity is not a branding exercise but a legal and moral imperative. It acknowledges that women and girls around the world still face discriminatory laws, unequitable access to justice, and systemic barriers that cannot be solved through slogans or corporate campaigns. This theme also aligns with the work of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the UN’s principal global intergovernmental body dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. Each year, the CSW brings together governments, civil society, and experts to evaluate progress, identify gaps, and negotiate concrete commitments.

On this International Women’s Day, I reject the commercialization of a global human rights movement. I stand with the United Nations and with all those who continue to fight for rights, justice, and meaningful action. The work ahead is urgent, and it cannot be performative or outsourced to marketing campaigns. It requires courage, accountability, and a willingness to confront the systems that continue to deny equity to marginalized genders everywhere.