Businesses Try to Get Involved on International Women’s Day

 The Day Without Women strike advocated avoiding big businesses. Big business did not avoid the Day Without Women.

International Women’s Day is rooted in activism, first organized by the Socialist Party of America in 1909. This year, the organizers of the historic post-inauguration Women’s March brought that spirit back to the celebration and paired it with a Day Without Women strike.

As the Women’s March site explains, the strike had three basic guidelines:

"Anyone, anywhere, can join by making March 8th A Day Without a Woman, in one or all of the following ways:Women take the day off, from paid and unpaid laborAvoid shopping for one day (with exceptions for small, women- and minority-owned businesses).Wear RED in solidarity with A Day Without A Woman."

As one could imagine, this did not stop many of the businesses that were to be boycotted according to #2 from participating in the day.

Tictail, an Esty-esque startup, announced that it would only be selling the work of female designers at its New York brick-and-mortar location through the end of the month. Furthermore, all profit from the first week of sales will go to Planned Parenthood and #HeforShe.  Facebook celebrated the day with a 24-hour Facebook Live event and invited a host of policy makers, female entrepreneurs, and leaders around the world to join. State Street Global Advisors installed a “Fearless Girl” statue to stare down Wall Street’s “Charging Bull.”

Of all companies, however, it’s Tinder that has probably made one of the bigger splashes:

I gave it a whirl:

Though I have yet to receive the message from Tinder with the requisite activation code, I live in hope–Tinder has tweeted that they’re working their way through the backlog, and people do seem to have had success:

To ensure women were not overwhelmed by all this good cheer, at least one business didn’t quite get the message.

Just to ensure that women were not overwhelmed by all this good cheer, however, there was at least one business that did not quite get the message. WUHT-FM, an R&B station based in Birmingham, unironically decided to celebrate the day by only playing songs by men and taking their female hosts off the air.

Related Story: A Day Without A Woman: Why It’s Important to Participate in Some Way

Yes, really.

Operations Manager Ken Johnson released a statement:

"This was an easy decision for us. Women are our core listeners, and these women contribute a great deal to our sound. Honoring women by highlighting to the community how important they are is a no-brainer.Plus, hearing more Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross is not a bad thing."

Well. Better luck next year?