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Special Feature – No. 08
Big Alcohol Exploits Feminism and Hijacks the Women’s Rights Cause
On International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrated on March 8 and leading up to it a widespread IWD campaign swept across social media called “Break The Bias”. This was shared by many organizations, celebrities and people. This theme is from a website called internationalwomensday.com. The problem is the obscure corporation behind the website, Aurora Ventures (Europe) Limited, has partnered with unethical businesses including Big Alcohol and major arms manufacturers.
It’s a problem that Movendi International was first to reveal and campaign against, already in 2018.
For decades the alcohol industry objectified women in their marketing to appeal to their largely male-dominated market. But recently Big Alcohol shifted to target women as consumer market. Their latest strategy is to align with women’s empowerment, women’s rights, and feminism to try and promote alcohol to women in a bid to maximize profits. A recent example is Absolut Vodka’s campaign on consent and preventing sexual violence against women. Absolut Vodka has previously run many advertisements sexualizing and objectifying women.
Movendi International is continuously exposing Big Alcohol tactics to appeal to women, including pinkwashing and marketing alcohol as a gender equalizer – efforts to exploit the women’s rights cause for private profits.
The alcohol industry targets women while knowing the very specific harms their products and practices cause to women, including higher susceptibility to addiction from lower amounts of alcohol and breast cancer.
Women and girls are still exposed to epidemic levels of domestic and intimate partner violence – often driven by alcohol. But Big Alcohol is lobbying against policy solutions that would protect women and girls from alcohol violence. The alcohol industry is cherry-picking which part of the women’s rights cause they want to align with and which one they want to undermine to suit their goal of profit maximization.
When Big Alcohol executives get to choose whether or not to be part of creating a culture of gender equality and women empowerment that is immune to men’s violence against women, they choose profits over women empowerment. Only now that women and girls have been identified as “emerging market” with vast potential for corporate profits they pretend to care for feminist values,” said Kristina Sperkova, President, Movendi International.
Kristina Sperkova, President, Movendi International.
The Alcohol Issues Podcast
S1 E9: Understanding Alcohol Harm as Feminist Issue
This enlightening discussion delves into how the alcohol norm and gender norms overlap and the lessons that can be drawn from discussing the overlaps; the role of alcohol marketing in fueling violence and fomenting the oppression of women; the solutions that are available to help advance women’s rights through addressing alcohol.
In this episode host, Maik Dünnbier welcomes Kristina Sperkova, the President of Movendi International. Kristina is a trained psychologist who specialized in social psychology and discourse analysis, writing about comparative analysis of gender norms and stereotypes in Sweden and Slovakia.
This is a deep dive into alcohol issues through a gender and Women’s Rights lens. With Kristina, we discuss alcohol‘s role in the epidemic of violence against women.
Kristina shares profound insights that expose the alcohol industry; as a feminist herself she challenges the feminist movement and outlines a bold and comprehensive approach to eliminating violence against women, driven by the communities most affected.
