Francesca Lawson and Ali Fensome, a freelance copywriter and a software consultant respectively, collaborated to create the Gender Pay Gap Bot in 2022 and it has gained some steam once again for this year's International Women's Day (IWD), as per a report from Engadget.
The bot analyzes the publicly available data from the UK government's gender pay gap service to assess the pay gaps of organizations with at least 250 employees working in the UK.
These organizations are from diverse sectors, including healthcare, education, government, and sports. Since 2017, these companies have been mandated to submit their gender pay gap data annually.
The Gender Pay Gap Bot serves as a tool for uncovering the gender pay gaps of companies that often post a photo of a smiling woman or an inspiring quote about girl power on International Women's Day to appear gender equitable.
It is important to note that women across the globe earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. According to the United Nations, at the current rate of progress, it will take over 250 years to close this pay gap.
The Gender Pay Gap Bot hopes to at least address this issue by calling out businesses or brands about the pay gap in their workforce. The Twitter bot utilizes data that is publicly available through the UK government's gender pay gap service to analyze the pay gap of organizations that have around 250 workers in the UK.
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Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality
The Gender Pay Gap Bot is an innovative tool that aligns perfectly with this year's IWD theme, "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality."
The United Nations notes that "the digital age represents an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate all forms of disparity and inequality," making this bot a timely contribution to the conversation on gender pay equity.
The bot works in three stages. First, it searches Twitter to match company accounts with their government profile. Next, it scans for keywords related to International Women's Day. Finally, it publishes the gender pay gap of companies that have posted relevant content.
The Gender Pay Gap Bot automatically quotes tweets from the initial post of the organization to its account. The bot usually tweets multiple times per minute, and it has amassed nearly 250,000 followers.
Although a small number of tweets show that women are paid more than men, most tweets serve as a reminder that companies need to take gender pay equity seriously.
Some companies have even deleted their initial tweets after the bot's call-out. This response highlights the need for more transparency and accountability around gender pay equity.
Francesca Lawson, one of the bot's creators, hopes that the Gender Pay Gap Bot inspires organizations to take action toward gender equity.
She explained that women want accountability and honesty rather than just being celebrated and labeled as inspirational for one day a year while experiencing inequality and discrimination throughout the rest of the year.
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