CSR begins with men growing a conscience
Earlier this month at Mumbrella360, Scentre Group's customer experience director, Phil McAveety, spoke about Westfield malls as "living centres". Lyn Swanson Kennedy was angry. Collective Shout has been petitioning Scentre's CEO to stop Honey Birdette's "porn-themed window displays" for 18 months. Here, she tells CEOs like him that actions speak louder than corporate social responsibility value statements.
Earlier this month, Swati Bhattacharya took to the stage at Mumbrella360 with a very clear message to men: “Women have grown tired of waiting for them to grow a conscience”.
Within a few hours, at the same event, on a different stage, Scentre Group’s customer experience director, Phil McAveety, spoke on the transformation of Westfield malls into “living centres”. It was difficult for us at Collective Shout to ignore the irony. For 18 months, we have been petitioning Scentre Group’s CEO, Peter Allen, to put a stop to sex-shop Honey Birdette’s porn-themed window displays in its shopping malls – beg your pardon, “living centres” – to no avail. The petition has 72,000 signatures. Westfield certainly hasn’t taken cues from customers imploring it to grow a conscience.
Swati Bhattacharya on stage at Mumbrella360
Allen is not the only male CEO we have called upon to address this rampant sexism. We have also lobbied Lendlease, AMP Capital, Vicinity Centres, The GPT Group, Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC), Stockland, JLL and ISPT. We have asked how they can identify as “Male Champions of Change” – pledging to address sexism in their workplace – while facilitating sexism in their own properties as Honey Birdette’s landlords.
CSR has to be more than words
Scentre Group says “We put the customer first”; “We act with integrity”; ”We create a positive legacy”.
Lendlease’s values are “Respect, Integrity, Excellence, Trust; Sustainability”. They tell us their developments “deliver safe, accessible and culturally rich communities”.
QIC mandates that employees “always treat others fairly, with respect and dignity and not engage in behaviour which could constitute discrimination, victimisation, vilification, sexual harassment, other types of unlawful harassment or bullying”.
JLL tells us its team members “are building a better tomorrow for our clients, our people and our communities” and that its values are “teamwork, ethics and excellence”.
ISPT says “every project we undertake is about enhancing life within and around the built environment”. Its corporate values include “care in everything we do”.
Vicinity Centres’ purpose is “to enrich communities”.
AMP is committed to anti-slavery and human trafficking efforts. They take “appropriate steps to ensure anyone who works for AMP Capital, irrespective of their capacity or location works in an environment in which their fundamental rights and freedoms are respected”.
Stockland has been “creating and nurturing communities since 1952″.
The GPT Group commits to acting ethically and responsibly and to returning “value to our communities”.
None of these noble values and goals can ever be advanced while porn-inspired images of women sit on public display in their malls. These images harm women and girls and contribute to sexual harassment and violence against women.
Undermining equality and diversity goals
These companies have obvious double-standards. They want us to know that women in their boardrooms and office spaces are valued, respected and promoted, and for us to associate their brands with women’s advancement.
Meanwhile, their malls are notorious for hostility toward women. It’s a form of ‘pinkwashing’, similar to tobacco companies joining the fight against breast cancer while making and selling products that cause cancer. These companies present as good corporate citizens with special appeal to women, while endorsing the very behaviours that hold women back. It’s duplicitous.
Adding to irony, by housing Honey Birdette porn-themed shop windows, these companies directly undermine their efforts to advocate for women. It is counter-intuitive, for example, for Scentre Group to advocate for victims of domestic violence while legitimising the very type of imagery linked to attitudes that condone violence against women.
In its National Plan Fourth Action Consultation Summary Report, the Department of Social Services noted the recommendation of “challenging and countering the objectification of women in the media and popular culture”. If this recommendation is implemented, companies like Honey Birdette may at last be held to account for the harm they cause.
And the shopping centre companies that lease to them will have to acknowledge the part they have played.
Male Champions of Change brand harmed by double standards
Male Champions of Change (MCC) was established in 2010, headed up by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick. Unfortunately, the brand has been brought into question by its members.
In a glaring display of double-standards, in March, Lendlease CEO and Property Group MCC Steve McCann attended the United Nations Conference on the Status of Women in New York. At a side event, he spoke on how companies can support and advocate for victims of domestic violence in the workplace. He was photographed holding an #empowerwomen placard. Meanwhile, his company’s malls house porn-style imagery, and he has ignored appeals from thousands of women to put a stop to it. This is a poor reflection on Male Champions who claim to be “stepping up beside women”.
CSR is not about words or hashtags. It’s not about programs or partnerships. It’s not about friends in high places. CSR is about the concerted efforts made by companies to ensure their conduct helps and doesn’t harm people.
Have these CEOs visited their shopping centres lately? Have they have seen mums hurry past, trying to shield their children, or heard – as we have – young men declare, “I’d like to fuck that”?
There is a clear choice for these companies. Either they truly uphold their CSR commitments and put a stop to public displays of porn-style imagery in their malls, or they continue to stand by Honey Birdette. There is no middle ground.
One thing is for certain: CSR begins with men growing a conscience.
Lyn Swanson Kennedy advises Collective Shout on CSR related matters
topics
AMP Capital
CSR
Honey birdette
JLL and ISPT
Lendlease
Lyn Swanson Kennedy
male champions of change
Mumbrella360
opinion
Peter Allen
Phil McAveety
Queensland Investment Corporation
Scentre group
sexism
Stockland
Swati Bhattacharya
The GPT Group
Vicinity Centres
Westfield
I honestly don’t know where to start with this article.
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Another example of misanthropy dressed up as legitimate, justifiable activism.
“Men” don’t need to do anything.
“Men”, by mere virtue of their gender, are not responsible for:
1. Honey Birdette
2. any other store that some people don’t like
3. domestic violence
4. rape
5. etc
Statistically, many more women than men commit infanticide and neonaticide, so following the reasoning of Kennedy and Bahattacharya, it should be perfectly fine to proclaim:
“Women must stop killing their children”.
In today’s bizarre PC world, gender-crime activists wear their prejudice and anti-intellectualism like a badge of honour.
Maybe they should take a break from revelling in unearned moral superiority to think about the relentless, damaging messages they’re sending boys and young men who’ve committed no crime other than being born with the “wrong” genitalia.
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Dear Lyn,
You present the issues in this article as being divided entirely along male/female lines, but this is not reflective of reality. It does not represent the views of women who disagree with your viewpoint, including the many employees of Honey Birdette themselves. Additionally, you present all men as villains in this debate, which is sexism on your behalf.
I am supportive of your viewpoint, but this article is undoubtedly not balanced journalism.
You present your opinion as fact, but it is not. While relatively harmless in this case, this is a dangerous trend in modern society.
Best regards,
James
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As an opinion piece designed to get some attention congratulations, job done… As an article that supports the premise of its title, it’s a no from me… If this was a man problem then the article would be correct, but it isn’t on many fronts.
CEO Property for LendLease is a woman as is the Global Head of Property at AMP Capital and the CEO Commercial Property for Stockland making 33% of the people you are calling out not actually male.
In addition they can’t tell a customer not to put advertising material in their window if it has been approved by Advertising Standards or if it is under review, imagine the headlines if they started telling every business, not just the ones you want them to, what they could advertise.
Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, the founder and still MD of Honey Birdette, their Marketing and PR Manager, Head of Creative, Social Media Manager, Head of Retail and Retail Operation Manager are all female.
Now let’s imagine a scenario where what you propose, that it’s all men in power letting a company that exploits women get away with putting porn in the window where *gasp* the children may see it, and turn it around.
A group of powerful men tell a company run by women who are creating products for women what they can and can’t advertise…
I’ll wait while the wailing horror and outrage commence…
How paternalistic is this idea.
So, my question to you is, did you just want attention, not think this through or are you actually perhaps a good CSR advisor that has no idea about what this would look like and the long term ramifications if these “men” (who are actually 1 third women) really did tell companies how they should operate?
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WTF/Really Confused?
Does this person understand that Honey Birdette is owned by a woman Eloise Monoghan (https://www.honeybirdette.com/pages/our-story), all the ads are done by woman and meant to appeal to woman as the buyer of the products?
AND hasn’t the female founder of HB pushed for these ads to be not demonised just like this? How did this suddenly get placed at the feet or men who are supporting what this brand is doing?
Also, why the hate? I’m pretty sure kids aren’t looking at the pics and declaring them wrong and unless the women creating these ads, products and lingerie are weird, the women in them aren’t being objectified.
Just don’t get this at all – isn’t the whole idea of equality that women can move these products into the world at large without this kind of campaign against it.
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That article could have been edited down to half the size and still conveyed the same message. It sounded like an epic feminist rant.
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“One thing is for certain: CSR begins with men growing a conscience.”
Ah, such an affiliative comment.
Clearly as a male I have no conscience and I would like to thank the author for pointing that I and around 3 billion people like myself have no conscience.
Some people (of any gender) have no filter.
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Every time I walk past a Honey Birdette store and cast a cheeky sideways glance in (when my wife isnt looking!), the store is full of females.
They dont seem to be bothered by the posters, nor do the scores of fellow shoppers who walk passed their stores.
This article promotes the same whiny crap that VICE does –
“You are a straight male and are therefore responsible for everything bad in 2019”
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Conflating lingerie storefront images of lingerie as ‘pornography’, just demonstrates what a tenuous grip activist groups like CS have with actual community standards.
Their argument is further marginalized by linking to inflammatory language like ‘slavery’. I think they would have more credibility if they just came clean and fessed up being an intersectional protest group of conservative Christian puritans and radical feminists – neither of whom should be setting the agenda for advertising standards.
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Do you #notallmen people have a crawler set up to alert you so you can comment on articles?
Until we can get past man-babies taking every opportunity to remind us ‘not all men’ we’ll never change attitudes about rape and domestic violence.
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That is the best comment I have ever seen written on Mumbrella. Bravo!
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Sorry, a feminist rant? Whatever that is I hope your Y chromosome survived reading it.
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I despair at poorly written and researched articles like this. I support your axe to grind at Honey Birdette but your declaration of war on any company with a male Group CEO that owns shopping centres is just click bait bordering on base slander. There are just as many or more of us women in retail who could do something about this but you make it out as a petty old fashion feminist rant and gender war. It’s you who are out of touch from your sisters like memon this one I’m afraid.
Emma
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Eloise Monoghan founded Honey Birdette and leads the business but doesn’t own it.
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Great article. I really liked the point about ‘pinkwashing’ – that is precisely what is going on here as these CEOs facilitate the display of sexist and porn-themed displays in their shopping centres while claiming to be championing gender equality, integrity and respect. It’s not enough to say the right things, they actually need to do them.
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I can’t take seriously an opinion piece that begins its argument by labeling a store in Westfield a “sex shop”.
That sort of overreach would make Helen Lovejoy proud.
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Some people make the world a better place. Some people make the world a bitter place. This author is the latter. What a ridiculous stitch up people who do a lot of good for CSR but all in the name of sorting out your current pet peeve which you have unsuccessfully achieved through other means.
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Just in case anyone isn’t aware – Collective Shout are a Christian Right lobby organisation masquerading as a women’s rights group. Religious moralizing underpins this position, not concern for welfare. Move along, no point feeding the beast.
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This missive will go down in the annals of ill-informed rants as a pearl-clutching classic. But no, if it is true, as per commenters above, that the real actors in all this are in fact female, then that surely must be “internalised misogyny” or something else goal-post-shifty, right?
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… another privileged media commentator using her sex and position of power to declare thoughtcrime on things she doesn’t like; to change the world to her narrow vision.
Reminds me of how Grid Girls in F1 got made redundant from articles and opinions such as this. Elite media and activist women using men as the bad guy to throw different women under the bus; to ultimately keep themselves in power and their message relevant.
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oooh Jenn, I love that first sentence…might steal that – thanks!
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I am pleased that some of the commentators flagged that this group has an intolerant Christian agenda. Mumbrella as editors and publishers you should make us aware of that before subjecting us to such prejudiced and ill informed opinion.
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Journalism at its finest. What we all love about Mumbrella.
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Agreed
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This constant, thinly veiled God squad fundamentalism is getting very old fast.
Hope you managed to donate a little bit of coin to poor Folau’s GoFundMe, Lyn!
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What’s disappointing about so many of the above comments is that in their great rush to defend men generally (perhaps because they didn’t read properly past the headline – and btw aren’t all headlines necessarily in shorthand?!) they entirely miss the point of the article. It is specifically directed towards those particular “Male Champions of Change” – senior (male) executive leaders of major corporates which trumpet ambitious CSR policies and who as individuals happen to be privileged, influential men claiming the title of “Male Champion of Change” because they are supposedly championing the cause of women to address gender inequity and are intent on “eliminating everyday sexism” (see MCC website).
This article does an excellent job of highlighting the total disconnect between the various shopping centre companies’ CSR policies, the MCC mantra and the embarrassing inertia and/or blindness of these individuals and their companies when it comes to what is happening right in front of them – in their own backyards so to speak.
Comments about HB being led by a woman and selling women’s lingerie (and the fact that, of course, women buy lingerie from HB) are simply irrelevant to the point being made. As is the fact that some of these property companies have senior women leaders – they are not calling themselves “Male Champions of Change”!
There’s also a disturbing level of ignorance about the harms of exposure to sexist and degrading imagery – perhaps because so many of us have become desensitised to it over many years and don’t appreciate (or care about) what it’s doing to our kids.
And what’s most surprising is that many of the above readers (presumably working in the ad/marketing game?) don’t seem to understand the role of Ad Standards in the advertising industry (which HB consistently thumbs its nose at as it continues to breach the AANA Code with impunity) – shouldn’t the vast bulk of Code-abiding advertisers & marketers and all those working in the ad industry who play by the rules be troubled by that?
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What is disappointing about so many of the above comments is that in their great rush to defend men generally (perhaps because they didn’t read properly past the headline – and btw aren’t all headlines necessarily in shorthand?!) they entirely miss the point of the article. It is specifically directed towards those particular “Male Champions of Change” – senior (male) executives of major corporates which trumpet ambitious CSR policies and who as individuals happen privileged, influential men claiming the title of MCC because they are supposedly championing the cause of women to address gender inequity and “eliminating everyday sexism”. The article does an excellent job of highlighting the total disconnect between the various shopping centre companies’ CSR policies, the MCC mantra and the embarrassing inertia and/or blindness of these individuals and their companies when it comes to what is happening right in front of them – in their own backyards so to speak.
Comments about HB being led by a woman and selling women’s lingerie (and the fact that women buy lingerie from HB) are simply irrelevant to the point being made.
There’s also a disturbing level of ignorance about the harms of exposure to sexist and degrading imagery – perhaps because so many of us have become desensitised to it over many years.
And it’s particularly surprising that many of the above readers (presumably working in the ad industry) don’t seem to understand the role of Ad Standards in the advertising industry (which HB consistently thumbs its nose at as it continues to breach the AANA Code with impunity) – shouldn’t the vast bulk of Code-abiding advertisers & marketers and all those working in the ad industry who play by the rules be a bit troubled by that?
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FYI, Honey Birdette was identified as a sex shop by none other than Fiona Patten, Chief Executive of the Eros Association (which represents adult shops) in 2014 when she said: “If you look at the definition of an adult store they are definitely an adult store.” See: https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger/city/sex-toys-investigation-into-honey-birdette-lingerie-retailer-after-rundle-mall-store-opening/news-story/9583fbf56f68e70f71f96e91e1a8228f
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Yoohoo Lyn, lots of young women would declare the same as the young men when they see those images.
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The article seems to be about challenging the hypocrisy of certain male leaders of companies who enter communities, bring along their sex shop retail partners, aid and abet the retail partner’s unconscionable conduct, facilitate harm and hostility, continue to tell communities that they care for them, get pats on the head from the UN and named as “champions for women”. Unless you are defending these CEOs’ double-standards, there doesn’t seem to be any genuine cause for disagreement.
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Reading through the comments accusing the author of castigating men when some of the CEOs are women. Well, she’s simply pointing out the more hollow irony that the men are called “Male Champions of Change”! The women are caught napping at the wheel as well, but I don’t see the women CEOs having such grandiose titles. Doesn’t make their inaction excusable, just that you’d expect Male Champions of Change to somehow lead change? Too much to ask?
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The founder and CEO of Honey Birdette is a female.
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Sex Cauldron?
I thought Westfield closed that place down?
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Ha ha yes!
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Type “poisoning the well logical fallacy” into Google – you might see this post indexed.
The cause for disagreement is that the “sex shop retail partners” are engaged in any “unconscionable conduct” whatsoever, thereby invalidating your argument that the CEOs are in fact facilitating “harm and hostility.”
The cause for disagreement stems from the fact that Collective Shout are a Christian Lobby organisation using a cynical and (I would argue, given the brush it tars legitimate feminist organisations with, see above comments) harmful facade of women’s rights to push their religious agenda.
The cause for disagreement comes from the fact that this position, based in conservative moralizing completely outdated in 21st century society, is being used to attack the sex-positive female owners of the sex shop in question.
That enough disagreement for you?
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Jennifer,
Sex Shop and Adult store.
Not the same thing.
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