‘F*ck the cupcakes, bring on the pies’: Gender equality movement announces inaugural event for men to ‘cook up conversations’
Innocean’s gender equality movement Fck The Cupcakes has launched an all-year-round program to engage men on the topic of gender equality, partnering with Paramount, Infinity Bakery and Bloke Coaching.
‘Yeah The Pies’ invites Aussie men in the media and marketing industry to “cook up conversations” – both figuratively and literally – at the inaugural event on April 11.
The event – an afternoon of cooking, conversations and change – will encourage men to start conversations on gender equality, bin the cupcakes, and show their support for their female colleagues.
“A lot of men want to be involved in gender equality and do more, but don’t know how. Men also find it hard to talk face to face, preferring to open up shoulder to shoulder. That’s why we’re baking some pies and strapping in to chat about some of the big, small, and sometimes awkward themes of what it means to be a man and cook up conversations that will ignite real change,” said Wez Hawes, ECD at Innocean.
“We’re going to show what an IWD event could look like if you f*ck the cupcakes, bring on the pies.”
The event will be hosted by MasterChef champion and mental health advocate Brent Draper, and professional coach, and founder of Bloke Coaching, Iain Schmidt.
Fck The Cupcakes hopes to break into the ‘movable middle’ men of Australia – about 30% of the Australian population. Described as those that are open to progress and new ideas, are liberal-leaning and encompass empathy, the movement believes they are the most likely to change in response to Fck The Cupcakes efforts.
Jasmin Bedir, CEO of Innocean and founder of Fck The Cupcakes, said: “We’ve struck a chord with our sentiment that International Women’s Day is meaningless if women continue just to talk to other women. But it is incredibly difficult to get men at scale engaged in the topic of gender equality, which was confirmed by the gender pay gap data released earlier this month.
“The ‘Yeah the Pies’ program will be a blueprint for organisations to engage men the right way so IWD 2025 is not again another room filled with women and cupcakes,” she explained.
Fck The Cupcakes recently partnered with indie creative agency Paper Moose on the ‘Drop The Shade’ creative industry survey, which found 80% of respondents had fed back or publicly commented on someone else’s work, with 58% doing it regularly (at least a few times a year).
The survey was created in response to how the industry is interacting with other people’s work and its impact, and comes after Innocean and Fck The Cupcakes staff received death threats and vile comments on trade media from a campaign for International Women’s Day last year. It aims to address and understand the issues around receiving feedback in the creative industry, including the impact of negative, unsolicited and anonymous feedback, both on individuals and the creative community as a whole.
57% of the survey respondents think other people are mainly negative in their feedback, and 54% say they have been personally affected by the negativity. Over three-quarters agreed that negative feedback is impacting talent retention and discouraging new talent.
Men can register their interest for the ‘Yeah The Pies’ event here.
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Lauren McNamara is a journalist at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
Fck The Cupcakes
gender equality
Innocean
International Women's Day
IWD
Jasmin Bedir
Wez Hawes
Yeah The Pies
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