Is This Why Brewdog Decided To Launch Their Pink ‘Beer For Girls’?

What’s the best way to highlight bad behaviour? It’s probably not to indulge in that behaviour yourself. For instance, if you tell someone to stop being sexist, you can’t then be sexist yourself to prove a point without simultaneously undermining it.

What craft beer brewer Brewdog was actually thinking when they decided to launch PINK IPA for girls, sold more cheaply than their blue PUNK IPA version, we may never know.

In a somewhat misguided attempt to raise awareness about the gender pay gap and sexism in advertising Brewdog, it seems have…well…reinforced both the gender pay gap and hackneyed sexist advertising.

The whole thing has gone down like a lead balloon. Brewdog’s attempt at a ‘satirical’ joke has been lost on everyone but, in particular, on women who know all too well about the realities of pay inequality and sexism.

It would have been marginally better if the company had, at least, turned the problems they want to draw attention to on their head and made the blue version of the beer more expensive than the pink version or, perhaps, asked retailers to charge men more at the checkout.

The Pink IPA is being sold a fifth of the price of the blue Punk IPA which, Brewdog says, reflects the 18.1% average gender pay gap between men and women. 20% of sales of Brewdog’s ‘beer for girls’ and Punk IPA to ‘causes that fight against gender inequality’. The company say that they hope this stunt will ‘trigger questions about why women continue to earn less than their male counterparts’.

Interestingly, as part of the government’s gender pay gap reporting initiativeany company with 250 or more employees must publically declare the salaries of their male and female staff. BrewDog has disclosed a 2.8% median gender pay gap in favour of men across its global business, which employs 1,000 people. However, they have not yet filed their UK only figures.

As the deadline for pay gap reporting approaches, companies everywhere are in a spin and worried about what the fall out of being forced to be completely transparent about internal pay will be. Perhaps they’re justified? After all, look at what has happened over at the BBC.

When dodgy stunts like this crop up, it’s important to remember this context. The ultimate motivator for Brewdog – a young professional hipster friendly company – to make a statement about the pay disparity must surely be the fact that medium-large sized companies everywhere are being forced to air their dirty pay gap laundry.

Brewdog’s attempt at satire was undoubtedly well-intentioned but, as with all brands, they ultimately only really care about a) their sales and b) their own image.

READ MORE: Facts About Women Around The World

If a company is really serious about tackling the gender pay gap or sexism it ought to lead by example. We need to see brands paying their male and female staff equally for the same work and coming up with forward-thinking advertising campaigns which challenge hackneyed gender stereotypes and clichés. The problem with this stunt is that it only serves to further underscore the problem, it doesn’t move things forward at all.

The list of things Brewdog could have done to prove a point is endless: offering everyone who identifies as a woman a discount on beer to the tune of their internal gender pay gap would have been a start.

Critiquing something shouldn’t involve doing it yourself to prove a point. In this case, all Brewdog’s stunt has really done is prove that we aren’t surprised when products for women are made pink and the fact that women earn less and end up paying more for everyday items like razors doesn’t even shock us.

Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.