
In this article:
- March 8th has become a day for pink and purple posts celebrating how strong and resilient women are. But this year, a Twitter bot has highlighted one other thing that women tend to be: underpaid.
- @PayGapApp on Twitter retweets different organizations’ International Women’s Day posts with information about how much lower or higher their female employees are paid compared to the male employees.
- For many of those companies, the percentages are embarrassing. More embarrassing still are some companies’ efforts to hide from the bot, and from its challenge to do better.
- The bot is made possible by government efforts towards gender pay gap transparency. Experts estimate that at the rate that countries like the UK and the U.S. are going towards pay equity, the gender pay gap will close in six decades.
Each year, people and organizations across the world celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th.
Like clockwork, our feeds are flooded all day by companies sharing pink and purple posts bearing similar messages: Women are strong. Women are brave. Women are whatever positive adjective the company hasn’t used yet in previous years.
But this year, one Twitter bot celebrated International Women’s Day by highlighting a less discussed, but crucial truth about women: We are underpaid.
The bot, @PayGapApp, has amassed over 244,000 followers as of this writing with a bio that reads, “Employers, if you tweet about International Women’s Day, I’ll retweet your gender pay gap.”
Of course, the bot’s bio only looks like a threat if your gender pay gap is something you want to hide. And on a day that companies have managed to dissociate from its socialist roots, the bot is doing the lord’s work by balancing out all this talk of “sheroes” with cold, hard facts about how the working world really treats women.
This is not really something to celebrate: Aside from being woefully underrepresented in government, on screen, behind the camera, and in developing tomorrow’s technology, women also tend to receive less pay for the work that we manage to do.
So far, the bot has quote-tweeted median hourly pay disparities between men and women in companies of every kind in the UK — from colleges and news publications to banks and government offices. And it’s still not done.
While some companies featured by the account had equal pay and others even paid women more than men, the vast majority underpay the very women they claim to be celebrating — with some gaps being as high as 73.2%.
The Bot That Said “Enough”
Social media bots tend to get a bad rap because of their use in disinformation, but they’re not automatically bad. Some bots log earthquakes, while others even provide self-care reminders. In the case of @PayGapApp, however, it’s all about challenging companies to walk the talk.

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“I am just staring at my screen and thinking, ‘None of this is true.’”
Over the years, International Women’s Day has been appropriated by companies looking to use bits and pieces of feminist language and imagery to try and sell us things or make themselves look good. Too often, as the Gender Pay Gap Bot highlights, there’s a distinct disconnect between what they post on social media and what they do in their offices.
For freelance copywriter Francesca Lawson and software developer Alastair Fensome, both based in Manchester, it’s time we start calling them out on it.
Lawson drew inspiration for the bot from her experience working as an in-house social media manager. She recalls being asked by her superiors to create content about how her company champions women’s equality for events like International Women’s Day.
“I am just staring at my screen and thinking, ‘None of this is true,’” she says. “‘This is my life you’re prescribing to me, and it doesn’t match the reality.’”
She also points out that companies regularly practice this type of two-faced approach when dealing with different marginalized groups. In an interview with Fortune, she said, “What I get annoyed at with International Women’s Day and any awareness event that is linked to a social issue, so say Pride, Black History Month, it’s all the same.”
“Companies will show their support across all their comms and their social media, but they don’t provide any data or evidence to show what they are doing to challenge discrimination.”
So, she decided to use this experience to celebrate International Women’s Day in a way that truly supported women. The resulting bot, created with Fensome, has had the effect of publicly shaming companies who celebrated women’s achievements in word, but not in deed — in this case, in terms of fair pay.
While many of the tweets quote-tweeted by the bot bore uplifting messages about women as leaders, trailblazers, and role models, the bot’s tweets made for some pretty depressing reading about how badly women are underpaid as compared to their male peers.
Tweets about companies paying men and women equally were good to see, of course, but these were too few and far between. That just made everything else that much sadder.
How Companies Are Handling the Truth About Themselves
Being called out by a bot was apparently a bit too much for some of these companies, who ended up deleting their posts for International Women’s Day.
For example, the bot quote-tweeted the University of Exeter’s first post about International Women’s Day, pointing out that it pays its female employees 20% less than it pays its male employees.
The university then deleted the post, and responded to criticism over the deletion by saying that there was “a typo” in the original.
I know, the second-hand embarrassment has still got me cringing all these hours later. But being called out for its gender pay gap didn’t stop the University from continuing its scheduled International Women’s Day tweet programming — likely drafted and prepared by the very women it is underpaying.
Whatever it wanted to achieve with the smiling faces of women on its feed, however, it was soon questioned by various alumni and concerned individuals on Twitter asking about the gender pay gap. As of this writing, the company hasn’t replied to any of them.
Many, like Fareham College (24%), blocked the bot, while others, like Shearman and Sterling Law (a whopping 52%), turned off the reply function.
Other companies have tried to weasel out of the bot’s spotlight in other ways. Airport Coordination Limited, for instance, reposted its tweet without the hashtags in an effort to evade the bot. The bot found and quote-tweeted this new tweet with the same damning information anyway: The company pays its female employees 27% less than its male employees.

The company’s only response to the criticism? It amended its bio to say that it doesn’t manage its account close enough to respond to tweets, apparently.
Many other companies tried similar (ineffective) evasion techniques, reposting the same content, sometimes without the hashtag. These include organizations like The Rose Learning Trust (48.9%), Barclays (34.5%), Morgan Sindall Group (33.6%), Liverpool John Moores University (25.1%), Craven College (25%), The Faith & Belief Forum (23%), IBM (13.5%), and the University of East London (5.2% according to the bot and the official data, though it claims that it’s only 1% in the replies).
Many, like Fareham College (24%), blocked the bot, while others, like Shearman and Sterling Law (a whopping 52%), turned off the reply function on its new tweet. It’s worth noting that this law firm’s primary clientele are governmental organizations — many of whom were called out by the bot, too.
Still others straight up just deleted their post and never attempted a repost or response. This includes law firms Ward Hadaway (whose self-reported pay gap is 44.5%) and Harper Macleod (28.6%).
A Challenge to Do Better
Over email, Lawson says, “I think it’s pretty cowardly to delete the tweet after being called out — it gives off the impression that they’re embarrassed about their pay gap and they’d rather pretend it doesn’t exist than own up to their problems and do something about it.”
For Lawson, the bot serves to challenge the all-too-empty gestures of support and empowerment that we’ve grown used to from companies every March 8th.
The point is not just to make this information public, but to hold them accountable and hope that they do better.
Some companies are responding to this call better than others.
Imperial College, which the bot pointed out pays its women a median salary 6.3% lower than men, acknowledged the bot — something many of its peers refuse to do — and replied to the statistic posted by the account.
In a refreshing move, the account tweeted, “Thanks Gender Pay Gap Bot, you’re right and we agree this isn’t good enough.”
That wasn’t too hard, was it?
For many, it seems like it is, and it’s hard not to get frustrated that the bar seems to be below ground.
The Imperial College account then followed up with a link to more information about the steps the organization is taking to eliminate its gender pay gap, as well as its ethnicity pay gap. This last bit is important, too, as oppression has many ugly faces. Thus, our pursuit of equality and justice needs to be intersectional.

The Power of Data on Gender Pay Gaps
For many — women especially — the gender pay gap isn’t exactly a secret. But it’s not talked about much either, and when it is, it’s too often shut down.
There are many myths surrounding the gender pay gap that are used to keep us from talking about it. This includes the myths that women are not being competitive enough (debunked), not doing the same amount of work (also debunked), not working for the same amount of time (also debunked), and not doing the same kinds of work (debunked by research studying fields where women dominate but are still paid less).
“Companies will show their support across all their comms and their social media, but they don’t provide any data or evidence to show what they are doing to challenge discrimination.”
Part of the power of the Gender Pay Gap Bot is that it’s able to put the cold hard truth of the matter in succinct terms using data. Each tweet basically reads, “In this organisation, women’s median hourly pay is x% lower than men’s,” though in rare cases the “lower” is exchanged for “higher.” No bells or whistles, just data.
The bot — and the valuable work it’s doing this women’s month — is made possible by a piece of legislation passed by the UK government that requires companies with over 250 employees to report the pay disparity between men and women on their payrolls. These reports have been published annually since 2018, and include not just pay, but also bonuses granted to men and women.
All this information is publicly available on a dedicated government website and is what the PayGapBot app is based on. It’s also how we know that in the 2021 reporting year, 8 out of 10 UK-based organizations still paid men more than women — and it’s a gap that’s growing instead of shrinking.
“If we’re not confronting that data and acting on it,” Lawson says. “Then the problems are just going to persist forever.”

Where Data Falls Short
No amount of data, however, can force companies to make changes for the better if they don’t want to.
The fact that the bot’s data came from self-reported pay gaps makes companies’ stubborn refusal to acknowledge the Gender Pay Gap Bot’s tweets all the more sinister. They knew that they weren’t paying their employees equally, and they made International Women’s Day posts as if they were doing so anyway.
Estimates from 2019 indicate that at the rate companies are going, women will achieve equal pay in six decades. Globally, we’ll have to wait 136 years.
They know that their pay gaps are as big as they are, but seem set on pretending the bot doesn’t exist and carrying on like normal.
Part of the problem is that the data collected by the UK government is far from perfect. Critics have cited that the information submitted on median hourly pay gaps does not always address similar job roles. Moreover, some roles, like high-level executives and contractual workers, are exempted from the reporting. This is an issue that some of the companies called out by the bot have tried to hide behind.
But there’s also the fact that the gender pay gap reporting law is a little light on companies. It merely asks employers what actions they would take to close their gaps, and also does not require smaller companies to report their gender pay gaps, which means that a significant portion of UK businesses is not covered by the data.
Of course, expecting a complete eradication of gender pay gaps in the years since the pay gap reporting began is sadly a little unrealistic. Estimates from 2019 indicate that at the rate companies are going, women will achieve equal pay in six decades. Globally, we’ll have to wait 136 years.
But still, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which oversees the enforcement of the gender pay gap reporting program, expresses hope that the initiative can help move things along a bit faster.
“Clearly we want to see women on a level playing field with men across society, not only in the workplace, but the reason this is taking time is complex,” a spokesperson said. “Gender pay gap reporting is about transparency, which then drives action. And the effects of that can take time.”
Plus — and I hate to say it — it’s a lot better than what the rest of us who don’t work in the UK have.

Where More Data Is Needed
Not all workers have the luxury of having their employers’ gender-based pay discrimination publicized. Initiatives like the Gender Pay Gap Bot have largely been limited to the UK.
In the U.S., for instance, there’s no federal initiative to enforce gender pay gap reporting to support existing laws like the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which makes it illegal to pay women less than their male counterparts simply because of their gender.
If we don’t have information about how bad the pay gap is, it’s even harder to talk about and find solutions to the problem.
This means that sure, it’s illegal to pay women less on the basis of their sex, but there’s no legal pressure for companies to be transparent about it, and it’s going to be hard getting them to admit that they practice and perpetuate (unlawful) gender-based pay discrimination. If we don’t have information about how bad the pay gap is, it’s even harder to talk about and find solutions to the problem.
Some states are beginning to do the work, though. In California, for instance, companies are required to submit annual reports on how much they pay their employees, with data organized by gender, race, and ethnicity, beginning 2021.
The new law requires employers with 100 or more employees to file a report with the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).
The one caveat? The information isn’t published for public viewing the way it is in the UK. At least, they haven’t started yet: The DFEH website states that it “may develop, publish on an annual basis, and publicize aggregate reports based on the data obtained.”
Last year, Illinois became the second state to require workforce pay data according to gender, race, and ethnicity categories. But it goes a bit further than the Golden State: Illinois is the first state to require employee-level pay data and implement an equal pay registration certificate system. The regulations take effect this 2022.

For Women’s Rights and Welfare, Everyday
This year, the Gender Pay Gap Bot was a refreshing social media presence on International Women’s Day.
But more than a fun way to call out hypocrisy among companies who love posting about the strength and resilience of women without paying them justly, it’s also a reminder that feminism is more than just declarations of girl power. It’s a recognition of the myriad ways women and girls have the odds stacked against us, and an invitation to do something about it.
It’s about equal pay and equal opportunity, and it’s not just a one-day thing. It’s a movement that happens every day, in homes and in office buildings, in factories and in fields.
It can be furthered by laws and company policies, but it’s also championed in everyday conversations — offline and online, organic and with the help of data-informed bots.