Catalyst: advert-body-1 by Burns Group

Catalyst is celebrating International Women's Day (IWD) 2020 with a reboot of its successful '#BiasCorrect' campaign to interrupt unconscious bias by highlighting the power of words used to describe women in the workplace.

Building on its 2019 IWD '#BiasCorrect' campaign success – which featured images of women leaders and influencers like Hillary Clinton and Sheryl Sandberg sharing biased words used to describe them in the workplace, along with a Slack plugin to correct gender-biased language – this year's campaign has expanded to include men. The goal is to demonstrate that women and men with the same talents and skills often are described in very different ways, creating barriers that can adversely impact women's advancement.

Last year's campaign, in partnership with women-led brand transformation company Burns Group, reached an estimated 188.5 million people, and the hashtag #BiasCorrect attracted the interest of more than 32 million on Twitter. The #BiasCorrect webpage received more than 114,000 visits from 89 countries across six continents, and since 2019, nearly 300 workplace teams have downloaded the #BiasCorrect plugin in Slack.

This year's #BiasCorrect gender-biased word photo generator is available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.

The #BiasCorrect Slack plugin tool is available in English, French, German, and Spanish. The plugin, updated by WillowTree for the 2020 campaign, tags unconscious bias in real-time conversations on work-based chat platforms such as Slack, identifying words that create harmful gender stereotypes by suggesting alternatives, such as "passionate" to replace "emotional" and "boss" to replace "bossy." It is available as an open-source code and can be adapted for other instant-messaging platforms.

The #BiasCorrect website features video testimonials from leaders and influencers who have faced gender bias; customizable social media posts for download; and information on how individuals and companies can combat unconscious bias, including a photo uploader enabling men and women to add their own #BiasCorrect words.