Purplewashing

Term used in feminism to denounce the various political and marketing strategies used to promote or clean a person’s, company’s or institution’s image through an appeal to their commitment to gender equality. It is used to expose discourses that are supposedly feminist, but in fact promote the commodification of feminist struggles or cover up discriminatory attitudes or activities that are xenophobic, racist or LGBTQI+phobic. It is a strategy of capitalism and neoliberalism (which so readily snuff out subversion and emancipation) that serves economic and class interests and goes against the maintenance of life. It is especially used to expose groups that implement policies or put out messages which, under the guise of feminism, work to oppress minority groups that are usually discriminated against because of their ethnicity or culture, accusing them of violence and chauvinism. The word has been used to criticize mainly Western countries that have not achieved real equality between men and women in their societies and yet employ feminist arguments to justify gender-based Islamophobia, while in Latin America it has been expressed mainly with respect to racism against indigenous groups. The term was inspired by the concept of ‘pinkwashing’, formulated years earlier to refer to political and marketing discourses which, as a ploy to convey an image of tolerance and modernity, display a positive stance towards LGBT groups, even though the agents involved do not actually share this stance.