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EXPLORING GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT:

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF SELECT L’ORÉAL CORPORATE

DOCUMENTS

By

© Judit Lovas

A Thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Gender Studies

Memorial University of Newfoundland

October 2017

St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador

 Abstract

Although women make up half of the world’s population and over 40 percent of

the global labour force, gender inequality is still prevailing. The formal commitment of

the United Nations and the World Bank to achieve women’s equality is crucial to

addressing the challenges of development and poverty; however, there is no part of the

world where women and men are equal. Moreover, gender equality is worsened by

globalization, in which private actors such as multinational companies play a

controversial role.

L’Oréal, the world’s largest beauty corporation, employed approximately 52,000

women in 2013. The company is a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact

(2000), and supports the United Nation’s Women’s Empowerment Principles (2010).

Although L'Oréal claims that it is engaged in socially responsible corporate practices,

with particular attention to issues of gender equality, few critical analyses of these claims

exist. This research, a case study analysis of L’Oréal’s gender equality and women’s

empowerment policies, concludes that the company’s concept of gender equality is

limited, focusing on professional and workplace equality.

Keywords: L'Oréal, gender equality, women’s empowerment, diversity, corporate social

responsibility, United Nations Global Compact

ii
 Acknowledgments

Even if thesis-writing is a solitary process, no research could be completed

without the continuous inspiration, support, encouragement and love of a wide network of

people.

First, I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisors, Dr Katherine

Side and Dr Tom Cooper. Katherine, my principal supervisor, took me under her wings

when I was a first-year student, in desperate need of guidance. Katherine, thank you for

your patience, continuous encouragement and absolute trust in me over the last four

years. Thank you for your kindest tone even when we both knew that I had been far from

bringing the best out of myself. I feel extremely lucky and grateful for the opportunity to

work together and to learn from you. Without your expert knowledge, professional

advice, and friendly support over the years, I would not have been able to complete my

degree.

My thanks also go to my supervisor Tom, who has been encouraging and

enthusiastic about my research since the very beginning. Your professional knowledge

about business and CSR helped me a lot to put feminist ideas into a business perspective

and vice versa. Thank you for your practical advice and your support.

I could not have done this research without the invaluable knowledge and support

of my university professors, Dr Vicki S. Hallett and Dr Sonja Boon. Vicki you helped me

to overcome the difficulties of my very first semester at Memorial University, giving me

extended deadlines and as much support as I needed to finish my course work. Sonja, you

iii
taught me to think critically and look at the world from an ‘awkward’ perspective.

Deepest thanks and gratitude to both of you. Also, thank you Barry Hanlon for your

invaluable help in proofreading and editing my thesis.

The assistance and cooperation of my fellow graduate students were essential for

the completion of my thesis. In particular, I would like to thank Zaren Healey White for

proofreading my papers, and for her extraordinary vision and free mind that opened my

eyes to seeing things in different ways. (Also, thanks for grooming the nails of our guinea

pigs!)

Finally, I would like to thank my husband for his unconditional love and

tremendous support, for being the best caretaker of our children, the chef of the house,

and the pillar of our family over these laborious years. My deepest thanks go also to my

children, Luca and Boroka, for being patient and letting me study and do my writing

during those long weekends (and not interrupting with unnecessary questions). I also feel

blessed for having the unceasing love and support of my parents, for whom, no matter

what, I have always been the best.

Without all of you, I would not have completed this thesis.

iv
 Table of Contents

Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
Table of Contents v
List of Tables ix
List of Figures x
List of Abbreviations xi
List of Appendices xiii
Chapter 1 Introduction 16
1.1 Why L’Oréal? 19
1.2 The History of L’Oréal 20
1.3 Research Goals 25
1.4 Contributions of this Research 28
1.5 Implications of this Master’s Thesis 29
1.6 Rationale for Data Selection 29
1.7 Personal Motivation and Background 30
1.8 Thesis Framework 32
Chapter 2 Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Review of 34
Feminist Literature and Discussion of Feminist Theory
2.1 The Concept of Gender 35
2.2 The Concept of Gender Equality 36
2.3 Gender Equality as a Matter of Human Rights 42
2.4 The Concept of Women’s Empowerment 44
2.5 Contributions of Feminist Theories 47
2.5.1 Transnational Feminism 47
2.5.2 Transnational Business Feminism 51

v
 2.5.3 Intersectionality 54
2.5.4 Diversity and Difference Feminism 56
2.6 Conclusion 59
Chapter 3 Research Methods and Methodology 61
3.1 Qualitative Research Methods 62
3.2 Qualitative Content Analysis 64
3.3 The Case Study of L’Oréal 66
3.4 Data Collection 69
3.4.1 Textual volume 69
3.4.2 Primary data sources 70
3.5 Data Coding and Analysis: Obtaining Knowledge 71
3.5.1 Textual content analysis 71
3.5.2 Visual content analysis 73
3.5.3 Copyright issues 75
3.6 Limitations of Corporate Documents 76
3.7 Limitations of Language 78
3.8 Conclusion 79
Chapter 4 An Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility and 81
the United Nations’ CSR Initiatives
4.1 Corporate Social Responsibility 81
4.1.1 The trajectory of CSR 83
4.1.2 Feminist Critique of CSR 86
4.1.3 Gendered dimension of CSR 88
4.2 The Beauty Industry is Becoming Socially Responsible 89
4.2.1 Environmental awareness 90
4.2.2 Health regulations 91
4.2.3 Social engagement 92

vi
 4.3 L’Oréal: “Because I’m Worth It” 93
4.4 CSR Initiatives in the 2000s 95
4.4.1 The United Nations Global Compact 95
4.4.2 The United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles 97
4.5 Conclusion 98
Chapter 5 Results: A Critique of L’Oréal’s Gender Equality and Women’s 100
Empowerment Policies
5.1 L'Oréal’s Understanding of Gender 100
5.1.1 The occurrence of keywords 101
5.1.2 The roles and characteristics of women and men 105
5.1.3 Displaying gender and visualizing difference 110
[Link] Visualizing power 111
[Link] Feminine delicacy 113
[Link] Gender representation of L’Oréal’s top management 117
5.2 Conclusion: Gender is Rigid 119
5.3 Gender Equality Issues at L’Oréal 120
5.4 Conclusion: Gender Equality as a Matter of the 125
Workplace
5.5 The Goals of L’Oréal’s Gender Equality Policy 126
5.5.1 Increasing the number of women in management 127
5.5.2 The unbalanced gender representation of 129
L’Oréal’s Board
5.5.3 Further goals 134
5.6 L'Oréal’s Corporate Policies to Advance Women’s 137
Empowerment
5.6.1 L’Oréal’s Share and Care 140
5.6.2 Social inclusion projects 142

vii
 5.7 CSR or Philanthropy? 145
5.8 The Implementation of the Gender Equality Mandate 148
of UN Initiatives
5.8.1 Implementing the gender equality mandate 148
of the UNGC
5.8.2 Implementing the UN WEP’s gender equality mandate 151
[Link] Principle 1. Establish high-level corporate leadership 152
for gender equality
[Link] Principle 2. Treat all women and men fairly at work – 154
respecting and supporting human rights and
non-discrimination
5.9 Conclusion on L’Oréal’s CSR Policies 159

Chapter 6 Conclusions: Rethinking L’Oréal’s Gender Equality and Women’s 162

Empowerment Policies
6.1 The Business Approach to Gender Equality and 163
Women’s Empowerment
6.2 Limitations of the Research 167
6.3 Contributions of this Research 169
6.4 Implications of this Master’s Thesis 170
6.5 Recommendation for Future Research 171
References 173
Appendices 193

viii
 List of Tables

Table The number of occurrences of select

5.1 keywords in L'Oréal corporate documents 102

Table The number of gender specific images

5.2 in L'Oréal’s corporate documents 107

Table The number of occurrences

5.3 of the term “gender equality” 121
in L’Oréal’s corporate documents

Table The number of occurrences

5.4 of the term “women’s empowerment” 138
in L’Oréal’s corporate documents

Table Average monthly gross earnings of women

5.5 and men at L’Oréal SA, France 155

ix
 List of Figures

Figure Photograph of Jean-Paul Agon, CEO

5.1 and Chair of the Board of Directors, in 112
L’Oréal’s Annual Financial Report (2013)

Figure The cover image of L’Oréal’s Annual

5.2 Financial Report (2013) 114

Figure The cover image of L’Oréal’s Sustainable

5.3 Development Report (2013) 116

Figure The tableau of the members of the

5.4 Executive Committee in L’Oréal’s 117
Code of Ethics (2014)

x
 List of Abbreviations

Term Abbreviation

L’Oréal Annual Report 2013 AR

L'Oréal Annual Financial Report 2013 AFR

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of

CEDAW
Discrimination Against Women

L'Oréal Code of Ethics 2014 COE

L'Oréal UNGC Communication of Progress

COP
(“COP”) 2013

Corporate Social Responsibility CSR

L'Oréal Diversities Overview Report 2005-

DOR
2010

Economic Dividends for Gender Equality EDGE

Female Genital Mutilation FGM

Global Reporting Initiative GRI

International Labour Organization ILO

Multinational Corporations MNCs

Non-Governmental Organizations NGOs

xi
Operating and Financial Report OFR

L'Oréal Sustainable Development Report 2013 SDR

Transnational Business Feminism TBF

Transnational Corporations TNCs

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) UDHR

United Nations UN

United Nations Global Compact (2000) UNGC

United Nations Women’s Empowerment UN WEPs

Principles (2010)

World Commission on Environment and

WCED
Development

Women’s and Gender Studies WGS

World Health Organization WHO

xii
 List of Appendices

Appendix A. The United Nations Global Compact

Ten Principles 193

Appendix B. The United Nations’ Women’s

Empowerment Principles 194

Appendix C. L’Oréal’s Sustainability Program

“Sharing Beauty with All” 195

xiii
“In terms of power and influence, you can forget the Church, forget politics, too. There is

no more powerful institution in society than business. It is more important than ever

before for business to assume a moral leadership in society”

(Anita Roddick, 2000, p. 14.)

xiv
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xv
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This Master’s thesis is a case study of the gender equality and women’s

empowerment policies of L'Oréal analysed in the context of corporate social

responsibility (CSR). It engages with business and feminist scholarly literature and

critically analyzes select corporate documents of L'Oréal.

There are many reasons for this study. Gender inequality is still one of the most

pervasive among social inequalities (Grosser, 2011, Kilgour, 2007). It affects the public

and private lives of all humans: “it exists in all societies, and cuts across social cleavages,

such as race, class, and ethnicity” (Kilgour, 2007, p. 752). Although international

institutions, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank, have declared that

women’s equality is crucial to solving the challenges of development and poverty, to

date, there is no part of the world where women and men are treated equally (Kilgour,

2012; World Bank, 2003).1 Despite the fact that women make up the half of the world’s

population and over 40 percent of the global labor force, gender inequality is still present

in the 21st century (Edwardsson, 2012; Kilgour, 2007; World Development Report, 2012).

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, states that “equality in the home and the

1
Although some Scandinavian countries such as Sweden are often regarded as the world’s most gender
equal countries, in fact, the distribution of women and men within the Board of Directors and management
groups of private companies is far from being equal. For instance, in 2014, only 26 percent of the Board
members of Swedish private corporations were women (Flykt and Holmberg, 2015).

16
workplace is just a myth” (Roddick, 2000, p. 127.) The inequality of women in all

dimensions of life, therefore, merits examination in as many areas as possible.

This Master’s thesis examines the gender equality and women’s empowerment

mandate of a large private company, L’Oréal, as one of many entities increasingly

engaged in addressing these issues. The company’s commitments are included in its

corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies. CSR describes a company’s obligations to

be accountable to all of its stakeholders in its economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic

operations and activities (Carroll, 1999; World Bank, 2003). There has been a growing

awareness about multinational companies’ (MNCs) CSR policies, focusing often on their

limitations, such as their varied scope, their discretionary content, and their questionable

effectiveness. Due to their size as well as their financial and political power, MNCs, at

times, are more powerful regulators than some small nation states, especially in

developing countries. Hence, their impact is tremendous: “They employ large numbers of

people; greatly influence our culture and society; have access to law makers; [and] inject

corporate philosophies, methods and practices into small businesses” (Grosser, 2011, p.

4). Capitalizing on the power of MNCs, international organizations, the UN in particular,

consciously involve these private actors in their global governance initiatives. These

initiatives include, for example, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the

United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles (UN WEPs) that promote gender

equality and women’s empowerment. Feminist and business scholars agree that gender

issues, including gender equality, tend to be viewed secondary to corporate policies, are

marginalized in business practices, and may be overlooked in most companies’ CSR

policies (Grosser, 2011; Kilgour, 2007; Thompson, 2008). Large, for-profit businesses

17
play an important, yet often controversial, role in promoting gender equality. They readily

adopt gender equality commitments in their CSR policies; however, often these

companies’ practices generalize inequalities between men and women.

As environmentally and socially responsible behaviour has become a standard

expectation for contemporary business practices, more companies, from small to large,

have begun to develop, improve, and report their own CSR policies. The scope of these

policies is diverse. While some businesses focus more on environmental issues, such as

natural resources and air pollution, and less on social issues, others pay increased

attention to social issues like the elimination of child labour or the promotion of human

rights. Because the primary focus of business, as often stated, is to increase profit, social

issues, including gender equality and women’s empowerment, are often stalled as

workplace policies and less attention is paid to their societal implications (Grosser, 2011).

Several studies have been conducted to review CSR mandates generally, but only

a few (Grosser, 2011; Kilgour, 2007; Pearson, 2007; Thompson, 2008) have analyzed

CSR from a gendered perspective, addressing how gender equality and women’s

empowerment are (or should be) addressed in a company’s approach to CSR. There is

also some academic research (Kilgour 2007; 2012) regarding the presence and, more

frequently, the absence of the explicit gender equality mandate of UN initiatives, such as

the UNGC and the UN WEPs. Although there is a considerable volume of scholarly

literature examining companies’ gender equality policies, neither feminist nor business

research fully analyze the gender equality policy of particular signatory companies of the

UNGC and the UN WEPs. To fill this gap in the feminist scholarly literature, I undertake

a critical examination of the gender equality and women’s empowerment policies of a

18
notable global company that is a participant of the UNGC and supporter of the UN WEPs,

and whose CSR policies explicitly address gender equality issues.

1.1 Why L’Oréal?

There are two reasons why L'Oréal, the global beauty company, is chosen as a

suitable case study example. First, the global beauty and cosmetics industry is a multi-

billion-dollar business and L'Oréal is considered to be the world’s largest company in this

industry, affecting the lives of millions of women worldwide. The second reason is the

absence of any analysis of the company’s gender equality policy in terms of feminist

scholarship. To date, L'Oréal has been ‘under the microscope’ of business experts (Kumar

2005; Purkhayastra and Fernando 2007; Jones 2008), environmentalists (Greenpeace

UK), animal rights activists (Naturewatch Foundation), and interdisciplinary scholars

(Koczor 2012; Sotero & Santos 2013). However, despite the abundance of research,

articles, studies, statistics, and news regarding L'Oréal’s policies, practices, and even its

ambitious expansion policy, feminist scholarly scrutiny is missing.

L’Oréal claims the “number one position” in the global cosmetics market. The

company is indeed considered the largest beauty company in terms of profit, presence,

products, and the total number of employees, overtaking other corporate giants, such as

Unilever, Estée Lauder, and Procter and Gamble (L’Oréal, n.d.). L’Oréal trades in 130

countries on five continents, and has subsidiary companies in 70 countries. It has built a

unique portfolio of 28 recognizable brands, including Lancôme, Maybelline New York,

Garnier, La Roche Posay, Vichy, Essie, Redken, Matrix, Urban Decay, and The Body

Shop, to name but a few. The company’s sales amounted to € 22.98 billion (C$ 32.5

19
billion) in 2013 (L’Oréal, n.d.). In the same year, L'Oréal employed more than 77,400

people, 52,000 of whom were women. Although there is no exact data available in the

corporate documents, the company indirectly employs tens of thousands of suppliers and

subcontractors. Moreover, the total number of women (and men) whose lives are affected

by the operation of L'Oréal may be greater than a billion. Taking into account the

significant number of female employees and the magnitude of the company’s socio-

economic impact on the lives of women, the company’s policies and practices call for

feminist scrutiny.

1.2 The History of L’Oréal

The history of the company is interesting in its own right, but, more importantly, it

explains why this corporation is worthy of the attention of this research. In this section, I

outline L'Oréal’s more than a hundred-year old history to demonstrate how corporate

ideas have been influenced by external factors and changed over time.

The roots of the contemporary beauty industry are generally agreed to have

emerged during the mid-nineteenth century when hygiene practices and beauty products

and services became widely available for middle-class women (Black 2004; Jones 2008).

Since physical appearance became vital for women, cleaning, shaping, and changing the

color of their hair have been central parts of ‘beautifying’ processes (Jones, 2010).

Although dealing with hair was already common among some middle-class women

during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, widespread use of hair coloring

products and techniques were overshadowed by specific health issues (Jones, 2010). For

20
example, hair care products could cause serious harm to the scalp and facial skin (Peiss,

1998).

In 1907, Eugène Schueller, French chemist and founder of L’Oréal, created his

first safe synthetic hair-dye formula, called L'Auréale. (L'Oréal 100, 2009). Years before,

during his chemistry studies at Paris-Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, he was involved

with a project aimed to find a ‘satisfactory colorant’ for hair (Jones, 2010).

Notwithstanding that the project itself was not successful, Schueller’s future orientation

was sealed and, after finishing his studies, he continued his work with inventing safe hair

care products (Jones, 2010).

In 1908, Schueller altered the name of his hair-dye from L'Auréale to L'Oréal. The

name L'Oréal means ‘halo’ in English and is related to the French word ‘or,’ meaning

gold. In 1909, Schueller established his own company, La Société Française des Teintures

Inoffensives pour Cheveux (The Safe Hair Dye Corporation of France), the predecessor

that eventually became L'Oréal (L'Oréal 100, 2009).

By 1914, L'Oréal’s hair care products were distributed to the Netherlands, Austria,

Italy, and Russia (Jones, 2008). Although several European companies (i.e. Coty, Gal,

Yardley) started to build their own factories in the United States, the possibility of

entering U.S. markets for L'Oréal was another 40 years away (Jones, 2010). Schueller

remained focused on product research and development and, as a result of the demanding

21
nature of his customers, he developed products not only for hair, but also for body, such

as L'Oréal d’Or 2, Imédia3 , DOP4, and Ambre Solaire5 (Jones, 2008; L'Oréal 100, 2009).

While in Europe the trend was that beauty companies tended to be owned and

operated by men (L'Oréal, Pond’s, Coty, Schwarzkopf, Beiersdorf), on the other side of

the Atlantic, working- and middle-class women, often European immigrants, entered the

industry as entrepreneurs (Peiss, 1998). Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, Madam C. J.

Walker, and Annie Turbo Malone are considered among the notable pioneers of the

American beauty business. They proved their abilities by pioneering systematic

marketing strategies built on the concept of nationwide production and distribution that

ensured their reputation and profit. Furthermore, they were amongst the earliest

entrepreneurs who invested in advertising and they were the forerunners of overseas

market expansion (Peiss, 1998; Black, 2004). The explosive growth of the beauty

industry not only increased opportunities for product expansion, but also provided a

promising business opportunity for some women to make an independent living as

beauty-parlor owners, workers, and/or saleswomen.

Between 1909 and 1929, the number of cosmetic and perfume manufacturers in

the U.S. doubled, and the value of the market increased tenfold, from US$14.2 million to

US$141 million (Peiss, 1998, p. 97; Black, 2004). By the 1930s, the beauty industry

became a significant enterprise, manufacturing hundreds of products for luxury and mass

2
L'Oréal d’Or is a hair-lightening product that makes blonde hair look natural by creating golden tints
(L’Oréal 100, 2009).
3
Imédia is an ultra-fast hair color process (L’Oréal 100, 2009).
4
DOP is the first soapless shampoo created for commercial use (L’Oréal 100, 2009).
5
Ambre Solaire is the first protective sunscreen (L’Oréal 100, 2009).

22
markets. It is worthy of note that as the beauty industry became increasingly profitable,

men took control of the more economically successful companies, leaving many small-

scale female business owners marginalized (Black, 2004; Rice, 2014). These

businessmen developed the first synergies between advertising, retail, manufacturing, and

magazine publishing industries (Black, 2004).

Eugene Schueller was a capable businessman who exploited large-scale

advertising techniques. For example, he was the first to cover the front of a Parisian

building with a sheet, using it as a giant billboard to advertise the O’Cap hair lotion. He

started to advertise his products through radio broadcasting, and he established a beauty

magazine, Votre Beauté, for women. In 1947, he was the first businessmen to run a

sponsored road-show around France, reaching thousands of potential customers in every

location (L'Oréal 100, 2009). In 1939, Schueller’s company, La Société Française des

Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux (The Safe Hair Dye Co. of France) transformed into

L'Oréal (Jones et al., 2006).

By the 1950s, L'Oréal achieved a leading position among hair care companies in

Europe and entered the American beauty market although without immediate success.

The brand name L'Oréal was then unknown among U.S. consumers, and the company’s

profile remained exclusively in the segment of hair salon products, offering neither

prestige (luxury), nor affordable (mass) products to customers (Jones et. al., 2006).

In 1957, Eugéne Schueller died, and under the leadership of François Dalle, a new

era, the national and international expansion, began. During Dalle’s presidency, L'Oréal

acquired several brands, including Lancôme and Laboratories Garnier in 1964, and

Biotherm in 1970. Due to the presence of these various brands, L'Oréal obtained more

23
and more ‘slices of the beauty pie.’ The acquisition of Lancôme in particular made it

possible to enter the luxury skin care segment of the market. The brand later provided the

vehicle for the American expansion of the parent company (Jones, 2010).

Parallel to the company’s ambitious ‘expansion by acquisition’ plan, L'Oréal

continued to innovate its own products, such as Elnett6 (1957) and Récital7 (1966), to the

public at large (L'Oréal 100, 2009). Due to Dalle’s strong leadership and ambition, by the

early 1960s, the company had a presence in 60 countries and manufacturing plants in 30

countries around the world. Moreover, by the 1970s, based on its sales, L'Oréal branded

itself as the number one firm in the category of hair care products in Europe (Jones,

2008).

The era of the 1960s and 1970s was significant and challenging not only with

respect to the expansion of L'Oréal, but also because increasing pressure emerged for

responsible business practices in global markets. Customers, in order to make ethical

choices, began to require basic information from businesses about their products and

operations. By the late 1980s, L’Oréal managed to build a successful business in the U.S.

See The Beauty Industry is Becoming Responsible in Chapter 4.

The new millennium was the advent of a new era for L'Oréal, which was

hallmarked by the company’s diversity (‘Diversity of Beauty Worldwide’, 2001) and

sustainability (‘Sharing Beauty with All’, 2013) policies. L'Oréal, in the name of

sustainable development, joined the World Business Council for Sustainable

6
In the 1950s, Elnett Satin Hairspray was a technological breakthrough due to its micro-diffuser, which
sprayed ultra-fine mist on the hair and remained invisible, holding hair strongly in place (L’Oréal 100,
2009).
7
Récital is a permanent, fade-defiant hair colourant (L’Oréal 100, 2009).

24
Development in 2001, became a signatory company of the UNGC in 2003, and became a

supporter of the UN WEPs in 2010.

L’Oréal’s own position states that “more than just worrying about its economic

success, a successful company should be socially responsible and should share their

success with employees and the community” (L’Oréal, n.d.). This statement suggests that

the company’s mindset reaches beyond classic business domains, such as growth and

profit, and recognizes that societal demands and acting in socially responsible ways are

also in the company’s best interests. Although the corporation claims it is engaged in

socially responsible corporate practices, including those related to gender equality and

women’s empowerment, to date, few feminist critical analyses of these claims exist.

1.3 Research Goals

The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine the gender equality and

women’s empowerment policies of L’Oréal as expressed in the selected corporate

documents. To address this issue, I analyzed and assessed: (1) what constitutes L'Oréal’s

understanding of gender; (2) the issues identified by the company as being related to

gender equality; (3) the goals of the company’s gender equality policies; (4) the corporate

policies that are implemented to advance women’s empowerment; and finally, (5) the

evidence of the implementation of the gender equality mandate of the UNGC and the UN

WEPs.

I argue that L’Oréal’s gender equality and women’s empowerment policies and

initiatives are powered by business incentives, such as development and profit, and serve

mostly public relations purposes to mask the company’s real policies for profit-making. I

25
further argue that L’Oréal, through signing up with the UN’s gender equality initiatives,

such as the UNGC and the UN WEPs, does not automatically recognize and implement

the feminist ideals of gender equality in their CSR policies and practices. Because of

underlying business motivation, corporate documents cannot be taken at face-value as

reflecting actual organizational policies. What a corporation, such as L'Oréal, says about

itself and its commitments may be limited and not necessarily reliable.

Based on my investigation of key corporate documents, I argue that L’Oréal’s

understanding of the concepts of gender equality and women’s empowerment are limited

and driven mostly by business ideals. The company’s documents lack of any definitions

regarding gender and gender equality; therefore, I can only conjecture L'Oréal’s

perception and understanding. I argue that the company’s concept of gender is rigid since

it is limited to a binary perception of women and men, and gender equality is perceived as

a workplace issue. I also claim that women’s issues are subsumed mainly under gender

equality issues, where women employees are viewed and often treated as a homogeneous

group within the company. Also, although L'Oréal’s corporate policies are guided by the

gender equality and women’s empowerment mandate of the UNGC and the UN WEPs,

the company’s CSR initiatives perceive women (as a group) as efficient economic and

market actors.

Feminist theory specifically and critically conceptualizes the aspirational ideas of

gender equality and women’s empowerment. In this research, I use feminist theory to

critically assess the gender equality and women’s empowerment policies of L’Oréal. I

analyze the specific content of L’Oréal’s published documents and images based on

whether or not they illustrate these feminist ideals. To understand what L'Oréal means by

26
gender equality and women’s empowerment, I develop an exploratory case study

approach, conducting content analyses of select corporate documents. This thesis is a

qualitative research in which visual and textual content analyses were used as effective

research methods to gain in-depth understanding of the company’s interpretation of

gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The conducted case study concludes that although the current approach of L’Oréal

toward gender equality and women’s empowerment is promising, the company should

recognise and implement feminist ideals of gender equality in its CSR policies because

these ideals broaden the theoretical dialogue on gender and gender equality between

feminism and business that otherwise would remain marginalized. Applying feminist

ideals in business contributes to reach a wider range of gender issues that currently are

limited or missing in business dialogue. Implementing feminist ideals and using a gender

lens, L’Oréal could have the potential not only to promote but also to provide equality to

people both inside and outside of the company.

Although this thesis focuses on a single company, and the case study approach has

limitations in applicability and representativeness, this research could serve as a useful

basis for future studies. For feminist scholars and practitioners, this research offers a

grounded content analysis that addresses existing gaps in the scholarly literature

regarding the role of a noted MNC in addressing gender equality. It also provides an

example of joint efforts undertaken between a MNC (L’Oréal) and a transnational body

(UN), and their shared interest in gender equality. This research is also timely and

important for business academics, given the growth in corporate claims to promote

gender equality and social responsibility. More feminist attention to what corporations

27
mean when they say they are committed to advancing gender equality and the actions

they take to support these claims would advance business experts’ knowledge of the

workplace as a place of social change.

1.4 Contributions of this Research

My research contributes empirically and theoretically to the emerging literature,

both feminist and business, on CSR and gender equality. It brings business ideas and

principles into the feminist discussions of gender equality and women’s empowerment

issues and provides important knowledge about the implementation of gender equality for

business scholars, managers and company leaders, and feminist scholars.

There is a growing literature on CSR and gender issues. Yet, to date, only a few

scholars have analysed these relationships from a feminist perspective. There is some

academic research about the gender equality mandate of UN initiatives, such as the

UNGC and the UN WEPs (Kilgour 2007; 2012). However, despite the considerable

volume of scholarly literature on CSR, neither feminist nor business researchers have

analysed the gender equality policies and implementation of a particular signatory

company of the abovementioned initiatives. It would be important to bring more feminist

attention to what corporations mean when they say they are committed to advancing

gender equality and the actions they take to support these claims. In order to fill this gap

in feminist literature, I sought a notable global company that is a participant of the UNGC

and supporter of the UN WEPs, and whose CSR policies overtly address gender equality

issues. This thesis critically engages CSR literature and practices from a feminist

28
perspective, bringing together debates about gender equality and women’s empowerment

with feminist and business scholarship.

A key contribution of this thesis is the finding that L’Oréal’s understanding of

gender and its gender equality policy scarcely align with feminist expectations about

gender equality (and women’s empowerment). However, I argue that in spite of its

limitations, the current approach of the company towards gender equality and women’s

empowerment is promising, because L'Oréal has the power to make changes in the lives

of millions of women (and men) in a positive way, as well as the potential to bring

transformation and structural change in favour of greater equality.

1.5 Implications of this Master’s Thesis

This research has implications for feminist and business scholars as well as for

practitioners such as business leaders and managers at L’Oréal and other multinational

companies interested in corporate gender equality and diversity programs. Practitioners

can benefit from the findings of this research for improving their CSR reporting on

gender equality and women’s empowerment and developing new corporate programs that

advance these very issues.

1.6 Rationale for Data Selection

The most significant, empirical source of this analysis is six select L’Oréal

corporate documents, all of which are created and published by L’Oréal. The extensive

size of the company and its voluminous publications made the material selection

29
challenging. The Paris-based parent company (L'Oréal S.A.)8 has at least 70 subsidiaries

worldwide. Each has the same name, L'Oréal, with an affix referring to the country where

the subsidiary operates (e.g. L'Oréal USA, L'Oréal Canada, L'Oréal Japan, etc.). Although

all subsidiaries are expected to adopt the main CSR commitments of the parent company,

each has its own country-specific commitments and actions, for instance L’Oréal Japan

promotes the employment of people with disabilities. Due to the enormous volume of

web-based and print publications, this analysis is limited to generic documents that

contain statements pertaining to the entire L’Oréal Group9, including the parent company

and all of its 70 subsidiaries.

The process of reviewing more than 30 documents resulted in limiting my data to

six core documents: (1) the Code of Ethics (2014); (2) the Diversities Overview Report,

2005-2010 cycle; (3) the 2013 Annual Financial Report; (4) the 2013 UNGC

Communication on Progress (“COP”); (5) the 2013 Environmental, Social and

Governance Reporting; and, (6) the Sustainable Development Report 2013. I provide a

detailed description of the content of each document in the chapters that follow.

1.7 Personal Motivation and Background

In March 2013, on behalf of the International Research Foundation for

Development (IRFD), I participated in one of the parallel events, The South-South

Exchange: Experiences, Lessons & Strategies for Eliminating All Forms of Violence

Against Women & Girls, at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women

8
Société Anonyme is a French term for a public limited company, abbreviated S.A.
9
L'Oréal Group, the collective noun, refers to the parent company and all its subsidiaries and brands.

30
(CSW), in New York, New York. My participation in this event sparked my interest in

the operation and the power of the UN. As well, during the course of my studies in the

area of women’s and gender studies, I have examined the status of women in

transnational contexts.

In my previous professional experience as a practicing legal counsel, I gained

significant research experience in the areas of gender and women’s issues. These

experiences include reading and interpreting related legal acts, provisions, and scholarly

literature, as well as providing legal aid for and representing women before the court. My

background and expertise in transnational formal justice systems and human rights

instruments were beneficial for conducting this research. Moreover, they shaped my

perspective in reading and interpreting corporate reports, as well as UN documents. My

academic background and practice in law have also equipped me with an understanding

of the importance of UN instruments, such as the UNGC and the UN WEPs, as well as

their application. Understanding that, for decades, the UN have been at the forefront of

addressing gender equality in international contexts, I resolved to build my thesis topic

around the link between the gender equality mandate of the UN and businesses.

I limited the scope of my attention to the UNGC and the UN WEPs, as relevant

UN initiatives that promote gender equality, and to which L’Oréal is a signatory. I

became interested in analyzing how the UN objectives and principles that target gender

issues could shape corporate practices, if they shape them at all. The gender equality

mandate of the UNGC has been criticized by feminist scholars (Edwardsson, 2012;

Kilgour, 2012) for being inadequate and ineffective and for its inability to bring about

structural changes in women’s unequal life situations. In order to understand whether and

31
how the gender equality mandate of the UNGC affects the gender equality policy of

L'Oréal, I explored the company’s official corporate documents, including their stated

commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

1.8 Thesis Framework

The “Introduction” is followed by Chapter 2, “Gender Equality and Women’s

Empowerment: A Review of Feminist Literature and Discussion of Feminist Theory,”

which provides essential research on feminist concepts and ideals of gender, gender

equality, and women’s empowerment. These concepts serve as the basis for critiquing

CSR and UN initiatives in general and L’Oréal’s corporate documents in particular. The

same chapter offers an introduction to feminist theories, such as transnational feminism,

intersectionality, diversity and difference feminism, and transnational business feminism.

Chapter 3, “Research Methods and Methodology,” details the research methods and

methodologies used in this thesis. The primary methods are content analyses of L'Oréal’s

corporate records, both textual and visual. Furthermore, this chapter describes how the

data was analyzed and acknowledges the limitations of these methods. Chapter 4, “An

Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility and the United Nations’ CSR Initiatives,”

analyzes corporate social responsibility in light of the feminist concepts and ideals of

gender equality and women’s empowerment, and critically assesses two well-known

gender equality initiatives of the UN: the UNGC and the UN WEPs. Chapter 5, “Results:

A Critique of L’Oréal’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policies,” provides

textual and visual content analyses of L'Oréal’s six corporate documents. This chapter

also draws together the findings of the research, including an exploration of the strengths

32
and weaknesses of L'Oréal’s gender equality policy. Chapter 6, “Conclusions: Rethinking

L'Oréal’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policies,” offers a summary of

this thesis’ major research findings and their significance including its contributions and

implications to feminist scholarship, as well as its limitations. This chapter also comprises

suggestions for future analyses of L'Oréal, gender equality and other inequalities, as well

as further scholarly examination of the policies and practices of L’Oréal.

33
 CHAPTER 2: GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S

EMPOWERMENT: A REVIEW OF FEMINIST LITERATURE AND

DISCUSSION OF FEMINIST THEORY

As gender, gender equality and women’s empowerment are key concepts in this

thesis, this chapter begins by explaining these terms and indicating different ways private

actors (businesses, in this case) use them according to their own needs. The introduction

of the definitions of key terms is followed by a discussion of feminist theory, locating this

research within the existing feminist scholarly literature. As this research is informed not

only by feminist, but also business studies, this chapter introduces business ideas about

the complexities of gender equality and its treatment within the corporate social

responsibility (CSR) discourse. Feminist scholarly articles that assisted me to develop

ideas about how gender equality issues are addressed in scholarly literature and in

practice, and feminist literature that helped me to understand the complexities of gender

equality, are explored in this chapter. I argue that feminist theory specifically and

critically conceptualises the aspirational ideals of gender equality and women’s

34
empowerment. Although feminist theory is suitable to critically assess a corporation’s

CSR agenda, feminist ideals serve only as “soft law” 10 for corporations globally.

2.1 The Concept of Gender

It is widely acknowledged among feminist scholars that businesses are gendered

organisations (Acker, 1990). As much as gender is an integral part of organisations’

policies and practices, these cannot be assessed separate from the analysis of gender. In

this section, I provide some information on ideas that impacted my view and

understanding of gender.

Gender is typically understood as a culturally and socially structured set of norms

and values based on assumptions and challenges about masculinity and femininity

(Edwardsson, 2012). Gender defines and differentiates the personal lives of women and

men as shaped by social relations and culture (Grown et al., 2003; Connell, 2009).

According to Raewyn Connell (2009), when feminist movements began to sharply

separate the concept of gender from the concept of sex, the following meaning of gender

became widely popular: “the cultural difference of women from men, based on the

biological division between male and female” (p. 9). This differentiation was based on the

idea that while sex is biologically deterministic, gender is a culturally and socially created

‘artificial’ phenomenon (2009). This simplistic view has since been challenged by the

recognition of the complexity of gender. An increasing number of terms and phrases

became available to describe gender, such as cisgender, transgender, and gender fluidity.

10
Soft law refers to guidelines, policy declarations, or codes of conduct that set standards of conduct;
however, they are not directly enforceable.

35
Now, gender is commonly regarded as unstable, fluid, and shaped by the intersections

between the social and the biological. In reality, however, people’s lives continue to be

saturated by the norms of gendered institutions, including governments, businesses, and

corporations.

Debra Meyerson and Deborah Kolb (2000) describe gender as “an axis of power,

an organizing principle that shapes social structure, identities, and knowledge” (p. 563).

They further argue that gender inequality is “sustained through formal and informal social

processes institutionalized in organizations” including business organizations that are

created largely by and for men, and reflect masculine experience and values, as well as

men’s life situations (Meyerson and Kolb, 2000, p. 563). In this thesis, I use Meyerson’s

and Kolb’s definition of gender to guide the critical analysis on L'Oréal’s understanding

of the term.

2.2 The Concept of Gender Equality

As the center issue of this thesis is gender equality, it is important to provide a

definition of how this concept is perceived by feminist and business scholars as it has

been defined in many different ways in scholarly literature. In this section, I elaborate

both feminist and business definitions on which my understanding of the concept is built.

A general definition is provided by UNESCO’s Gender Mainstreaming

Implementation Framework (2003) as follows:

Gender equality means that women and men have equal

conditions for realizing their full human rights and for
contributing to, and benefiting from, economic, social,
cultural and political development. Gender equality is
therefore the equal valuing by society of the similarities

36
 and the differences of men and women, and the roles they
play. It is based on women and men being full partners in
their home, their community and their society (p. 17).

The feminist concept of the term is far from sharing the same perspective when it comes

to define gender equality. According to Laura Sjoberg and Sandra Via (2010), the

feminist concept of gender equality is complex, multi-dimensional, and fluid, and

therefore can easily be interpreted in many ways depending on the context, the focus, and

the goals of analyses (as cited in Edwardsson 2012). Different feminisms, for example,

liberal, cultural, and socialist feminism, present different theoretical standpoints on

gender equality. According to Ruth Wodak (2005), most feminists agree on the essential

elements of gender equality in that “men and women should have equal rights and equal

opportunities in life without being valued differently” (p. 520). However, these feminisms

have different perceptions on what these rights and opportunities are, and what claims and

strategies are essential to achieve gender equality. The following perspectives have been

selected with the purpose to demonstrate the diversity of different feminist perceptions of

gender equality as a concept11. Liberal feminists argue that gender equality is about the

equal status and division of opportunities between men and women. Their major focus is

on the exclusion of women from power, including international politics and development

discussion (Smith and Owens, 2005). Cultural feminists argue that women are different

from men as they possess different “female values.” These values, such as negotiation,

caring, and softness, are not innate qualities but are rooted in the cultural ideas of gender

roles (Pettman, 2005). These cultural feminists stress the need for more female politicians

11
The list is not considered exhaustive.

37
in order to bring characteristics that traditionally are attributed to women into politics that

would eventually lead to greater equality (Edwardsson, 2012). Marxist (or socialist)

feminism is focused on explaining the reasons why women are oppressed in systems of

capitalism and private property. According to Marxist feminists, patriarchy and the

capitalist system are the root causes for gender inequality. They hold that the dominance

of patriarchal power makes women systematically disadvantaged and women’s equality

can only be achieved by a radical restructuring of the current capitalist economy (Smith

and Owens, 2005). Finally, post-colonial feminism focuses on the differences between

women of the global South and North and brings other factors such as race, ethnicity, and

class to the discussion of gender equality. Post-colonial feminists argue that the

hegemony of Western liberal feminism do not serve the equality of women in the South

because as they face different difficulties in their lives they have different needs and

interests to address (MacLaughlin, 2003).

Large multi-national corporations, rather than create or provide their own

definitions and understanding of gender equality, tend to rely on working definitions

provided by transnational organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation

(ILO), a UN agency that deals with labour issues. According to the ILO:

Gender equality refers to the enjoyment of equal rights,

opportunities and treatment by men and women and by
boys and girls in all spheres of life. It asserts that people’s
rights, responsibilities, social status and access to
resources do not depend on whether they are born male or
female. […] Gender equality implies that all men and
women are free to develop their personal abilities and
make life choices without the limitations set by
stereotypes or prejudices about gender roles or the
characteristics of men and women (ABC of Women
Worker’s Rights and Gender Equality, 2007, p. 91-92).

38
 Scholars such as Andrea Cornwall and Nana Anydoho (2010) argue that

businesses deemed to be key partners in efforts to advance gender equality often define

gender equality by increasing women’s participation in paid labour. They fill the term

with their own perceptions and aspirations in order to fit with their own agendas,

including reputation and profit (2010). Moreover, MNCs, including L’Oréal, tend to use

the term without providing any definition of their perception of the concept. In fact, I

could not find the definition of gender equality in any of L’Oréal’s corporate documents

analysed in this thesis.

Summarizing the different perspectives on the roots and causes of gender

inequality, I argue that the abovementioned ideas have something in common. They all

agree that women, as a group, and the values and norms that are considered feminine, are

treated differently than men as a group; and, vice versa, men and masculine values are

constructed and privileged over feminine values. This asymmetrical power structure

accorded to social relations leads to social inequalities between men and women, and, at

the same time, leads to inequalities among the category of men and the category of

women (Edwardsson, 2011; Kilgour, 2012). When it comes to addressing gender

inequality, it should be noted that it is not men as a group who are favoured to the

disadvantage of women, but that masculine values are privileged over feminine values. It

is widely suggested that men in general benefit from inequalities, but it would be

inaccurate to state that they benefit equally (Connell, 2009). Similarly, even though

women in general are disadvantaged by inequalities, they are not disadvantaged equally.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (1989), a critical feminist legal theorist, argues that various

39
biological, social, and cultural categories, such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual

orientation, and their resiliency, intersect on multiple and often simultaneous levels,

contributing to systematic social inequalities. This idea is widely recognized in theories of

intersectionality, which I discuss later in this chapter.

A major difference between the multiple perceptions of gender equality is the

debate whether gender equality is about sameness (i.e. equal treatment) or difference (i.e.

valuing difference equally) (Grosser, 2011). While the core idea of sameness is that

women and men should be treated the same way, the difference approach focuses on the

equitable treatment of men and women that bear their biological differences in mind

(Bailyn, 2003). It is widely acknowledged, however, that neither approach per se would

necessarily deliver social and economic equality due to the complexities of the roles and

responsibilities of women and men in society (Bailyn, 2003). Therefore, there is a call for

a more comprehensive definition that incorporates both the sameness and difference

approaches. One well known institutional definition offered by the Council of Europe

moves beyond the sameness approach, defining gender equality as follows:

[Gender equality is] an equal visibility, empowerment and

participation of both sexes in all spheres of public and
private life […]. [Equality] is not synonymous with
sameness, with establishing men, their life style and
conditions as the norm […] it means accepting and
valuing equally the differences between women and men
and the diverse roles they play in society (1998, p. 7-8).

In other words, women and men should have equal rights and opportunities, as

well as equal access to assets in life without being treated and/or valued differently

(Wodak, 2005). The “traditional” socially constructed characteristics of overt masculinity

40
(i.e. aggression, strength, and power) and femininity (i.e. passivity, weakness, and

emotions) result in deeply rooted social presumptions (Connell, 2009; Peterson, 2010;

Edwardsson, 2012). Having different features per se does not constitute any problem, but

being valued differently does. This imbalance creates inequalities based on gender (but

not on gender alone) that exist in all societies and persist in public and private arenas, and

that result in girl’s and women’s discrimination, as well as their social and economic

exclusion (Kilgour, 2007). Meyerson and Kolb (2000) argue that the problem is that what

seems “normal” and neutral tends to privilege traits that are culturally ascribed to men

while devaluing or ignoring those traits ascribed to women.

Mainstream development discourses and practices commonly misinterpret the

concept of gender as equal to the concept of women, and, as a result, gender equality is

readily considered as a matter for women (Marchand, 2009; Edwardsson, 2012; Cornwall

and Rivas, 2015). Feminists, however, recognize and emphasize that while gender refers

to both sexes, the achievement of gender equality requires effort from both women and

men. Therefore, the issue should include women and men in order to achieve redress in

gender equality. Accordingly, in this analysis, a great deal of attention was paid not only

to how women’s roles and characteristics were addressed by L’Oréal’s policies, but also

how men were mentioned and dealt within the same corporate documents. Instead of

using the term women’s equality, I deliberately use gender equality throughout this thesis,

referring to the complex, inter-relational nature of the concept. I argue that L’Oréal’s

corporate documents use the concept of gender equality without providing a definition. I

also argue that the company applies the sameness approach since it treats gender equality

41
as a workplace issue that can be solved by providing equal treatment, equal access, and

equal opportunities for female and male workers.

2.3 Gender Equality as a Matter of Human Rights

The world-wide recognition of gender equality as a human right can be traced

back to the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945, which promoted equal rights

for men and women. Human rights, as they are defined in the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of their nationality,

place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other

status (UN General Assembly, 1948, Article 2). People are all equally entitled to these

human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent,

indivisible, universal, and egalitarian (Office of the High Commissioner of Human

Rights, n.d.). In 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women, The Beijing

Declaration and Platform for Action firmly anchored the achievement of gender equality

within a human rights framework. It declared that women’s and girls’ rights are

fundamental human rights, and it confirmed that the protection and promotion of human

rights is the first responsibility of governments and core to the work of the United Nations

(Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, n.d.).

Women’s rights issues have grown in visibility. Violation of women’s human

rights such as rape, female genital cutting, physical and psychological abuse, harassment,

and other forms of physical violence are pressing media issues. Several organizations and

movements have fought to raise awareness that any kind of violence, including domestic

violence and rape committed in armed conflicts, constitute human rights violations.

42
However, issues of gender equality including the right to equal opportunities, equal

payment, and equal access to and control over rights and resources in the human rights

context are less visible.

Even though the World Development Report (2012) acknowledges that gender

equality matters on its own right, and the United Nations and other supranational

organisations, such as the World Bank, the ILO, and the International Monetary Fund

(IMF) declare gender equality as a matter of fundamental human rights, dealing with

gender equality rarely happens (Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, n.d.).

Indeed, a key finding of this research is that L'Oréal treats the issue of gender equality as

a matter of equal opportunity in the workplace, and scarcely includes and integrates

gender equality in the company’s human rights discourse.

Although all human rights declarations recognize the equality of women before

the law and equal protection of the law as a right, gender equality is not regarded as a

similar issue. Even where gender equality is explained in terms of human rights, it is

commonly limited to women’s political, economic, and civil rights and freedoms, such as

freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and freedom to own property (Edwardsson,

2012). According to Roddick (2000), these rights are indeed essential, but they are

historically associated with men. There are also other rights, however, such as the right to

a family, the right to rest and leisure, the right to an adequate standard of living, and the

right to a cultural community that address the particular concerns of women. These rights

are also fundamental human rights, but they are not referred to nearly so often (Roddick,

2000).

43
 Gender equality is increasingly acknowledged as a key issue in the CSR practice

of businesses. Corporations have become some of the most outspoken advocates of

gender equality and women’s empowerment (Gregoratti, 2016). Feminist critiques argue

that businesses instrumentalize gender and women and provide market-based solutions to

gender equality. I later explore the relation between gender equality and CSR practices in

Chapter 4.

2.4 The Concept of Women’s Empowerment

The concept of women’s empowerment emerged in the 1980s and 1990s through

the recognition of the inequalities between women and men. Women’s empowerment was

then considered a means that has the ability to bring structural change towards greater

equality (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015). Initially, empowerment meant to transform

inequitable power relations by offering opportunities to make strategic life choices for

those individuals (mostly women) who were previously deprived of such ability (Kabeer,

2001; Cornwall and Rivas, 2015). The concept was soon taken over by development

agencies such as governments, corporations, and UN organizations to be used as an

individualist, instrumental, and neo-liberal12 tool for empowering not just women, but the

entire society. For example, Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the IMF, has

recently affirmed that women’s empowerment is an economic “game-changer [because it]

can boost growth and reduce inequality, [it] can help mitigate the impact of

12
Neoliberalism is a political program that uses market liberalization, deregulation, and privatization in the
name of global capitalism (Prügl and True, 2014).

44
demographics,” and, finally, it can provide “greater female economic participation” that

supports diversification ([Link], 2016).

Although the term is widely used by both public and private actors, to date, a clear

and strategic framework of what this concept means is missing. Both the

conceptualization of women’s empowerment and the measurement thereof are various

and depend on the particular goal to be achieved. An example for measuring the relative

empowerment of women in specific countries is the Gender Empowerment Measure

(GEM) that was developed in 1995 by the United Nations Development Programme.

Feminist writers, such as Naila Kabeer (2001), argue that the ability of women to make

strategic life choices is the crucial point of the definition. Kabeer highlights two elements,

process and agency, which are essential to define and distinguish women’s empowerment

from related concepts such as gender equality (2001). Process refers to the progress since

the empowerment of women (people) is considered a process of change towards other

values such as equality. The second component, agency, has reference to women who are

considered active participants of their own empowerment.

The business approach toward the empowerment of women is heavily criticized

by feminist scholars such as Marianne Marchand (2009), who holds that women in

particular are “instrumentalized” in order to fit development goals. According to the

original feminist ideas, women’s empowerment is rooted in the subordination of women

as a primary (but not singular) cause of gender inequality (Connell, 2009). Feminists have

been disappointed with the current meaning of the concept, claiming that women cannot

be empowered within disempowering structures or systems where global inequalities are

not acknowledged (Cornwall and Anydoho, 2010). Although there is a strong connection

45
between gender equality and women’s empowerment, and they are often recognized as

key issues in international development, women’s empowerment and gender equality are

not interchangeable or interdependent terms. However, empowering women to make their

own strategic life decisions is a crucial step towards achieving gender equality.

Businesses, including L’Oréal, conceptualize empowerment as a tool for change;

however, that change is often limited to economics. The feminist concept of women’s

empowerment that promises transformation of inequitable power relations, in the hands of

multinational businesses, became instrumental, individual, and neoliberal (Cornwall and

Anyidoho, 2010; Connell, 2010). The individualistic use of the term may also be

depoliticized as it shifts its use away from feminist understandings of empowerment. In

the name of empowerment, MNCs, including L'Oréal, aim to include women in the global

South into their corporate agendas to capitalize on their economic power. This approach,

however, is not able to bring structural changes to gender relations because it supports

companies’ own women’s empowerment movements (Cornwall and Anyidoho, 2010).

According to Sidney Calkin (2015), corporations, through women’s empowerment

initiatives, only give increased access to women for economic opportunities such as

micro-entrepreneurship (i.e. L’Oréal’s Social Inclusion Programs in Ghana and Mexico,

SDR, 2013). The business ideals of empowerment, therefore, are not enough to overcome

the barriers of equality because they facilitate women’s position as efficient economic or

market actors, rather than providing women with the agency to make strategic life choices

(Cornwall and Rivas, 2015; Marchand, 2009).

I use the feminist ideals of women’s empowerment to describe, analyze, and

critique L’Oréal’s’ corporate documents, concluding that L’Oréal’s limited use of the

46
term empowerment subordinates the concept to women’s employment, whose terms and

conditions are beyond the control of individual women and employees.

2.5 Contributions of Feminist Theories

Theoretically, this research is informed by the ideas of feminist scholars who have

critically examined transnationalism and transnational feminism (Mohanty, 1988, 2003;

Mendoza, 2002; Soto, 2005; Falcón and Nash, 2015), intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989;

Falcón and Nash, 2015; Collins, 2015), diversity and difference feminism (Ahmed, 2012;

Subramaniam, 2014; and Falcón and Nash, 2015), and transnational business feminism

(Roberts, 2015). In contemporary feminist and business writing, transnationalism and

intersectionality have been widely applied as theory, framework, analytics, and politics

(Falcón and Nash, 2015)13. These perspectives are particularly relevant here because of

the transnational reach of L’Oréal and its permeations in North/South relations, including

colonized contexts.

2.5.1 Transnational Feminism. Transnationalism refers to the complexity of

political, economic, and cultural processes that extends beyond the borders of nation

states. Its characteristics suggest a weakening tendency in the power of the national

government over its borders, citizens, territory, products, and capital. The prefix “trans” is

readily used to express the fluid nature of material objects (e.g. the Trans-Canada

Highway), ideologies (transnationalism, trans-ideology, and trans-activism), and

identities (transgender and trans-sexual). The term “trans” implies movement and border

13
Falcón and Nash’s article was written in an unconventional form that is a dialogue between the two
scholars; therefore, the separate ideas of each author are clearly perceptible.

47
crossing, and it is the symbol of integration and being borderless at the same time

(Beverley, 2010).

Because L'Oréal operates in a transnational context, my analysis is influenced by

an extensive body of feminist scholarship on transnationalism. Drawing from key

feminist scholars such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1988, 2003), Inderpal Grewal and

Caren Kaplan (1994; 2005), Breny Mendoza (2002), Sandra Soto (2005), and Laura

Parisi (2012), I engage critically with dominant feminist discourses on transnationalism.

The theory of transnational feminism was first used by Inderpal Grewal and Caren

Kaplan in 1994, in Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist

Practices, which situated transnational feminism among other theories of feminism

(1994). Supporting this idea, M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Mohanty published

Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (1997), which became

important in formulating the fundamental ideas of transnational feminism. According to

these scholars, transnational feminism deals with the impact of globalization and

capitalism on the lives of people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities

(Grewal and Kaplan, 1994; Alexander & Mohanty, 1997). Transnationalism is also about

recognizing differences and borders while striving to transcend those borders and build

solidarity among feminists (scholars and activists) “beyond borders.” Andrea Beverly, in

her doctoral dissertation Grounds for Telling it: Transnational Feminism and Canadian

Women’s Writing (2010), argues that using the terms across and through are more

appropriate to express the idea of transnationalism because they refer to its borderless

nature. Mohanty (2003) argues that building solidarities is crucial for transnational

feminist practices because differences and “borders of identities” (presumably) connect

48
women to each other. Sylvanna Falcón, drawing from Mohanty (2003), considers

transnational feminism as a feminism across borders, but not borderless (Falcón and

Nash, 2015).

Transnational feminists also often use the terms “global” and “international,”

albeit with slightly different meanings. Transnational feminists including Laura Parisi

(2012) believe that the term “international” puts greater emphasis on nation-states

because it refers to the relationship and interaction between states and their political,

cultural, historical, and socio-economic locations and practices. The term “global” is

located between inter- and transnational as it embraces groups of things and/or people,

regardless of their nationalities (i.e. global health, global economic, and global

sisterhood). However, this terminology looks critically at liberal feminist theories that

tend to ignore Third World women and the perspectives of women of colour and

intersectional inequalities. Breny Mendoza, in Transnational Feminism in Question

(2002), argues that transnational feminism stems from the notion of “global sisterhood,”

which is outdated and affirms that transnational feminism can be considered a “new”

stage of development in relational feminism that seeks to unsettle the binary of the West

and “Others” (Mendoza, 2002; Falcón and Nash, 2015).

I use theories and ideas from transnational feminism as a lens to focus this

analysis on the gender equality policy of L'Oréal within a transnational frame. L'Oréal

operates in a transnational context. Adapting the feminist ideas of transnationalism would

create the possibility for the company to understand equality and solidarity among female

workers from the female Executive Directors in France to the plant worker women in

49
Nicaragua. However, emphasis on equality and solidarity could undermine profit by

instigating labour unrest.

“Multinational,” “global,” and “transnational” are closely related concepts to

transnationalism that are often, mistakenly, used interchangeably. These concepts are also

important regarding distinguishing multinational, global, and transnational corporations

from each other. Charles Hill (2007) claims that multinational corporations are distinctive

from other corporations to the extent that they invest directly in foreign assets in the form

of marketing and manufacturing, but only in a limited number of countries (2007). They

do not attempt to homogenize their products, but focus on being responsive to local

preferences (Hill, 2007). They claim to generate jobs, investment, and tax revenue in their

home country, and in the countries and communities they enter (Wild et al., 2008). Global

corporations tend to take a worldwide perspective on markets; they have investments in

several countries while maintaining a headquarters in a “home” country. Finally,

transnational corporations are complex legal entities that invest directly in multiple

countries; although they have a global headquarters, usually in a Western country, they

also distribute decision-making powers to various national headquarters (Hill, 2010).

L'Oréal, which also refers to itself as the “global beauty giant,” has a presence on

all five continents. The head office is located in Paris, France, and its 19 research centers,

5 development centers, 50 scientific departments, and 41 factories are located around the

world (Sotero & Santos, 2011). The company, in terms of its worldwide presence and

investments, is a global company. However, drawing ideas from Franklin Root (1994),

L'Oréal also falls into the category of multinational corporations (MNCs) because: (1) it

engages in foreign production through its affiliates located in several countries; (2) it

50
exercises direct control over the policies of its subsidiaries; and (3) it implements

transnational business strategies in production, marketing, finance and staffing in a way

that transcend national borders (Root, 1994).

Each term, “global”, “multinational”, and “transnational”, would be equally

appropriate to describe L'Oréal since all are - more or less - similar in meaning, and they

are often used interchangeably. To be clear and consistent, throughout my analysis, I use

the term “multinational” when referring to L'Oréal.

2.5.2 Transnational Business Feminism. A project14 of neoliberal feminists that

Adrienne Roberts (2015) calls “Transnational Business Feminism” (TBF) has

implications for this research. TBF focuses on promoting gender equality and the

empowerment of women and helps feminist organizations, states, financial institutions,

NGOs, and TNCs to come together to undertake joint action for business development

(i.e., profit).

The origins of TBF stem from 2008-2009, when the global financial crisis

undermined the legitimacy of global finance-led capitalism (Roberts, 2015). Following

the crash of the global economy, TBF became increasingly recognized as an ideal

(project) that global businesses need a greater representation of women in order to

overcome the negative outcomes and perceptions of the crisis. Suddenly, female talent

(and labor) were considered among the most effective means of combating global poverty

(Roberts, 2015). In other words, women and girls became targeted by development

14
Transnational Business Feminism is often referred to as an ideal or project, denying it as a type of
feminism.

51
projects, and, simultaneously, they were encumbered with working for their own

empowerment and the achievement of their own equality (McHayhurst, 2011).

The emergence of TBF coincided with the time when international financial and

economic institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, became involved in

promoting economic gender equality. They began to embrace gender equality issues in

their neoliberal policy agendas and encouraged multinational corporations to invest in

women and girls (Calkin, 2015). This so-called “corporatized equality discourse”

approaches gender inequality as an economic problem that negatively affects corporate

growth and profit (Calkin, 2015). TBF, “a corporatized and business friendly form of

feminism,” helps to link feminist theories and ideas with the interests of global capitalism

(Gregorati, 2016, p. 922). For instance, TBF is used to provide the ideological basis for

the business case for gender equality. The business case for gender equality is an

instrumentalist argument saying that there is a good (profitable) reason for businesses to

invest in CSR initiatives and its activities (Kilgour, 2012). According to this theory,

increasing women’s access to formal jobs, providing microcredit for female

entrepreneurs, and investing in women’s human capital are good for women, for business

and, eventually, good for the entire society because they lead to further economic

development (Roberts, 2012 and 2015). Regrettably, however, this approach does not

consider gender equality and women’s empowerment as complex social issues, but, in the

words of the World Bank, they are deemed “smart economics.” TBF holds that economic

growth, corporate profit and gender equality are all related and mutually reinforcing goals

(Calkin, 2015; World Bank, 2011). While this growth-oriented approach is dominant

among businesses, the attention to its possible shortfalls does not seem to change. Until

52
gender equality is regarded as an important means to economic and social development,

rather than for its own importance, CSR policies will have little potential to be

transformative in terms of social power relations (Roberts, 2015).

Feminist scholars such as Roberts (2015) are critical of the TBF project, which

they say only helps equality to become subsumed to profit and helps gender equality to

become part of a neoliberal, market-oriented corporate discourse. They argue that the

main priority of TBF is to serve private financial interests. They critique TBF on the

grounds that it views women as an essentialized and undifferentiated group of people; it

frames gender equality in an ahistorical and depoliticized way; and, finally, it contributes

to the reproduction of neoliberal capitalist ideas (Roberts, 2015). According to Roberts

(2015), ideas related to capitalism are inherently inequitable and exploitative because

capitalism, by its very nature, is based on the exploitation of certain groups (i.e., by class,

gender, and/or race). MNCs are willing to employ more women in the name of gender

equality, but their primary purpose is more likely pursuing economic growth by

promoting gender equality, rather than empowering individual women with equal

opportunities (Roberts, 2015).

From a feminist point of view, simply integrating women into the paid labour

force the abovementioned way does not lead to more significant gender equality and it is

not empowering for women because of its inability to change existing power relations.

TBF offers a market-oriented approach to gender equality, which has little to do with

transforming unequal social power relations and it suggests instrumentalist solutions to

complex social issues.

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 2.5.3 Intersectionality. A further key theoretical concept that significantly

underpins this analysis is intersectionality. Intersectionality, or intersectional theory, is

the critical insight of the various ways in which people are oppressed based on their

multiple identities, such as gender, race, sex, social class, nationality, and sexual

orientation (Collins, 2015). The term “intersectionality” was first coined by Kimberlé

Williams Crenshaw in “Mapping the Margins” (1989). According to Crenshaw,

intersectionality analyzes the intersections between different groups (or identities) of

minority groups (i.e. women, Black, poor, disabled, Muslim, homosexual, immigrant, or

Native groups) and studies how the interactions of the multiple forms of systems of

oppression create multiple forms of discrimination (1989). She describes intersectionality

using the following metaphor:

Consider an analogy to traffic in an intersection, coming

and going in all four directions. Discrimination, like traffic
through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it
may flow in another. If an accident happens in an
intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any
number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them.
Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because she is in an
intersection, her injury could result from sex
discrimination or race discrimination. […] But it is not
always easy to reconstruct an accident: Sometimes the
skid marks and the injuries simply indicate that they
occurred simultaneously, frustrating efforts to determine
which driver caused the harm (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 144).

In the 1980s, Crenshaw examined the US anti-discrimination law that was failing

to protect Black women in the workplace. She discovered that the law recognized only

two separate bases of discrimination: discrimination against women on the basis of their

gender and discrimination against Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous people on the

basis of their race. She observed that Black women were discriminated against on gender

54
and race at once. For example, Black women were the last group to be hired at a

workplace, after white women and Black men; however, Black women were laid off first

(Crenshaw, 1989). Crenshaw concluded that discrimination against Black women in the

workplace was multiple and invisible because the legal concepts of discrimination saw it

in terms of gender only or in terms of race only. Contrarily, the oppressive lives of

women are not only shaped by gender but by other features as well.

Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within

society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion or belief-based bigotry, do not

act independently of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a

system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination

(Knudsen, 2006). Intersectionality theorizing has facilitated a multidimensional approach

to unravelling differences and their social significance, particularly in institutions

(Bagilhole 2010; Holvino 2010; McCall, 2005).

Proponents of intersectionality dispute the idea that women occupy a homogenous

category who essentially share the same, or even similar, life experiences. This argument

stems from the realization that the forms of oppression experienced by white middle-class

women were different from those experienced by black, poor, immigrant, and disabled

women. Intersectional feminists, such as Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins, claim that

Black women’s experiences are more complex and powerful than simply the sum of their

race and sex since they have a unique perspective on oppression from the world. They

hold that any observations (and legal decisions) that do not take intersectionality into

consideration cannot accurately address the manner in which Black women are

subordinated (DeFrancisco and Palczewski, 2007).

55
 Intersectionality is often accused of being rigid, using fixed identities, and failing

to include the voices of marginalized groups other than women of colour (Nash, 2015).

According to Jennifer Nash, it is often used incorrectly as a “technology of inclusion of

the voices of women of color” and often treated as a “remedy of undoing feminist

histories of racial violence” (Falcón and Nash, 2005, p. 6-7). Nash further argues that

intersectionality is often wrongly confined to use as a theory through which to consider

race or Black Americans in particular (Falcón and Nash, 2015).

Based on my analysis, I argue that the intersectionality perspective is missing

from L'Oréal’s agenda. Although the corporate documents provide information related to

the number of female employees, there is no analysis to account for their race, sexuality,

age, color, disability, and class simultaneously. Moreover, there is no data available on

the difficulties these particular employees potentially face. I understand that this is

sensitive personal information that cannot be requested or collected; however, they might

contain relevant information for special programs intended to address the needs of these

employee groups. Utilizing feminist ideas on intersectionality in my analysis, I

demonstrate that L’Oréal’s CSR policies fail to recognize that not all women at L'Oréal

share the same experiences or even face similar difficulties.

2.5.4 Diversity and Difference Feminism. Rachel Luft and Jane Ward (2009)

hold that intersectionality and transnationalism are often conflated with the terms

diversity, difference, and inclusion, due to the similar attention of these terms (2009).

Sara Ahmed (2012) argues that the language of intersectionality is associated with

diversity; and elsewhere, Jasbir Puar claims that intersectionality has become a tool of

“diversity management” (2012, p. 53). Because of the close relationship between the

56
theories of intersectionality and diversity, I find it is important to explore feminist ideas

on diversity and difference since both have become “buzzwords” not only in feminism,

but also in business theories. Large organizations have their own diversity policies,

diversity programs, diversity officers, and diversity coordinators. In their communications

they celebrate diversity and differences as though this would redress current and past

exclusion of groups of people (Falcón and Nash, 2015).

L’Oréal appears to recognize, accept, and value differences and to capitalize on

diversity in order to accelerate the company's growth. As stated on the company website:

“L’Oréal integrates the concept of diversity at all levels of the company to carry out its

mission: beauty for all” (L'Oréal, n.d.). The company’s diversity policies, as outlined in

the Diversities Overview Report (2005-2010), focus primarily on diversity in human

resources, in the supply chain, and in marketing practices, within the groups of

employees, suppliers, and customers (DOR, 2010). In my research, I draw ideas from

theorists, including Elizabeth Spelman (1988), Mary Dietz (2003), Rosemary Tong

(2009), Sara Ahmed (2012), Banu Subramaniam (2014), and Jennifer Nash (2015), to

compare L’Oréal’s understanding of diversity and difference with the feminist ideals of

these terms.

Spelman, in Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought

(1988), argues that diversity feminism draws attention to differences in ethnicity, class,

and race of women and their significance for women’s everyday experiences (1988). She

questions the lives of white, middle-class, heterosexual women as a paradigm for the

situation of “all” women, without paying attention to their ethnicity, class, religion,

citizenship, and race, which affect these women’s identities (as cited in Dietz, 2003, p.

57
408). Tong argues that difference among women became a focus of feminist theorizing in

the late 1980s and early 1990s (2009). After recognizing the problematic nature of the

concepts of “sisterhood” and “solidarity,” scholars and practitioners called for a new idea

that has the ability to reflect on cultural, racial, ethnic, and all types of diversities (Tong,

2009).

By 2010, feminist theories related to diversity and difference had become a target

of increasing criticism. A contemporary study on the topic is Falcón and Nash’s (2015),

in which Nash argues that the idea of diversity has been used as a call for the inclusion of

the voices of women of colour into already existing violent structures and categories. She

also stresses the need for questioning and re-thinking these categories from the

presumably distinct viewpoint of women of colour (2015). Subramaniam (2014) contends

that “contemporary works on diversity, […] often ‘mirror[s]’ and reinforce[s] differences,

rather than questioning [them]” (p. 15). Diversity has become “domesticated and utterly

depoliticized” and is now seen as a public good (Subramaniam, 2014, p. 15). As a result,

diversity and intersectionality are used by “the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” as

theory, framework, and politics that redress past injustice and violence (Falcón and Nash,

2015, p. 6).

Feminist theories related to transnationalism, intersectionality, and diversity offer

a useful framework for my efforts to understand the significance of these feminist

concepts in L’Oréal’s CSR policies.

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2.6 Conclusion

Using feminist theories as frameworks for this research on L'Oréal’s gender

equality and women’s empowerment policies contributes to a nuanced understanding of

the variety of inequalities that are deeply embedded in our culture. Using a feminist

theoretical lens helps to broaden the scope of the predominantly masculine sphere of

business, and allows me to disrupt the normalization of gender inequality by addressing

issues that otherwise would remain marginalized. Feminist theories are also useful for

reaching a wider range of key issues that keep businesses away from formulating

corporate policies in line with feminist values and concerns.

In this chapter, I demonstrated how feminist theory critically conceptualises the

concepts and aspirational ideals of gender equality and women’s empowerment, and also

identified relevant theories for considering feminist, business, and feminist business

scholarship in relation to these key concepts. In Chapter 4, “An Introduction to Corporate

Social Responsibility and the United Nation’s CSR Initiatives,” I use these feminist

theories and ideas as frameworks for critiquing CSR generally, and the UNGC and the

UN WEPs specifically. In Chapter 5, “A Critique of L’Oréal’s Gender Equality and

Women’s Empowerment Policies,” feminist theory concepts and ideals are used for

critically assessing L’Oréal’s corporate documents and images.

In the next chapter, “Research Methods and Methodology,” I discuss methods and

methodologies utilized in this research to critically examine the gender equality and

women’s empowerment policies of L’Oréal. Considering the focus and the main purpose

of this study, the most effective data gathering method is the case study approach in

which I enact textual and visual content analyses of corporate documents and images as

59
the most effective means to gain qualitative knowledge about the research topic. The next

chapter also details the features, including the advantages and limitations, of the case

study research design.

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 CHAPTER 3:

RESEARCH METHODS AND METHODOLOGY

A qualitative, case study research approach is utilized in this research to critically

examine the gender equality and women’s empowerment policies of L’Oréal. To conduct

this research, I adopt feminist research methods, including feminist research techniques.

Feminist research is not a unitary field. It is widely acknowledged by feminist scholars

that there is no single feminist research method. In fact, they support numerous ways to

conduct feminist research, or contest that none exist (Side, 2012).

Research methodologies that link particular ontology and epistemology specify

how social investigation should be approached to produce valid knowledge of social

reality (Ramazanoglu and Holland, 2002). In terms of the relation between methods and

methodologies, Krook (2007) argues that “any number of techniques can be employed

consistently with a variety of ontological and epistemological frames” (p. 6).

Research methods refer to “techniques and procedures used for exploring social

reality and producing evidence” (Ramazanoglu and Holland, 2002, p. 11). They can

include various processes, such as interviews, focus groups, surveys, and content

analyses. Several feminist scholars (Harding, 1987; Reinharz, 1992; Alcoff and Potter,

1993; Naples, 2003; Side, 2012) claim that there are no specific feminist research

61
methods; other scholars assert that there are common feminist methodologies that are

“distinctive [from other methodologies] to the extent that they are shaped by feminist

theories, politics, ethics, and grounded in women’s experience” (Ramazanoglu and

Holland, 2002, p. 16). In contrast, there are a number of feminist scholars who support the

idea of unique feminist methods and also claim that there are multiple feminist

methodologies. For instance, Mona Krook and Judith Squires (2006) assert that in terms

of feminist methods, feminist research not only uses existing techniques, but also

develops new methods consistent with feminist vales and concerns. According to the

authors, while research methods can be varied, there are some features that are distinctive

to feminist research. These “unique” characteristics include (1) incorporating gender; (2)

privileging subjectivity; (3) avoiding exploitation; and (4) empowering women (Krook

and Squires, 2006). For instance, at a practical level, feminist content analysis differs

from content analysis used in other disciplinary fields since it “can provide discursive and

visual representation of gender […] and […] can reveal that gender inequalities do in fact

exist” (Krook, 2007, p. 8).

3.1 Qualitative Research Methods

Research methods are techniques for gathering data to analyze (Harding, 1987).

Based on the purpose of a research and the data-gathering and data-analyzing practices,

there are two categories to distinguish: qualitative and quantitative research methods. As

this thesis exclusively applies qualitative techniques, in the next section I explore the

main features of these research methods.

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 Qualitative research seeks to develop an in-depth understanding through “detailed

description of events, situations and interaction between people and things, [thus]

providing depth and detail” (Carson et al., 2001; Wambui, 2013). This type of

methodology focuses on the interpretation of meaning, values subjectivity, and is

centrally concerned with the research context (Kohlbacher, 2006). It follows that feminist

qualitative researchers often question the value of claims of objectivity and its necessity

for research, and some qualitative research methods “have often faced acceptance

problems and academic and disciplinary resistances” by some quantitative researchers (as

cited in Kohlbacher, 2006, p. 1).

Ann Oakley, feminist sociologist, raised the issue (1997, 1998) that research

methodology has been gendered and dichotomized into being either qualitative or

quantitative. She argues that while “quantitative methods traditionally being associated

with words such as positivism, scientific, objectivity, statistics and masculinity; in

contrast, qualitative methods have generally been associated with interpretivism, non-

scientific, subjectivity, and femininity” (as cited in Westmarland, 2001, p. 1). Despite

gender biases, feminist researchers continue to support and use qualitative research

methods because of their abilities to make interactions and relationships among people

visible. Also, qualitative methods arguably are better in including women and women’s

issues unlike quantitative methods that more likely ignore gender as a component of the

research and exclude women (Kohlbacher, 2006, p. 2; Wambui, 2013). Feminist scholars

insist that researchers can and should utilize both quantitative and qualitative techniques

to contribute to a better understanding of feminist concerns and values (Westmarland,

2001; Krook, 2007).

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 One of the most significant benefits of qualitative research is that it enables the

researcher to employ a variety of sources and methods simultaneously (Kohlbacher,

2006). These research methods may include interviews, focus groups, ethnography, case

studies, participant observation, and content analysis of written texts as primary and

secondary sources (Cooper and Schindler, 2008, p. 162; Grosser, 2011, p. 111).

Considering the focus (interpreting L'Oréal’s CSR policy) and the main purpose

(in-depth understanding) of this study, I enact a qualitative research approach, supported

by some quantitative data, as the most effective means to gain knowledge about the

research topic.

3.2 Qualitative Content Analysis

Content analysis is a widely used research method that offers a flexible and

pragmatic method to analyze textual data for developing and extending knowledge related

to the topic in question (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Conventional or classical content

analysis was primarily a technique for quantitative research, but this has recently changed

to qualitative (as cited in Hsieh and Shannon, 2005, p. 1278). Qualitative content analysis

goes beyond counting the numbers of occurring words and focuses instead on the

characteristics of the context, language, and images, demonstrating different possibilities

for interpretation of the content and/or the contextual meaning of the text (Hsieh and

Shannon, 2005; Kohlbacher, 2006). This method is also defined as “a research method for

the subjective interpretation of the text data through the systematic classification process

of coding and identifying themes and patterns” (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005, p. 1278). This

64
form of research is useful to explore a phenomenon that is not well understood, or that is

relatively unknown (Kohlbacher, 2006).

Philipp Mayring (2000) argues that effective qualitative content analysis preserves

the advantages of a quantitative approach while it transfers and develops them to

qualitative-interpretative steps of analysis (Mayring, 2000). Mayring’s basic idea is that

not only is the manifest content (which appears in the text) of the material important to

analyze, but also the latent content (the underlying meanings of the words or the content)

and the formal aspects (the representation and organization of the text) of the material are

equally significant for interpreting the meanings of a phenomenon (Mayring, 2000;

Kohlbacher, 2006). Mayring further discusses the strength of the qualitative content

analysis in that as the material is required to be thoroughly analyzed step-by-step, the

research is able to accommodate the complexity of social situations (cited in Kohlbacher,

2006).

Hsiu-Fang Hsieh and Sarah Shannon (2005) distinguish three approaches to

conducting qualitative content analysis. These include conventional, directed, and

summative content analyses. Whereas the primary goal of all approaches is the same, to

understand the meaning of the content, each use different data sources and data coding

strategies to gain knowledge. Conventional content analysis occurs when researchers seek

to describe a phenomenon that is not supported by sufficient previous scholarly literature

or theoretical framework (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). When existing literature, research,

or theories are available, albeit limited, directed content analysis, also referred to as

deductive content analysis, is more appropriate to use (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). In this

case, the existing scholarly research or theories contribute to describe the phenomenon in

65
question and aid in deducing relevant research findings (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). The

summative content analysis significantly differs from the other two approaches because it

is used to interpret not only the manifest, but also the underlying context of a text (Hsieh

and Shannon, 2005). Researchers usually begin the analysis with a word-search, and then

count the frequency of the identified keywords. This process is usually followed by an

analysis of the keywords in the content: “Rather than analyzing the data as a whole, the

text is often approached as single words and in relation to particular content” (Hsieh and

Shannon, 2005, p. 1286).

The content analysis of this research is summative, on the one hand, because it

starts with a key-word search and it attempts to provide insights of how manifest and

latent content are used and understood in L’Oréal’s CSR related documents. On the other

hand, however, the directed approach is also used to conduct this content analysis because

this thesis is a data driven research with an underlying critique based on existing feminist

scholarship, including theories outlined in the previous chapter.

Qualitative methods are often criticized based on the questionable trustworthiness

of the data sources, the data coding and, as a result, a lack of validity in the analysis. This

form of analysis is also considered to be limited because it focuses only on specific parts

of the analyzed material and ignores other, select content (Kohlbacher, 2006). However,

according to Florian Kohlbacher (2006), the characteristics of a rule-based and systematic

data analysis make qualitative content analysis an appropriate method for case study

research (2006).

3.3 The Case Study of L’Oréal

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 A case study is an intensive analysis about the topic that has been studied. As a

versatile research methodology, case study research has the ability to accommodate

individual and/or group interviews, written text, and image (content) analysis (Cooper

and Schindler, 2008). Its purpose is to obtain an in-depth understanding of a single

phenomenon through detailed investigation within a particular context by using various

data collected at a point in time or over a period of time (Hartley, 2004; Cooper and

Schindler, 2008; Wambui, 2013). According to Robert Stake, the case study method is

“one of the most common ways to do qualitative inquiry” (Stake, 2000, p. 435). Robert

Yin (2003) states that case study is an empirical inquiry that enables the researcher to

reveal real-life contextual conditions that are considered relevant for the phenomenon

under question. This form of inquiry is especially useful where the boundaries between

the phenomenon and context are unclear (Yin, 2003, p. 13-14). For example, case study

method is the most appropriate approach when a certain phenomenon (i.e., the

understanding of the concepts of gender equality and empowerment) within a special

context (i.e., L'Oréal’s corporate policy) is unclear or has not yet been explored. It is

useful when the research aims to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions of complicated cases.

Case study approach can also serve as a reference point for future research to make

further comparisons (Yin, 2003).

Yin categorizes case studies as explanatory, exploratory and descriptive and

differentiates between “single-holistic” and “multiple-case” studies (Yin, 2003). Based on

his classification, this thesis is a single-holistic exploratory case study because it explores

and critiques the gender equality and women’s empowerment policies of a single

company. To the best of my knowledge, no research has been conducted before to

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critique the corporate documents of L'Oréal from a feminist perspective. The scope of this

research is beyond to explain and/or provide definitive findings about how corporate

documents are formed, it rather explores how corporate documents address social issues,

such as gender equality and women’s empowerment. This thesis is also exploratory in the

sense that it evaluates the usefulness of official documents as a source of information

about L'Oréal’s corporate commitment for feminist analyses.

The case study method is unique in the sense that researchers can collect and

include quantitative data in the qualitative research (Baxter and Jack, 2008, p. 554).

Taking advantage of this feature, in the analysis, I use tables with quantitative

information to support a better understanding of the topic. Although this method is an

opportunity to gain a large amount of data about a single organization, this approach has

limitations. Case study method is frequently criticized on the grounds that it requires a

great deal of time to conduct the research; it generates a large volume of data; and it has

difficulties with reliability, objectivity, and generalizability (Kohlbacher, 2006; Yin,

2013). The researcher could easily become “lost” in the tremendous data available, losing

focus of the research question (Baxter and Jack, 2008, p. 546). Robert Stake suggests that

to avoid these pitfalls, researchers need to restrict the scope of the topic temporally and

spatially (as cited in Baxter and Jack, 2008, p. 546). To provide reliable and valid

academic research, I limit the scope of this analysis to the financial year of 2013 and to

corporate documents that were either published or already available in 2013. Finally, case

study method is often criticized to be unable to generalize its findings (Yin, 2013).

Generalizing here refers to “the degree to which the findings are applicable to other

populations or samples” (Ryan and Bernard, 2000, p. 786). Critics assert that the results

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derived from a single case study are questionable in terms of their trustworthiness and

reliability. In response, Robert Yin notes that the goal of case study methodology is not to

represent a “sample,” but instead to expand and “particularize” the theory (Yin, 2013).

The research design of this thesis, the single case study research, provides useful

data for a valid, reliable, and critical analysis and leads to an in-depth understanding of

L'Oréal’s CSR commitments, particularly those related to gender equality and women’s

empowerment (Yin, 2003).

3.4 Data Collection

The most significant, empirical data in this research rely on (1) six corporate

documents produced by L'Oréal, (2) the UN Global Compact Ten Principles, and (3) the

UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. Because this research seeks only to investigate

the corporate policies of L'Oréal regarding the issues of gender equality and women’s

empowerment, there has to be exclusion of some secondary source materials. Secondary

sources such as reports, articles, interviews, and assessments written and conducted by

individual authors or independent organizations, as well as company documents that

pertain only to specific subsidiaries, are excluded. Focusing strictly on the topic of my

central research questions, I also choose to eliminate other important gender related issues

(e.g. gender based violence and gender-based discrimination) from the scope of my data

gathering. By doing so, I accept that I may not include a broad conceptualization of

gender equality in this thesis.

3.4.1 Textual volume. The size of the company makes the material selection

challenging. The Paris-based parent company (L'Oréal S.A.) has at least 70 subsidiaries

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worldwide, including L'Oréal USA, L'Oréal Canada, or L'Oréal Japan. Owing to the

enormous volume of web-based and print publications, I limit my analysis to generic

documents that contain statements that pertain to the entire L'Oréal Group, which

includes the parent company and all of its subsidiaries. The final volume of data that I

consider consists of nearly 685 pages and a total of approximately 50 individual images.

3.4.2 Primary data sources. I limit the primary sources of this study to the

following six corporate documents: (1) The Code of Ethics (2014), subtitled as The Way

We Work, sets out the company’s universal ethical values and principles, with the

expected adherence of all employees of the L'Oréal Group and its subsidiaries worldwide.

(2) L’Oréal’s first Diversities Overview Report, 2005-2010 cycle (2010) is a publicized

assessment of the effectiveness of the company’s diversity policy, including the

company’s progress made on gender diversity in the workplace. (3) The Annual Financial

Report (2013) provides an extensive statement on the social and environmental

responsibilities and the key figures on the financial situation of the L'Oréal Group. (4)

The L’Oréal United Nations Global Compact Communication on Progress (“COP”)

2013 is a comprehensive document in which L’Oréal describes its progress in

implementing the principles of the United Nations Global Compact. (5) The 2013

Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting (according to the G4 GRI Guidelines)

contains the main statements of L'Oréal’s CSR policies, including a list of the economic,

environmental, and social impacts caused by the company’s everyday activities, as well

as the specific goals to minimize negative impacts. Finally, (6) the Sustainable

Development Report 2013 includes L’Oréal’s latest CSR strategy, the “Sharing Beauty

with All” program (See Appendix C), in which the company sets out its sustainability

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goals and targets. The select corporate documents most likely provide realistic

information on the company’s official position and policies regarding gender equality and

women’s empowerment. Also, these materials are publicly available and readily

accessible on L'Oréal’s website.

An additional research question in this thesis explores, in a select body of the

corporate documents, L'Oréal’s implementation of the United Nations Global Compact’s

Ten Principles, and the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles. Exploring

this question required additional information from UN materials. Since the UN relies

heavily on internet-based sources, I obtained relevant data from the following official UN

websites: [Link] and [Link]. The first website

provides the UNGC Ten Principles together with further necessary explanations. The

second website publishes the UN WEPs booklet, subtitled Equality Means Business,

which provides context for the initiative and outlines each of the seven Principles in

detail. As such, these sources are considered to be official, valid, reliable, and up-to-date.

3.5 Data Coding and Analysis: Obtaining Knowledge

The approach adopted for analyzing the aforementioned primary sources are

textual and visual content analyses, conducted using critical interrogation of texts in

feminist scholarly literature. These analyses rely on close readings of written texts and

observation of the images of the selected official orate documents of L'Oréal.

3.5.1 Textual content analysis. The textual content analysis of this thesis begins

with close reading of the corporate documents in which I identify certain words and

content. In order to understand the contextual usage of these particular words, I first apply

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keyword searches to locate the formal presence of gender and gender related issues.

Drawing from feminist scholars, I identify relevant key-words, such as “gender,”

“woman/women,” “man/men,” “girl(s),” “boy(s),” “female,” and “male.” I use these

particular words because they presumably arise where gender related issues are addressed

in the texts (Debusscher 2011; Edwardsson 2012; Kilgour 2012). The result of this

method indicates the prioritization of certain words over others and also works to create

particular meanings and their importance.

Keyword search is indeed an important starting point to obtain initial

understanding of the content; however, no research can rely exclusively on the results of

one limited exercise. The most common criticism of keyword search is that it generates

either too many, or too few data. The more synonyms and related concepts are searched

(i.e. woman, women, girl, female, and etc.), the more results are retrieved, including some

that are unrelated to the topic. However, applying strictly one keyword (i.e. woman) is

likely to result in retrieving too few data and missing relevant considerations.

Analyzing the written text means not only exploring the manifest content that

appears in the text, but also the latent content that is the underlying meaning of the

appeared words (Mayring, 2000, Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Therefore, I apply a latent

content analysis of L'Oréal’s documents, in which I interpret the content and its possible

meanings (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005, p. 1284). Even though seeking the meaning of

untold stories is somewhat challenging, this method helps me to read “between the lines”

and to illuminate certain issues where gender relations should be taken into consideration,

but where they are ignored. One example is the lack of the word “gender” (and thereby

gender equality) within the company’s human rights policy. As a result of the method

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called negative evidence (where data is not found), I am able to draw valuable

conclusions from silences and absences as those from the pronounced content (Kilgour

2012).

3.5.2 Visual content analysis. To support the textual analysis, I also conduct a

visual content analysis of three select corporate images. I consider these images in

corporate documents to be powerful forms of communication. They carry quintessential

ideas about women, men, their roles and behaviours, equality issues, and can convey

deeper messages than texts (Jhally, 2009).

L'Oréal’s corporate documents are replete with photographs and other visual

images (diagrams and charts); hence, I narrowed my analysis to the following four

images: (1) the image of L'Oréal CEO, Jean-Paul Agon in the Annual Financial Report

(2013); (2) the cover image of the Annual Financial Report 2013; (3) the cover image of

the Sustainable Development Report 2013; and (4) the tableau of the company’s

Executive Committee in the Code of Ethics (2014). The rationale behind selecting these

specific photographs is threefold: The portrait of the CEO is a clear representation of the

(powerful, white) masculine ideals. The cover images of the financial and social reports

are obvious and direct displays of (vulnerable) women. Finally, the tableau of the

members of the Executive Committee conveys relevant ideas about gender equality and

women in leadership and illustrates gender diversity. The purpose of the visual analysis is

to identify the ways L'Oréal displays genders as opposed to and in conjunction with their

mention in the company’s verbal statements.

Images are important. Erving Goffman’s social scientific observations on gender

representation, in Gender Advertisements (1979), direct viewers to consider about how

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people think women (and men) should behave and how they are observed. In his

observations of images, Goffman not only concentrates on the macro level of visual

analyses, but he also focuses on details, such as the hands, eyes, knees, and facial

expressions of women and men. Goffman’s vision provides a useful starting point for my

visual analysis, which I expand by including other visual theorists. For further

consideration of the images in L'Oréal’s documents, I draw on two documentary films,

The Codes of Gender (2009) and Killing Us Softly 4 (2010) directed by Sut Jhally, Media

Education Foundation. These films provide insightful ideas about contemporary visual

analyses. Jhally urges viewers to question visual messages and to read them critically in

order to challenge socially embedded and expected ideas about femininity and

masculinity. In addition to Goffman’s and Jhally’s ideas, I use other criteria to analyze

images including their placement, color, and size, which may be related to gender and

gender equality since these concepts are understood and conveyed by L'Oréal.

Visual analysis is a valid research method on its own. To conduct a valuable

analysis of images, I draw on several feminist analyses of beauty image and business

practices including feminist studies about DOVE’s Campaign for Real Beauty.15

Written text intensified or even stultified by images may result in a strong conclusion

about the presence and absence of gender equality in the company’s practices. My

methodological interest is in decoding implicit visual messages of the three corporate

15
Carla Rice: Becoming Women. The Embodied Self in Image Culture (2014);
Lauren Dye: Consuming Constructions: A Critique of DOVE’s Campaign for Real Beauty (2009);
Sara J. Roedl: Campaigning for Real Beauty or Reinforcing Social Norms? An Analysis of the Correlation
of the DOVE Campaign for Real Beauty and Advertising in Fashion Magazines (2010); and
Dara Persis Murray: Branding “Real” Social Change in DOVE’s Campaign for Real Beauty (2013).

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images. To analyze and code the data, I do not use any qualitative analysis software

(NVivo, [Link], CAQDAS, or HyperRESEARCH). Qualitative data analysis software

requires an expensive license, which often limits work to a single computer terminal; it

takes considerable time for training; and, as coding is a laborious process, it can require

verification as an additional step. This thesis is an exploratory study that attempts to

reveal an in-depth understanding of a single case (L'Oréal’s gender equality policy) and to

develop propositions for further research. Therefore, the use of qualitative analysis

software is considered neither appropriate nor necessary.

3.5.3 Copyright issues. Although including the abovementioned images would

help the reader to follow the visual analyses and affirm the conclusions drawn, obtaining

L'Oréal’s permission to reproduce the corporate images in this thesis presented some

difficulties. After several failed attempts to come into contact with the copyright officer

of the parent company in France, I contacted L'Oréal Canada to obtain copyright

permission to use the select corporate images. The response email of the legal affairs

intern came in one sentence: “May you please send us your thesis so we can validate if

the rights to use the images can be granted.” Sending them the completed thesis before its

final submission to the School of Graduate Studies would only prolong an already long

process and may cause missing the next convocation. Although my request for inclusion

of visual content from the published documents in the thesis was not explicitly refused, in

order to proceed towards the completion within the original timeframe, and to avoid

possible legal consequences of inclusion, I have opted to eliminate the images from this

thesis. I also sought advice from the university Copyright Librarian regarding the

company’s evasive answer. Unfortunately, I was advised that although the images are

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publicly available, these particular images still require the permission of the copyright

holder to use them in this thesis. I tried to find alternative means (i.e., line drawings and

empty frames) for representing these images, albeit with no success. Therefore, I chose to

use the method that Jerry L. Thompson used in “Why Photograph Matters” (2013), when

his request for using a specific photograph was not granted by the copyright holder.

Thompson inserted an empty box in the text, where the photograph was meant to be

placed, noting that the permission to reprint the particular image was not granted.

I can also suggest the reader to find the images on L'Oréal’s website, [Link], as

they are publicly available.

Overall, the research process used in this thesis consists of the following

processes: (1) reading all the textual materials and viewing images; (2) locating and

marking key words, concepts, and their contexts; (3) “coding” data by grouping it

according to the research questions; (4) recording observational and analytic notes; (5)

locating and reading related scholarly literature and noting similarities and differences;

(6) categorizing data according to the relevance for particular research questions; (7)

verifying and re-checking data and my initial perceptions; (8) drafting and redrafting my

initial findings in writing; and (9) drawing key conclusions and formulating arguments

that lead to creating a thematically-based critical analysis.

3.6 Limitations of Corporate Documents

According to Charlotte Villiers (2006), business literature distinguishes financial

reports from narrative reporting. While financial reporting that includes operating and

financial reports (OFR) is shaped by strict rules, narrative reporting that most likely

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includes social and environmental reports, due to the absence of consistent legislation, is

often regarded as lacking consistency and logic (Villiers, 2006). L'Oréal’s Annual

Financial Report (2013) is considered to be a financial report while the CSR related

documents, such as the Sustainable Development Report (2013), the Diversities Overview

Report (2010), and the Communication on Progress (2013), belong to the category of

narrative reporting.

The reliability of both the financial and narrative corporate documents is often

questioned. What a corporation says about itself and its commitment are frequently

criticized on the grounds that their content is limited and not necessarily reliable because

the company addresses the concerns of shareholders and investors whose primary focus is

profit. Corporate documents and publicized initiatives, therefore, generally are aimed at

serving public relation purposes to mask the company’s real policies for profit making.

Corporate financial reports in particular are critiqued as they highlight their “profit

maximization processes” and rely heavily on numbers and financial data. Villiers (2006)

claims that the unreasonable emphasis on numbers is especially problematic because, by

their very nature, numbers are short-term, unstable, and often misleading data sources.

Corporations assume that everyone is able to read and interpret numbers properly. While

numbers tend to look backward and mirror the past, future achievements or success can

be uncertain (Villiers, 2006). The figure-based nature of reporting has an adverse effect

on social and environmental CSR reports whose outcomes and findings may be difficult

to measure quantitatively but might be better explained in other ways (Villiers, 2006). As

a result, corporate documents cannot necessarily be taken at face-value when it comes to

reflecting actual corporate policies.

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 Further limitation of corporate documents relates to their actuality/timeliness. In

the era of globalization, where information is rapidly changing, no corporation is able to

report the current situation of the company. For instance, my data collection on L'Oréal

began in September, 2014 when data from 2013 were the most recent results and

commitments. To provide valuable research, timely data have greater importance. Owing

to the volume of information on L'Oréal available online, it was difficult to sort the

documents based on the criteria of whether they were official and reliable. Therefore, I

decided to obtain documents only from the official company website: [Link].

CSR reporting is increasingly requested by investors interested in the social and

environmental indicators of a company. Scholarly work that links CSR commitments with

feminist scholarship, however, remains underdeveloped and lacks an overall conceptual

and discernable theoretical framework, particularly as it relates to gender equality or other

human rights. This is not surprising since CSR reporting is usually provided by corporate

employees rather than critics, whose backgrounds and/or opinions are likely to reflect

company loyalty. CSR is often critiqued as a discursive mask for corporate profit making

activities. For further details, see my argument in Chapter 4, “An Introduction to

Corporate Social Responsibility and the United Nation’s CSR Initiatives.”

3.7 Limitations of Language

Stephanie Taylor (2001) argues that analyzing the language that is a central part

and the primary focus of qualitative analysis is often difficult as it can be false or

consciously constructed in order to fit certain frameworks or contexts. Words and phrases

can be purposefully vague and deliberately chosen, making it difficult to understand the

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underlying meaning of texts (Taylor, 2001). It is further argued that language is always

historically situated, which means that the same words and phrases might refer to

different things in different times and contexts (Taylor, 2001). Moreover, as Ruth Wodak

(2005) argues, the structure of language is always reflected in the structure of societies;

thus, language can contribute to construct and legitimize discourses of social power as

with the construction of gender stereotypes. Feminist scholars support the idea that

gender inequality is often situated in language. Bearing these limitations in mind, I

analyzed the written words of L'Oréal’s corporate reports critically. Even if L'Oréal uses

gendered language in its documents, includes the topic of gender equality, mentions

women frequently, and refers to the fact that the company employs more women than

men, this is not enough evidence to prove L'Oréal’s awareness on and commitments to

gender equality (Kilgour, 2012).

3.8 Conclusion

This chapter has explained and justified the research methods and noted their

limitations. It has explained the rationale for applying qualitative research methods,

content analysis in particular, and for using the case study research design as a means for

feminist research. This chapter also described the data generation techniques including

the process, contributions, and limitations of data and analysis. The limitations of this

research included the potential for bias in official corporate reporting and the limitations

of written language.

In the next chapter, “An Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility and the

United Nation’s CSR initiatives,” I introduce, elucidate, and criticize the concept of

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corporate social responsibility in general, using the feminist concepts and ideals of gender

equality and women’s empowerment. I also critically assess two UN initiatives, the

United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles

(UN WEPs). These initiatives are important because they create globally accepted ethics

and moral standards such as gender equality within CSR. I also address why including

feminist ideals of gender equality and women’s empowerment in UN initiatives and CSR

globally would be beneficial.

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 CHAPTER 4: AN INTRODUCTION TO CORPORATE SOCIAL

RESPONSIBILITY AND THE UNITED NATIONS’ CSR

INITIATIVES

In this chapter, I explore the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and

discuss the UN’s CSR agenda. I use feminist concepts and ideals of gender equality and

women’s empowerment to critically assess the UN agenda and two published documents,

the UNGC and the UN WEPs. I argue that there is a tension between the business and

feminist adoption of the concept of CSR. Feminists often critique CSR for being a

socially desirable mask for corporate profit-making activities. This argument raises the

issue that companies’ public documents and initiatives serve only public relation purposes

to mask the company’s real policies for profit-making, and, therefore, cannot be taken at

face-value. I argue that even though corporations’ CSR policies implement the gender

equality mandate of the UN initiatives, they do not necessarily recognize and implement

the feminist ideas of gender equality by the implementation.

4.1 Corporate Social Responsibility

As I conduct this thesis on L'Oréal’s gender equality policy in the context of CSR,

in order to understand the particular issues within this specific context, I find it important

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to provide a definition and the history of CSR. In the following section, I explore what

CSR is or what it should be, using the theoretical works of internationally recognized

business scholars, such as Archie Carroll (1999), Robert Sexty (2011), and Kate Grosser

and Jeremy Moon (2005a, 2005b).

CSR is a corporation’s obligation to contribute to sustainable development by

delivering economic, social, and environmental benefits for all stakeholders. Stakeholders

include customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and the communities surrounding the

business. CSR has become an umbrella concept with various definitions and practices.

The way it is understood and implemented differs greatly for each company and country.

One of the most widely used definition of CSR stems from Archie Carroll, who defines it

as “the social responsibility of business that encompasses the economic, legal, ethical,

and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time”

(Carroll, 1979, p. 500). Carroll later revised his four-part CSR definition, suggesting that

four kinds of social responsibilities constitute total CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and

philanthropic (Carroll, 1991). Ruth Pearson, in Beyond Women Workers: Gendering CSR

(2007), argues that CSR is a broad concept, addressing various topics, such as human

rights, corporate governance, health and safety, environmental effects, working

conditions, and contribution to economic development with the true purpose of driving

change towards sustainability. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development

defines CSR as “the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic

development, working with employees, their families, the local community and society at

large to improve the quality of life” (as cited in Pearson, 2007, p. 732). Pearson considers

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this “market-oriented” definition unsatisfactory and stresses the importance of

incorporating gendered dimensions into the business notion of CSR.

Despite the proliferation of the definition, the following concepts, such as

environmental, social, and economic responsibility, stakeholders and voluntariness are

most likely incorporated when it comes to explaining what CSR is about (Flykt and

Holmberg, 2015), albeit they may be differentially employed and/or emphasized.

Operating in an environmentally, economically, and socially responsible way, and

managing and mitigating social and environmental risk factors, are increasingly important

for business success because it benefits the local economies and communities (Global

Affairs Canada, 2016). If it makes good for everyone, why, then, is CSR critiqued as only

a mask for real corporate profit-making activities?

4.1.1 The trajectory of CSR. The contemporary understanding and usage of CSR

has come a long way. The concern for social responsibility can be traced back to the late

1930s. Chester Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive (1938), and Theodore Krep’s

“Measurement of the Social Performance of Business” (1940) are two early references to

the social responsibilities of executives and business. Carroll, who provides a

comprehensive summary of the history of the CSR concept, argues that initial discussions

about a company’s socially responsible behaviour began in the 1950s and shortly

afterward it became a central issue for businesses that aspired to “leading positions” in the

global market (Carroll, 1999; Post, 2013). In the 1950s, there was continuous agreement

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among businessmen16 regarding the importance of running socially responsible

companies, yet the concept of CSR remained inconsistent and arbitrary. It was in a

rudimentary stage of conceptual development, which gave corporations the power to

determine their own CSR priorities (Carroll, 1999). James Post, in “The United Nations

Global Compact: A CSR Milestone” (2013), characterizes this stage as an era of

“corporate resistance” to socially responsible behaviour. According to Post (2013), the

social priorities of the 1950s were, for example, respect for local communities, the

recognition of Indigenous peoples, and concerns with political corruption. At that time,

MNCs did not take these issues seriously, and there was no organization that pressured

them to do so.

A later conceptualization of CSR came from Joseph McGuire (1963), in Business

and Society, in which he suggests that “the idea of social responsibility supposes that the

corporation has not only economic and legal obligations but also certain responsibilities

to society which extend beyond these obligations” (p. 144). In the development of CSR,

a turning point occurred during the 1970s. Due to two infamous scandals, the political

apartheid17 in South Africa and the worldwide boycott of Nestlé18, international peace

organizations, activists, companies, and NGOs became aware of the increasing necessity

of regulating companies’ behaviour (Post, 2013).

16
I deliberately use the word “businessmen” here because, according to Archie Carroll, the word
“businesswomen” did not exist in formal writings during the 1950s. This demonstrates the extent to which
gender inequalities were normalized (Carroll, 1999).
17
Apartheid is the former institutionalized and state-enforced policy of segregation as well as political and
economic discrimination against non-white groups in the Republic of South Africa (Merriam-Webster
Online, 2016).
18
The Nestlé boycott was a worldwide refusal of buying Nestlé products because of the company’s
aggressive marketing strategy of its milk formula that contributed to the unnecessary death and suffering of
infants, mostly in developing countries (Van Esterik, 2008).

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 Interestingly, the next stage of the development of CSR, between 1980 and 1990,

was also driven by another distressing event, the Bhopal gas tragedy. In 1984, The Union

Carbide chemical plant accident in India, which killed 25,000 people, was a pivotal point

in global CSR history. Multinationals began to recognize the importance of their

reputation and image and began to implement rudimentary principles regarding social

justice (Post, 2013). By the mid-1990s, industries such as shoe and apparel companies

were confronting new consumer demands for corporate responsibility policies and

practices, including environmental and social issues such as human rights as well as

unfair and exploitative labour practices into their CSR agendas (De Schutter, 2006;

Pearson, 2007; Post, 2013). In 1999, Carroll argued that “[CSR] will remain an essential

part of business language and practice, because […] it addresses and captures the most

important concerns of the public regarding business and society relationships” (Carroll,

1999, p. 292). As he anticipated, CSR today in the 21st century is still one of the most

topical areas of scholarly investigation in business.

Natalie Koczor (2012), in her Master’s thesis, Corporate Social Responsibility and

its Effect on Image and Reputation: The Case of L’Oréal and its Acquisition of The Body

Shop, affirms the prominent status of CSR. She argues that companies are increasingly

aware that CSR positively contributes to their image, reputation, and profit; therefore,

“CSR is crucially important for both – business and success” (Koczor, 2012, p. 5). Global

Affair Canada, the department in the Government of Canada responsible for Canada’s

international trade and development, holds that CSR helps corporations succeed, “in

particular through encouraging shared value and social license” (n.d., para. 1). The

incorporation of responsible business practices into domestic and international

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investments and operations is not only good for the company, but also benefits local

economies and communities (Global Affair Canada, n.d.). Business scholar Robert Sexty

(2011) also acknowledges that a positive relationship is recognized between CSR and

financial return. If CSR is used in proactive ways, it can contribute to better financial

performance of corporations, including their sustainable development, higher employee

engagement, and greater customer satisfaction (Emmott and Worman, 2008; Saeidi,

Sofian, Saeidi, Saeidi, and Saeidi, 2015).

4.1.2 Feminist critique of CSR. While business scholars often praise businesses

for implementing CSR principles into their policies and practices, feminist theorists such

as Carla Rice (2014) critique the controversial relationship between social responsibility

and business. They argue that companies only fund causes that do not conflict with their

primary aim, which is profit (2014). The tension between the viewpoints of feminist and

business scholars is evident. In this research, I aim to resolve how feminist ideas inform

CSR policies as they affect and determine MNCs profit-oriented policies and practices

alongside their commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Conducting

research within these theoretical frameworks is a challenge because the majority of the

academic business literature on the topic of CSR is written from a gender-blind

perspective, and there are only a few scholarly examinations that can be regarded as

feminist in their approach (Grosser and Moon, 2005a, 2005b; Pearson, 2007).

Classical liberalists, including liberal feminists, argue that CSR is a new form of

profit-seeking and a tool for improving corporate branding because “the only social

responsibility of business is to turn a profit” (Friedman, 1970, n.p.). Ralph Hamann and

Nicola Acutt (2003) describe CSR’s key feature as it “is meant to link the market

86
economy to sustainable development” (p. 255). They argue that CSR initiatives

necessarily must go beyond philanthropic investment to embrace developmental

initiatives (Hamann and Acutt, 2003). Hamann and Acutt are sceptical with companies

that are suspiciously willing to adopt CSR initiatives, asking consumers to be critical of

these companies’ motives. Deborah Doane (2004) adds that because CSR ultimately lies

within the framework of markets, it requires market-based incentives (profit and growth)

for companies to invest in such programs. Sceptical feminist scholars claim that socially

responsible behaviour might be integrated into a CSR agenda to highlight companies’

positive impacts on society and to deflect attention from adverse corporate practices

(Calkin, 2015).

Since the global economic crisis in 2008, companies have sought new sources of

legitimacy and value outside traditional areas of business. Today, a well-developed CSR

agenda can legitimize companies’ practices and justify their activities (Calkin, 2015).

Moreover, it helps to depict companies as “specialist” sources of authority on gender and

development. To further enhance their legitimacy, MNCs are willing to join initiatives for

gender equality and women’s empowerment. Such initiatives are, for instance, the UNGC

and the UN WEPs.

Feminist critiques argue that CSR is an instrumental business tool rather than a

development tool because it has the ability to depict companies as moral agents while

improving corporate branding and attracting consumers to purchase “ethical” products

endorsed by social movements (Calkin, 2015 ). Among these critiques, CSR is generally

criticized as a mask for corporate profit making activities. The original (feminist) content

and concept of gender equality, which is the liberal idea of giving equal power into the

87
hands of women and men, has been altered by corporate actors (Lombardo, Meier, and

Verloo, 2009). The feminist language of equality and empowerment has been turned into

economic language, replacing feminist terms by corporate concepts to better serve

corporations’ financial interests (Elomäki, 2015). While feminists perceive the concept of

gender equality as a moral value and a matter of human rights, the business understanding

of the term varies depending on the goal of the corporate policies.

4.1.3 Gendered dimension of CSR. Numerous studies have been conducted on

various facets of CSR, including its human rights dimension (De Schutter, 2006; Mayer,

2009; Welford, 2002), and their limitations (Devinney, 2009; Doane, 2005). In this

section, I explain why a gendered approach to CSR is important.

Ruth Pearson’s work, Beyond Women Workers: Gendering CSR (2007), is a call

for “a gendered dimension into the notion of CSR” (p. 731). Pearson’s study is a case

study analysis of the killings that targeted only the female employees of Maquiladora19

companies in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Pearson investigates the correlation between these

sex-based hate crimes and the lack of CSR policies of the companies involved. She

concludes that the current understanding of CSR must be re-conceptualized based on

current political, business, and economic dynamics (2007). Moreover, she argues that far

reaching analyses need to be undertaken regarding the gendered nature of the labour

market, including incorporating feminist approaches (Pearson, 2007). The importance of

incorporating the feminist ideals of gender equality in companies’ CSR policies cannot be

limited to workplace matters, such as the financial security of the company, better board

19
Maquiladora is a foreign-owned factory in Mexico at which lower-paid, mostly female workers assemble
imported parts into products for export (Merriam-Webster Online, 2016).

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practices, or the gender gap in representation at management levels. Gender equality, first

and foremost, should be treated as a moral and human rights concern. According to Kate

Grosser (2009), the inclusion of gender equality and women’s empowerment policies are

essential because it makes it possible to include women and their views and to promote

them in relation to corporate impacts not only in the workplace, but also in the

marketplace and the community.

It is worth noting that even though the abovementioned articles served as strong

sources for my research, they have some limitations. Most authors pay attention to the

United Nations as if it were the sole entitled transnational organization that has the

competency to regulate or affect MNCs concerning their CSR policies. They largely

ignore the efforts and accomplishments of other European or Southern organizations. The

literature on CSR is saturated by North-American perspectives, cases, and especially UN-

related articles (Koczor 2012; Pearson 2007; Rasche 2013). This bias is perceptible in the

context of the North/South division as well. Even if MNCs, including L'Oréal, earn the

majority of their revenue by operating in the Global South and have tremendous effects

on the lives of women in the Southern hemisphere, I have not found any case study

example conducted from the perspective of these countries and MNCs of the South.

4.2 The Beauty Industry is Becoming Socially Responsible

Engaging globally, and participating in vital decision making processes that affect

the lives of millions, goes hand in hand with increasing responsibility, not only for profit,

but also for improving the lives of people and/or preserving the environment for future

generations (Carroll, 1999). Beauty corporations had been running businesses for

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decades, paying relatively little attention to the social impact of their decisions and

actions. By the 1960s, the fact that their operations affected the whole society began to be

recognized (Davis and Blomstrom, 1966). However, it remained widely acknowledged

that business is primarily an economic institution, or, as Carroll (1979) claims, the “basic

economic unit in our society [that] produces goods and services that society wants and

sells them at a profit” (as cited in Carroll, 1999, p. 500). Regrettably, this definition does

not exclude the possibility that companies also have responsibilities for social welfare.

Keith Davis (1960) is among the first scholars who draw attention to the fruitful

relation between social responsibility and the financial success of global businesses.

Davis argues that power in business results in considerable social power, and that current

socially responsible behaviour can generate long-term business success and profit in the

future (Davis, 1960; Carroll, 1999). The three principles that beauty manufacturers most

often began to apply in their CSR policies are environmental awareness, health

regulations, and social engagement.

4.2.1 Environmental awareness. During the 1960s, an environmental

consciousness emerged, where “natural” things and processes became favourable among

certain groups of people (Jones, 2010). Harmful manufacturing processes and the

unwholesome synthetic ingredients of beauty products were being increasingly

publicized. Activists assiduously fought against companies that exploited and damaged

the environment for the sake of profit. Natural products were perceived to be the best, and

a general boycott was taken place against certain brands because of the use of synthetic

ingredients. The voices of these ethical customers were so powerful that they were able to

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cause serious financial decline for some companies who did not change the harmful

formulas or ingredients in their products (Jones, 2010).

4.2.2. Health regulations. In the mid-nineteenth century women and men had to

be careful with skin care and body products, which can cause serious issues for body and

facial skin. As a result of the development of modern research and testing techniques, the

twentieth century’s products were safer than they were previously. However, the

increasing demand for new and effective beauty products led to various harmful side

effects and reactions (e.g. talcum powder20) (Jones, 2010). Between 1970 and 1980, many

governments began to control and regulate the various stages of cosmetics production,

from research through manufacturing, testing, advertising, and packaging the final

product. L'Oréal’s products also fell prey to the criticism from health activists who

spared no pains in attacking the company’s “unsafe” shampoos (Jones, 2010). The

management of the company tried to rebut what they regarded as “unjust attacks” with

proven scientific data that people would need to eat or drink hair-dye every day in order

to produce the same symptoms observed in test animals (Jones, 2010). Later, the

company also challenged the fact that they tested on animals. These company statements

even today raise the controversial issue of animal testing. Animal activists have a long-

standing boycott of L'Oréal due to its continued use of animal testing for cosmetics.

According to the report of Naturewatch in 2016, the company still continues to use

20
Although talcum powder is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as
possibly carcinogenic (cancer causing) to humans, this ingredient is still not on the blacklist. IARC is a
part of the World Health Organization (WHO) that convenes international expert working groups to
evaluate the evidence of the carcinogenicity of specific exposures (International Agency for Research on
Cancer, 2016).

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ingredients that are tested on animals, despite public statements to the contrary

([Link]).

4.2.3 Social engagement. Activists’ focus on environmental and health issues has

gradually widened to embrace societal problems as well. As a result, the beauty industry

came under attack by critiques of feminists, people of colour, and colonized people’s

movements (Jones, 2010). While second-wave feminists considered the (marketing)

practices of beauty companies one of the reasons for women’s social subordination,

people of colour fought against the prevailing ideal of the white female beauty as a

racialized colonialist practice (Jones, 2010). Recognition of the racial diversity of people

was confronted. Until the 1970s, light skin and light hair were projected as unambiguous

marks of “real” female beauty. Aside from a short blooming of the “ethnic beauty

market” at the dawn of the twentieth century, mainly in the United States, beauty markets

were still considered relatively racially homogeneous (Jones, 2008).

From the late 1970s, political attacks against the hegemony of the ideal of white

beauty resulted in direct and noticeable impacts, namely, market and product

fragmentation in the beauty industry (Black, 2004). Parallel to the political and societal

demands, the global leaders of the industry began facing multiple economic challenges.

Corporations realized that in order to expand their markets and increase profit, they

needed to offer different products to different customer groups (Jones, 2008). In the

following decades, this market and product segmentation has intensified based on the

gender, age, income, and other characteristics of consumers (Jones, 2010). Through

constant political, social, and economic changes, the development and spread of an

unprecedented number of beauty products for a highly diversified consumer market has

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become the most effective way to become a global business. Paradoxically, the beauty

industry as a whole has never been weakened by emerging political critiques and societal

expectations. Moreover, (a handful of) beauty companies have proven to be flexible and

astute enough to adjust to the new demands with success and to turn critiques towards

their own profit.

4.3 L'Oréal: “Because I’m Worth It”

Throughout its more than 100-year operation, L’Oréal has articulated its

commitment to fair trade practices, sustainable development principles, animal rights, and

the ideas of gender equality and women’s empowerment. As a result of an increasing

need for success (measured by profit) in the global market, in the early 1970s, L'Oréal

developed a new, aggressive marketing strategy that combined the advertisements of

L'Oréal products with the company’s first social commitment (Jones, 2008).

Demonstrating L'Oréal’s mandate to empower women, the company began to circulate its

signature message: “Because I’m Worth It.”

I use the most expensive haircolor in the world. Préférence

by L'Oréal. It’s not that I care about money. It’s that I care
about my hair. It’s not just the color, I expect great color.
What’s worth more to me, is the way my hair feels, smooth
and silky but with body, feels good against my neck.
Actually, I don’t mind spending more for L'Oréal. Because
I’m worth it!
(Television commercial of Préférence by L'Oréal, 1973)

The advertising slogan “Because I’m Worth It” was first introduced in 1973 to

promote the company’s hair color product Préférence. The phrase was coined by a 23-

year old female employee, Ilon Specht, who was working then as a copywriter for the

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advertising company McCann-Erickson (L’Oréal Paris; L'Oréal 100, 2009). Reportedly,

the slogan was created as a result of the demands from feminists to better reflect the

changing societal demands that recognized women’s desires, dreams, and increasing

public roles. The creation of the slogan coincided with the time when the Swiss food

company, Nestlé, became one of the main (albeit not the major) shareholders of L'Oréal.

In 1974, the company invested tremendous money in a bigger-than-ever advertising

campaign in the U.S. Interestingly, the now iconic slogan, then seemed to be short-lived

and was never used in advertising outside the American market (Jones, 2010). In order to

draw nation-wide attention to its presence and captivate American customers, L'Oréal was

in need of a breakthrough, by any means.

A revival of the original slogan “Because You’re Worth It” in 2001, and its

subsequent alteration to ”Because We’re Worth It” in 2009, were the result of deliberate

action by the company’s philosophy and marketing strategies, which sought to recognize,

accept, and appreciate the Diversity of Beauty Worldwide (2001) (L’Oréal, n.d). L’Oréal

claimed to take into account the “diversities” of its employees and consumers worldwide.

This new agenda can be seen as including various meanings from the diversity of

products and brands, the diversity of workers, the diversity of continents and countries of

the operational fields of the company, and the diversity of skin as well as hair colours and

types of consumers. Recognizing and celebrating differences and diversities among

women (workers) appears to be a promising start towards the promotion of gender

equality and human rights. However, there is still a considerable gap between the feminist

and business goals of these terms.

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4.4 CSR Initiatives in the 2000s

Scholars who examined the history of CSR, including Carroll and Post, agree that

by the 2000s, consumer demands further expanded and new standards were established,

such as the responsibility for supplier, manufacturing, and operating practices. This

development was one of the preconditions for the advent of the present stage of CSR

policies. From 2000 onwards, CSR initiatives such as the UNGC (2000) and the UN

WEPs (2010) were launched. These initiatives create globally accepted ethics and moral

standards such as gender equality within the field of CSR. L'Oréal has been a signatory of

the UNGC since 2003 and a supporter of the UN WEPs since 2010.

4.4.1 The United Nations Global Compact. In 1999, due to the adverse social

and environmental impacts of globalization during the last decades of the twentieth

century, and the lack of a common agreement around ethical and moral norms in

business, the United Nations resolved to launch a corporate responsibility initiative. The

UN, the world’s global political forum, is an important actor in the construction of

international norms, as well as in promoting and advancing gender equality and

development. The UN launched the UN Global Compact initiative to “gain consensus in

the global community on the shared values and moral norms such as gender equality,

sustainable development, or poverty reduction that would guide” global businesses and

economies (Kilgour, 2007; Post, 2012; Williams, 2014, p. 241). The UNGC (or the

Compact) is a network of public and private actors, which comprises the largest CSR

initiative in the world with over 8,000 business and 4,000 non-business participants in

more than 135 countries (UNGC, 2015).

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 The Compact revolves around ten principles (see Appendix A) in the areas of

human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption, setting minimum moral standards

to use as guiding principles for businesses globally (Williams, 2014, p. 243). The ten

principles are derived from universally accepted international instruments, including the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the ILO’s Declaration on Fundamental

Principles and Rights at Work (1998), the Rio Declaration on Environment and

Development (1992), and the United Nations Conventions Against Corruption (2003).

Participant companies of the UNGC are required to incorporate the ten principles

into their business strategies and operations in addition to engaging in partnerships in

order to advance broader UN development goals such as poverty eradication and

environmental sustainability (Williams, 2014). Signatories, including L'Oréal, are

required to communicate annually to stakeholders about their continuing support and

concrete actions. Signatory companies fulfil this obligation by completing the

Communication on Progress (COP) document and making it publicly available on both

their corporate and the UNGC websites. The UNGC distinguishes minimum level and

advanced level signatory companies. L'Oréal, as an advanced level signatory, is required

to disclose actions and results in the following dimensions: (1) implementing the ten

principles into strategies & operations in the areas of human rights, labour, environment,

and anti-corruption; (2) taking action in support of broader UN goals and issues; and (3)

developing sustainability governance & leadership. L'Oréal’s commitment to integrating

these universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-

corruption in their operations and strategies is renewed annually, as it was in 2013. For

further details, see my assessment of the L'Oréal COP 2013 document in Chapter 5.

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 Even though the establishment of the UNGC is considered a remarkable

achievement in terms of improving the socially responsible behaviour of MNCs, feminists

such as Maureen Kilgour (2007, 2012) criticize this initiative on the ground that it lacks

any direct reference to gender equality. Since the Global Compact’s gender equality

mandate can be pieced together from several external, universally accepted international

instruments, the meaning of this commitment may be obfuscated. As a result, businesses

are left to arbitrarily apply selected principles and features in conjunction with their

corporate goals.

4.4.2 The UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (UN WEPs). After a decade

of nominal change in terms of the promotion of gender equality and women’s

empowerment, the UN Global Compact, collaborating with the United Nations

Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, now UN Women), published the UN Global

Compact Women’s Empowerment Principles (UN WEPs) in 2010 (See Appendix B).

The UN WEPs is a corporate social responsibility program that promotes

sustainable development and human rights, especially women’s rights and the principles

of gender equality. Whereas gender equality is considered to be a human right,

empowerment is not. In the context of the initiative, which is subtitled Equality Means

Business, empowerment of women means allowing them to participate fully in an

economic life. The idea of empowerment is linked with the goals of international

development such as building strong economies, establishing more stable and just

societies, improving quality of life for women, men, families and communities, and

propelling businesses’ operations and goals (UN WEPs booklet, 2012). The theoretical

foundation of this relation stems from transnational business feminists who argue that

97
incorporating gender and women’s issues in corporate policies and investing in women’s

initiatives are good, not only for women, but also for businesses, national economies, and

transnational relations (Roberts, 2015). The UN WEPs address the shortcomings of the

Global Compact by formulating an explicit gender equality mandate that focuses, among

other things, on the empowerment of women in the workplace, in the marketplace, and in

the community. The seven principles of the UN WEPs together form a global corporate

code of conduct to promote women’s human rights and sustainable development (Prügl

and Trui, 2014). Kilgour (2012) criticizes the UN WEPs, arguing that the principles

emphasize the business case for corporate action to promote equality and empowerment

(p. 119).

L'Oréal is committed to support the seven UN WEPs as it is recognized in the

company’s Code of Ethics 2014 (COE, 2014, p. 8). Even though the UN WEPs are a

voluntary, non-binding code (soft law), they require active involvement including a high-

level statement of support from the business leaders in participant companies. To date,

over 1,000 businesses have provided the UN WEPs’ CEO Statement of Support and thus

are committed publicly to align company policies to advance gender equality (UN WEPs,

2016). Even though L’Oréal claims itself a supporter of the UN WEPs, to date, the

company has not signed this formal document. See my further argument in Chapter 5.

4.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, I introduced the concept of CSR and the UN’s CSR initiatives and

documents. To critique these concepts and documents, I used the feminist ideals about

gender equality and women’s empowerment discussed in Chapter 2. This chapter

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concludes that CSR is generally critiqued as being a socially desirable discursive mask

for corporate profit-making activities, especially by large multinational corporations. A

critique of CSR argues that public corporate documents and initiatives serve only public

relations purposes to mask the company’s real policies for profit-making. As a result,

what a corporation says about itself and its commitments may be limited and not

necessarily reliable. In the next chapter, “A Critique of L’Oréal’s Gender Equality and

Women’s Empowerment Policies,” I provide an in-depth analysis of L’Oréal’s CSR

policies. In this analysis, I argue that even though L’Oréal applies a rigid concept of

gender that consists exclusively of women and men, the company recognizes the realm of

family as belonging to women, whereas business and financial responsibilities are seen as

belonging to men. L’Oréal’s CSR policies treat gender inequality as an issue for

individual employees. The issues of gender equality are confined to the workplace, and

the main priorities of this policy exclusively revolve around labour. The goals of the

corporate gender equality policies are the regulations concerning equal pay, equal

opportunity, equal access, and diversity of women as formal sector workers in the

company.

Although corporate policies integrate the idea of gender equality into certain

business strategies and corporate philanthropy efforts, they fail to integrate them into the

main CSR strategy and everyday operations. In a generalized sense, L'Oréal does comply

with the non-regulatory expectations of the UNGC and the UN WEPs because the

company implements the principles and recommendations into its business strategy and

operation. However, evidence of concrete steps is arbitrary, inextricable, and difficult to

trace.

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 CHAPTER 5:

RESULTS: A CRITIQUE OF L’ORÉAL’S GENDER EQUALITY

AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT POLICIES

The key goal of this research is to critically examine the gender equality and

women’s empowerment policies of L'Oréal. Based on the texts and visual images of

select corporate documents, I argue that L'Oréal’s understanding of gender is rigid and the

issues of gender equality are confined to the workplace. The goals of the corporate gender

equality policy revolve around labour issues, such as ensuring equal pay, equal

opportunity, and equal access for both female and male employees, as well as promoting

the diversity of women working for the company. When it comes to implementing

corporate policies to advance women’s empowerment, the company relies predominantly

on the launch of corporate philanthropic initiatives that help women to become successful

economic actors.

5.1 L'Oréal’s Understanding of Gender

Contemporary considerations of gender often reiterate gender stereotypes and

reinforce female and male attributes as ideal or normative in patriarchal societies (Wodak

2005, p. 520). Analyzing the company’s understanding of gender, I explore whether

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L'Oréal reinforces the gender dichotomy of women and men or takes different gender

identities into consideration. Next, I explore the roles and characteristics L'Oréal

considers to pertain to women and men. Because L'Oréal considers itself innovative and

progressive, as well as aiming to be an exemplary company in several respects, I expect

the company approach towards gender to support non-stereotypical ideas.

A common misinterpretation of gender is that it refers principally to women and,

therefore, gender issues are primarily connected to women’s issues. As a result, mostly

women are addressed when it comes to identifying gender issues, such as gender

inequality and empowering women. Also, women are at the center of different solution

models of gender equality (e.g. increasing the number of women in managerial positions)

(Debusscher, 2011). Although feminists (Debusscher, 2011; Edwardsson, 2012;

Marchand, 2009) have tirelessly worked to disseminate broader views of gender,

businesses, in general, do not see gender as a relation, but instead see gender as a

category of female workers (Debusscher, 2011). Feminists prompt MNCs to set examples

by extending products and advertising beyond gender dichotomies and to develop

innovative gender equality policies accordingly. As long as an outdated perception of

gender remains in place, businesses will have little to do with developing projects that are

transformative in addressing problematic gender relations (Debusscher, 2011).

5.1.1 The occurrence of keywords. To realize how gender is used in L'Oréal’s

publications, I conduct textual and visual content analyses of the select six corporate

documents outlined. I begin this analysis with a close reading of the corporate documents

by looking for certain keywords and content. Then, I categorize the collected qualitative

data so that the data become quantifiable and measurable. Knowing that the same

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qualitative data can be coded in many different ways, I limit my focus strictly on the

research questions of this thesis.

Drawing from feminist scholars (Debusscher 2011; Edwardsson 2012; Kilgour

2012), I identify keywords that presumably arise where gender related issues are

addressed in the texts, such as “woman/women,” “man/men,” “female,” “male,” and

“gender.” I initially look for and number these keywords, then examine the context in

which they are used, and, finally, draw conclusions based on the frequency of their

occurrences and placements in the documents. The results of this method indicate the

prioritization of certain words over others, as well as work to create particular meanings

and their importance.

Table 5.1 The number of occurrences of select keywords in L'Oréal corporate documents

Corporate Document
Woman/ Man/
(total pages) Female Male Gender
Women Men

Code of Ethics 2014

6 2 N/A N/A 2
(40 pp.)

Diversities Overview Report

2010 41 26 5 5 17
(34 pp.)

The Annual Financial Report

2013 53 20 8 1 20
(288 pp.)

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 Sustainable Development 40 5 1 N/A N/A
Report 2013
(50 pp.)

Communication on Progress
2013
13 1 N/A N/A 8
(36 pp.)

Environmental, Social and

Governance Reporting (G4
75 51 5 N/A 81
GRI)
(237 pp.)

Total
228 105 19 6 128
(685 pp.)

The textual analysis begins with scanning the following keywords:

“woman/women,” “man/men,” “female,” “male,” and “gender” (see Table 5.1). The sole

document that entirely leaves “gender” (0) out of consideration is the Sustainable

Development Report (2013). The Report applies “women” (40) and, less frequently,

“men” (5) instead. As a result, the document excludes the concepts of “gender equality,”

“gender inequality,” or “gender discrimination.” Due to the carefully worded content,

specific issues such as gender equality are difficult to locate in this document. The silence

carries the message that the idea and concept of gender equality is not an essential part of

the company’s sustainable development program.

The occurrence of the keywords is somewhat different in the Diversities Overview

Report (2010) that includes 41 references to “women,” 26 to “men,” and 17 to “gender.”

The document dedicates a single chapter to explaining the priorities of the company’s

gender equality policy where gender is mentioned strictly within the context of workplace

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policies intended to bring about the attainment of professional equality between men and

women.

At the heart of public debate since the seventies, the topic

of gender in the workplace and professional equality
between men and women is still today a priority […].
Committed to equal opportunities in the workplace for
many years, L'Oréal seeks to guarantee diversity in
functions that are currently over-staffed by men or women
(Marketing, Industry), give equal treatment in terms of
salary and training, and facilitate access for women to
positions of responsibility (DOR, 2010, p. 10).

In the 40-page long Code of Ethics (2014), two references to gender are located

under the section of “Diversity.” L'Oréal states that “we [L'Oréal] must not discriminate

or harass/bully on the basis of gender, disability, marital status or family situation, sexual

orientation, age, […]” (COE, 2014, p. 30). According to this section, gender is

categorized as a potential ground for discrimination. This general statement is followed

by eight hypothetical cases in which employees ask questions about direct or indirect

discrimination, and management offers acceptable coping mechanisms for them to handle

these situations (COE, 2014). The Code of Ethics (2014) appears to avoid using the word

“gender” (2), as well as “women” (6) and “men” (2), substituting these terms with their

gender-neutral counterparts, such as “employees,” “people,” “all,” or juxtaposes “men

and women” and “she and he.” The limited usage of gender specific terms in this

corporate report creates an environment of language neutrality to support the unbiased

position of L'Oréal as an equal opportunity employer. However, as Maureen Kilgour

(2012) argues, despite the attempt to omit most of the gender-specific terms in corporate

documents, MNCs cannot be assumed gender-neutral actors (2012). Labour force and

labour markets are gendered institutions and these “gendered systems create hierarchy

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and differential treatment in most, if not all, societies throughout the world” (Kilgour,

2012, p. 108). Different situations, opportunities, and life chances result in inequalities

between women and men, which cannot be solved by companies using gender-neutral

language. Businesses’ omission of the presence of asymmetrical power structures

between men and women only continues to perpetuate gender inequality (Kilgour, 2012;

Edwardsson, 2012).

I establish that of all the keywords identified, “woman/women” (228) were used

the most often, twice as often as “man/men” (105), and nearly double the occurrence of

“gender” (128). The term “female” (19) is also prioritized over the word “male” (6). None

of the documents refers to gender identities other than women and men (i.e. transgender);

therefore, it can be concluded that, according to L'Oréal, the category of gender consists

exclusively of women and men. From the frequency of mentions of these gender specific

keywords, several conclusions can be deducted. I argue that “women” are referred to

more often than “men” most likely because L'Oréal has more female employees than

male employees. This finding, however, is poor as it tells little about the corporation’s

ideas about gender, or about its policies pertaining to gender. Therefore, after locating and

counting the select keywords, I continue this analysis by exploring the contexts in which

these keywords are mentioned to provide more rigorous results and conclusions in terms

of the company’s understanding of gender.

5.1.2 The roles and characteristics of women and men. Investigating the

contexts in which the identified keywords are used leads me to understand the company’s

explicit and latent ideas about the characteristics and roles of women and men.

Considering that L'Oréal often conveys itself as an innovative company, I expected to

105
find an unconventional approach and the frequent presence of non-stereotypical gender

characteristics in the documents. Surprisingly, the company’s understanding of the needs

and benefits of women and men employees affirms a conventional approach that is based

on dichotomous understandings and needs.

It is well known that women most likely face difficulties and bear a heavier

burden when it comes to balancing career and family than men. Recognizing this reality,

L'Oréal’s corporate documents more often focus on women in the context of family or

community, leaving men out of the discussion of family issues. The Sustainable

Development Report (2013), for example, emphasizes the special needs of women, such

as paid maternity leave, and the solution of providing childcare for women during

working hours (SDR, 2013). Men and their family needs (i.e. paternity leave), however,

are not taken into consideration, affirming that women are in charge with being the

primary caretakers of children (as well as the elderly parents) and that they are held

responsible for solutions to family issues (SDR, 2013). This approach has little to

challenge the conventional gender division of labour, but reinforces the roles of women as

caretakers and men as the financial supporters of the family.

After looking for L'Oréal’s ideas about the roles and characteristics of women and

men in the written texts, I analyze the same through the visual images of the corporate

documents. First, I count the numbers of the solely female, solely male, and mixed gender

images of the six L'Oréal documents (see Table 5.2). Secondly, I analyze four handpicked

corporate images.

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Table 5.2 The number of gender specific images in L'Oréal’s corporate documents

L’Oréal’s Corporate Document

Solely female Solely male Mixed gender
(total number of pages)
images images images

Code of Ethics 2014

0 2 1
(40 pp.)

Diversities Overview Report 2010

6 4 8
(34 pp.)

The Annual Financial Report 2013

1 1 0
(288 pp.)

Sustainable Development Report 2013

27 13 14
(50 pp.)

Communication on Progress 2013

N/A N/A N/A
(36 pp.)

Environmental, Social and Governance

Reporting (G4 GRI) N/A N/A N/A

(237 pp.)

Total
34 20 23
(685 pp.)

The Code of Ethics (2014) contains two portraits of men, one photograph of a

mixed group, and no images of single women. The Annual Financial Report (2013)

contains one photograph of a man (CEO) and one of a woman (Cara Delevingne is the

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model on the cover). Twenty-seven pictures in the Sustainable Development Report

(2013) depict women, 13 represent men, and 14 represent mixed gender groups. The

Diversities Overview Report (2010) consists of six pictures of women, four of men, and

eight are mixed. The proportion of different gender images is imbalanced.

Counting the number of female or male images itself does not lead to rigorous

scientific findings on the company’s understanding of gender; however, where these

keywords are found is a helpful indicator of gender (im)balances in the text. Although the

images of female workers (34) occurred nearly twice as much as male images (20), men

are more prominent in visual images. Photographs are overwhelmed by the depiction of

groups of negotiating men and women where, typically, a male manager or trainer

instructs the rest of the (mostly female) employees (DOR, 2010, p. 16). The predominant

pattern that men possess professional knowledge and hold responsibilities for supervising,

training, and instructing mostly female employees is reinforced on the pages of the

Diversities Overview Report (2010) as well as the Sustainable Development Report

(2013) (DOR, 2010, p. 14-15; p. 16-18; SDR, 2013, p. 10; p. 33; p. 39).

The portraits of Jean Paul Agon, CEO of L'Oréal, and several male Directors are

routinely included in corporate documents, whereas the visual images of their women

colleagues (even those in decision-making positions) remain concealed. Even though

there are female Executive Directors appointed among the Executive Committee

members, their visual images rarely appear in corporate documents. Likewise, the images

of other female Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Chief Officers, and Directors are also absent

in the official corporate documents. Even when women managers happen to make official

statements on behalf of the company, such as the International General Manager of La

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Roche-Posay (p. 45) or the Indonesian Factory Director (p. 24) in the Sustainable

Development Report (2013), corporate documents tend not to include their visual images.

The systematic lack of representation where women occupy positions as business leaders

and responsible business professionals perpetuates the idea that men dominate the

company. The tableau of the 2014 Executive Committee members, in the Code of Ethics

(2014), is the single image that visually represents female leaders. Contrarily, women are

readily represented as plantation workers (SDR, 2013, p. 12, p. 42), laboratory workers

(Ibid., p. 8, p. 9-11), beauty advisers and beauticians (Ibid., p. 37, p. 40, p. 44), and in

other subordinate positions such as cleaners (Ibid., p. 42). The images of women who are

caretakers of children (SDR, 2013, p. 34) or elderly people (Ibid., p. 29; p. 36) also often

occur. Unlike men, who are more frequently represented in positions of responsibility,

such as directors (SDR, 2013, p. 21), managers, researchers (Ibid., p. 18), and supervisors

(SDR, 2013, p. 33; DOR, 2010, p. 14, p. 16; p. 18). This perception suggests a

hierarchical way of thinking about the role of women and men, and represents an

outdated notion of the gender-based division of labour. By this argument, direction,

control, research, and innovation belong to the realm of men, whereas the unpaid work of

care-giving or domestic work are suggested as concerns for women workers.

Due to the absence of even a brief definition of gender in the corporate

documents, L'Oréal’s understanding of the concept is not clearly perceptible; however, it

seems to be hardly challenged by any nuanced understanding or operation of the term.

From the analysis of the context where the keywords are applied, I draw the conclusion

that L'Oréal’s perception of gender supports the binary division that limits possibilities

only to women and men. There is a lack of recognition and inclusion of other gender

109
identities (i.e. transgender, bigender, genderqueer) in all corporate documents. It is

worthwhile to note that some cosmetics companies, such as MAC Cosmetics, Covergirl

and Sephora, breaking with gender dichotomy, include transgender issues in their

corporate agenda and promote their brands through transgender people. In this particular

sense, L’Oréal fails to be number one among other innovative and progressive beauty

companies on issues pertaining to gender representation.

5.1.3 Displaying gender and visualizing difference. After analyzing L'Oréal’s

understanding of gender and identifying the company’s ideas of the roles and

characteristics of men and women through the texts, I apply a visual content analysis of

four select corporate images that convey messages about gender. These photographs are

(1) the image of L'Oréal CEO, Jean-Paul Agon in the Annual Financial Report (2013);

(2) the cover image of the Annual Financial Report (2013); (3) the cover image of the

Sustainable Development Report (2013); and (4) the tableau of the company’s Executive

Committee members in the Code of Ethics (2014). This visual analysis works together

with the textual analysis, supporting (or conflicting) the ideas I identified in the written

text.

Creating a method to analyze images, I draw ideas from scholars (Goffman, 1976;

Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2007; Murray, 2013) who employ particular methods to study

gender displays21. Rephrasing Erving Goffman’s claim (1976) that “gender displays can

[…] reflect the fundamental features of the social structure,” I argue that gender displays

in L'Oréal’s documents can reflect the fundamental features of corporate structures (1976,

21
Displaying gender is a process whereby women and men perform roles that are expected of them by
social conventions (Jhally, 2009).

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p. 8). Moreover, they can make the company’s perception of gender visible. By means of

the photographs, I go beyond the manifest and latent content of the pronounced words

and explore the company’s visually expressed gender perceptions.

I recognize that seeing the images would help the reader to follow the visual

analysis and affirm its conclusions; however, due to the difficulties of obtaining the

copyright holder L'Oréal’s permission to reproduce the corporate images in this Master’s

thesis, I can only refer to them. For lack of a better solution, I decided to apply the

method that Jerry L. Thompson did in “Why Photograph Matters” (2013), when his

request for using a specific photograph was not granted by the copyright holder.

Thompson inserted a box in the text, indicating the placement of the photograph, noting

that the permission to reprint the particular image was not granted. The images used in the

following analysis are publicly available on L'Oréal’s website: [Link].

[Link] Visualizing power. The first image I analyze to demonstrate the

company’s gender display is the image of Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman of the Board of

Directors and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), on the second page of the company’s

Annual Financial Report (2013). It is worth noting that throughout the company’s more

than 100 years of operation, L'Oréal has always been led by male CEOs including Eugène

Schueller, François Dalle, Lindsay Owen-Jones, and Jean-Paul Agon.

Apparently, the primary image of L'Oréal’s documents is attached to the

appearance of the white, French, now 60-year old businessman, Jean-Paul Agon. All

official corporate documents picture his head-shot (or medium-shot) and a short, textual

preface. He represents the company on its official website, in the media, and at

international events, such as the event of the Global Business Network (2013) and the

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United Nations Global Compact 15th Anniversary Celebration (2015). Furthermore, Agon

is the primary spokesperson for the company.

This space was intended to present a photograph

by L’Oréal showing Jean-Paul Agon, CEO and
Chair of Board, from the Annual Financial Report
2013, p. 2.
A message delivered to the author for permission
to use this image by a representative of L’Oréal
reads as follows:
“May you please send us your thesis so we can
validate if the rights to use the images can be
granted.”

Figure 5.1 Photograph of Jean-Paul Agon, CEO and Chair of the Board of Directors, in L’Oréal’s
Annual Financial Report (2013)

Agon, in the Annual Financial Report (2013), dressed in business suit and tie,

stands as one leg rests upon an object (out of sight), smiles, with his hands crossed on his

bent knee (p. 2). In Gender Advertisements (1976), Erving Goffman draws attention to the

significance and message of the posture of the body, especially the hands in photographs.

He argues that the way men hold their hands in pictures can be linked to a socially

constructed masculine value, such as power, assertiveness, boldness, and control

(Goffman, 1976; Jhally, 2009). Agon’s knee-bend position makes him appear off-balance

and ungrounded, but his facial expression looks focused, aware, and attentive (Jhally,

2009). According to Goffman, this motion (knee-bend) is usually attached to women in

visual images and suggests defencelessness and acceptance of their subordination.

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Despite the “unbalanced” stance, Agon’s appearance is intended to demonstrate qualities

such as trustworthiness and reliability, which are significant in business and are socially

constructed as masculine leadership values.

The background image of Agon’s full-shot is an array of giant lipsticks in

different colors. Admittedly, lipstick is a symbol intertwined with female beauty. This

image is a physical and symbolic female counterpoint to the presence of the male

business leader and contributes to a more gender explicit company brand. Agon’s figure

undoubtedly intends to represent the masculine power of L'Oréal. His portrayal is at the

forefront when it comes to analyzing the content of all L'Oréal’s documents.

Interestingly, in the 1920s, white businessmen in the beauty industry made all efforts to

distance themselves from any hint of effeminacy and hired glamorous women to create

the illusion of a female-owned company (Black, 2004). Contrarily, Agon’s omnipresence

solidifies the image of a male-led company, endowing L'Oréal with presumed masculine

values, such as strength, logic, self-confidence, and rationality. These features are

considered important for shareholders, investors, and other stakeholders. The image of

Agon also assigns reliability and trustworthiness to the company and suggests the

conventional assumption that high-level business is the realm of men.

[Link]. Feminine delicacy. In contrast to Agon’s traditional masculine image, I

chose to analyze the cover images of the Annual Financial Report (2013) and the

Sustainable Development Report (2013), each representing women.

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 This space was intended to present a photograph
by L’Oréal showing Cara Delevingne on the cover
of the Annual Financial Report (2013).
A message delivered to the author for permission
to use this image by a representative of L’Oréal
reads as follows:
“May you please send us your thesis so we can
validate if the rights to use the images can be
granted.”

Figure 5.2 The cover image of L’Oréal’s Annual Financial Report (2013)

The Annual Financial Report (2013), which primarily provides financial

information to present and future investors, stakeholders, and rival businesses, depicts a

white, young, flawless, and world-famous blonde model. The woman is Cara Delevingne,

actor, singer, and fashion model, one of the latest spokesmodels of the Group22. The color

picture is a close-shot of the model, leaving little space for other details, except the

monochrome, pink background. Delevingne, unsmiling, faces straight towards the camera

in formal business dress. She represents seriousness, trustworthiness, and reliability, all

basic values considered essential for business. The same masculine traits can be noted in

the pictures of Jean-Paul Agon. The model’s fingers, which are also visible in the picture,

delicately and playfully hold the lapel of her business suit jacket. They are posed in a way

that, according to Goffman, is typical for women. This “feminine touch” compensates for

22
Spokesmodel is an attractive and appealing person who is hired to speak and act on behalf of the
company, mostly in commercials and official events ([Link]).

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the model’s masculinity and introduces delicacy and femininity to the overall image

(Goffman, 1976). Goffman argues that women’s hands are more often depicted as

caressing or barely touching the object (including themselves), rather than grasping and

controlling, the way men touch (Goffman, 1976). Looking at the differences between the

hand postures of Agon and of the female model, women and men in L'Oréal images are

indeed depicted differently.

Delevingne’s portrait on the cover of the Annual Financial Report (2013) sends a

message about L'Oréal and its understanding of the characteristics of Western beauty

ideals. The image promotes young, white women as models of Eurocentric beauty and

ignores representations of age and women of color. Anita Roddick (2000) tackles the

essence of these problems as they relate to age and race:

[The beauty industry] is an industry dominated by men

trying to create needs that don’t exist […]. At its most
extreme, the beauty industry seems to have decided it
needs to make women unhappy with what they look like.
It plays on insecurities and self-doubt about image and
ageing by projecting impossible ideas of youth and beauty.
It blinds us with science without giving us the kind of
practical information we could use. And it has rarely
celebrated women outside Caucasian culture (p. 97).

Although L'Oréal is committed to recognizing and valuing diversity and

difference, a less diverse representation of beauty can be seen on the covers of the Annual

Financial Reports between 2008 and 2013. Interestingly, with the exception of Freida

Pinto (2009), an Indian actress, exclusively white (young and flawless looking) women

are placed on the covers, including Kate Winslet, actress (2008), two unknown white

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female models (2010 and 2011), Julia Roberts, actress (2012), and Cara Delevingne,

fashion model (2013).

This space was intended to present a photograph

by L’Oréal showing a woman on the cover of the
Sustainable Development Report (2013).
A message delivered to the author for permission
to use this image by a representative of L’Oréal
reads as follows:
“May you please send us your thesis so we can
validate if the rights to use the images can be
granted.”

Figure 5.3 The cover image of L’Oréal’s Sustainable Development Report (2013).

In contrast to the white beauty, the cover image of the Sustainable Development

Report (2013) represents an Asian woman, whose eyes are closed as she smiles in the

rain. The color picture, a medium-shot, portrays the model from the waist up, wearing a

casual, gauzy, sleeveless, white blouse while standing in the rain. She is unfocused and

does not face straight towards the camera. Her eyes are closed, facing up towards the sky.

Her hands are outstretched, and her fingers are delicately bent. The woman noticeably

indulges in the moment as water drops roll down her face. Her thoughts seem to be

drifting away with the water. She seems emotional and playful, rather than attentive,

aware, controlling, or assertive.

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 The two female cover figures, the blonde and the Asian woman, jar against each

other in terms of their race, their postures, their gestures, and the messages they send. The

blonde woman on the cover of the Annual Financial Report (2013) projects activity,

determination, forthrightness, and rationality, similar to the facts and figures in the

financial report, whereas the Asian woman on the cover of the Sustainable Development

Report (2013) appears passive, defenceless, and emotional. Although several further

differences can be drawn between these two images, I come to a stand with my visual

analysis at this point because I consider my argument fully supported.

[Link] Gender representation of L’Oréal’s top management. The fourth image I

analyze is the tableau of the members of L'Oréal’s 2014 Executive Committee in the

Code of Ethics (2014, p. 5). This picture is important to demonstrate the classic

representation of the top-level management, which speaks volumes about the company’s

understanding of gender.

This space was intended to present a photograph

by L’Oréal showing the tableau of the Executive
Committee in the Code of Ethics (2014, p. 5)
A message delivered to the author for permission
to use this image by a representative of L’Oréal
reads as follows:
“May you please send us your thesis so we can
validate if the rights to use the images can be
granted.”

117
Figure 5.4 The tableau of the members of the Executive Committee in L’Oréal’s Code of Ethics
(2014)

Interestingly, while the visual image of the members of the Executive Committee

is part of the Code of Ethics (2014), the Annual Financial Report (2013) includes a

narrative report on the composition of the Committee (p. 10). The group of 15 Executive

Committee members represents the senior management of the company, who hold the

highest responsibility and the widest range of decision-making power.

The tableau of the Executive Committee consists of 11 men (70%) and five

women (30%). All of them are white, seemingly middle-aged, and formally dressed in

business suits and ties. In the center of the group stands the CEO, Jean-Paul Agon, along

with two male colleagues, the President of Selective Divisions and the Executive Vice

President of the Administration and Finance. The rest (seven) of the male managers stand

side by side providing a solid line of male leaders. They stand firmly connected to the

ground, face towards the camera, with their hands in pockets or folded on their chest.

In contrast, the female colleagues are positioned in the picture as though they

compose the frame of it. They are located towards the margins, rather than at the center of

the group. The majority (three) of the female members are sitting still on different sizes of

cubes, with their legs crossed, and forearms resting on their knee. There is only one man

sitting, the Executive Vice President of the Asia-Pacific Zone. He sits, however, on the

topmost cube, in order to appear taller than the female colleague next to him, who sits on

a considerably smaller cube at a lower level. The 11 businessmen make up the majority of

the visual space in the picture, overshadowing the five female managers who serve as a

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‘critical mass of the minority gender’ for a depiction of gender balanced corporate

leadership.

Whereas female Executive Directors account for the operation of cosmetics

divisions and communication, the responsible positions of Administration and Finance,

Research and Innovation, and Human Resources and Advisor to the Chairman are

concentrated in men’s hands. The gender division of the Executive Committee members’

jobs indicates a problematic organizational structure that segregates occupational power

by gender. According to Lindsey Trimble (2012), even progressive companies that

implement new and seemingly gender balanced work structures undermine women’s

career advancement due to the built-in nature of gender bias that reinforces the

stereotypical division of certain positions and occupations, rather than diminishing the

preponderance of gender specific jobs (2012).

5.2 Conclusion: Gender is Rigid

Considering the fact that L'Oréal considers itself an innovative company regarding

its environmental and social commitments, the response that emerged to the question of

‘What constitutes L'Oréal’s understanding of gender?’ is somewhat surprising. I argue

that the company’s perception of “gender” is clearly, albeit implicitly, represented

through textual and visual cues. Although at times the company’s documents use

gendered language, the corporate language conflates gender solely with women and men.

Women are seen by L'Oréal as requiring “special initiatives” such as employee benefit

plans and philanthropic initiatives (See my argument later in this chapter). In its many

liberal programs, L'Oréal depicts women in narrow ways as the necessary beneficiaries of

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workplace programs to attain workplace equality. The company applies a rigid concept of

gender where there is no place for binary exceptionality. The binary division of women

and men, and of managers and workers, are primary ways that L'Oréal divides its

employees from each other.

L'Oréal recognizes the realm of family, including parental care of children and

elderly parents, as women’s issues while business and financial responsibilities are

deemed as the almost exclusive domains of male workers. When it comes to representing

the company and the company’s ideas on important issues, the images of white

businessmen prevail. According to feminist scholars, there is nothing natural about these

gender divisions, as much as there is nothing “necessarily ‘natural’ about the association

of women with the work of bringing up children or sustaining their families” (Cornwall

and Rivas, 2015, p. 401). These conventions could be “re-constructed and re-fashioned in

alternative, more liberating and egalitarian forms” (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015, p. 401).

Reinforcing predominant social conventions and constructs in terms of gender does not

result in either social, political or cultural development, but maintains the status quo.

L'Oréal should reconsider the foundations of its approach to gender. The company

needs to be attentive to the meanings conveyed in its language, and use language and

visual images that reflect a wider range of possibilities for women and men in efforts to

create a fairer workplace.

5.3 Gender Equality Issues at L’Oréal

In relation to the second research question, ‘Which issues are identified as being

related to gender equality?,’ I demonstrate particular issues L'Oréal consider to be

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connected to gender equality. I argue that company reports tend to address gender

equality issues as workplace issues. The analysis begins with a keyword search for the

term “gender equality” that I apply to locate the formal presence of gender equality

discussions within corporate policies.

Table 5.3 The number of occurrences of the term “gender equality” in L’Oréal’s corporate
documents

Corporate Document Gender Equality

(total pages)

Code of Ethics 2014

N/A
(40 pp.)

Diversities Overview Report 2010

10
(34 pp.)

The Annual Financial Report 2013

6
(288 pp.)

Sustainable Development Report 2013

N/A
(50 pp.)

Communication on Progress 2013

6
(36 pp.)

Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting

(G4 GRI) 21
(237 pp.)

Total
42
(685 pp.)

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 The concept and the meaning of “gender equality” (0) is not mentioned

throughout the Code of Ethics (2014). This result is somewhat worrisome considering that

the Code of Ethics (2014) sets out the company’s universal ethical values and principles,

and explicitly declares the company’s commitment to respecting and promoting human

rights. It also declares the company’s vigilance on issues such as the promotion of

diversity and women’s rights (COE 2014). From the lack of any reference to gender

equality in the Code of Ethics (2014), I conclude that this issue is missing from the

company’s human rights discourse. Feminist scholars as well as international human

rights standards recognize that protecting and promoting gender equality as a fundamental

human right is a responsibility of all people. L'Oréal’s denying approach is a barrier to

implement the feminist ideals and values of gender equality.

L'Oréal’s gender equality mandate can be derived from the gender equality

principles of international instruments included in the Code of Ethics (2014). These

instruments are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the United Nations

Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011), the United Nations Global

Compact (2003), and the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (2010). It is worth

noting that the abovementioned initiatives are non-regulatory (soft-law) instruments that

specify neither enforcement mechanism, nor formal monitoring and compliance

procedures. Due to their voluntary nature, L'Oréal’s compliance simply depends on the

company’s free will. According to the Code of Ethics (2014), these international

initiatives serve as underlying principles for the company’s human rights policy (2014, p.

8). By this recognition, it would be logical to assume that L'Oréal’s gender equality

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policy is discussed within the human right policies. Regarding why this is not the case,

feminist scholar Maureen Kilgour (2007) provides the most likely answer. She argues that

the UN initiatives, the UNGC and UN WEPs in particular, do not address gender equality

as a matter of human rights, but instead define it as a matter of workplace equity,

affecting formal sector workers23 (Kilgour, 2007). As a result of the false interpretation of

the underlying UN principles, L'Oréal fails to recognize gender equality as a matter of

human rights, and relegates it to a secondary status under the generalized category of

workplace issues as part of the company’s diversity and non-discrimination policies.

The Annual Financial Report (2013) explicitly refers to “gender equality” (6),

under the section of “Diversity and Equal Opportunities” (p. 209), saying that

For over 10 years, L’Oréal has been engaged in an

innovative, ambitious policy in favour of Diversity. The
Group has set itself three priorities: gender, disability and
socio-cultural and ethnic origin and its actions are more
particularly focussed on the areas of human resources,
solidarity sourcing and marketing (p. 209).

This statement is followed by references that focus exclusively on the awards

L'Oréal and its subsidiaries were granted by withholding any information with regard to

the company’s actual activities that target gender equality.

In the field of gender equality, L’Oréal was awarded in

2010 the first European gender equality label, the “Gender
Equality European Standard” (GEES), by Bureau Veritas,
for eight of its entities in Europe: Germany, France, Spain,
Italy, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Ireland and L’Oréal
S.A. (Annual Financial Report, 2013, p. 209).

23
Formal sector workers are formally employed by their employer (company), which itself is legally
registered with the government (La Porta and Schleifer, 2014).

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 Also in the field of gender equality, L’Oréal Mexico
received the World Bank’s “Gender Equity Model”
certification in October 2012 (Annual Financial Report,
2013, p. 210).

According to the placements and word choices of these references, the concept of

gender diversity is intentionally blended together with gender equality. It is difficult to

ascertain whether gender equality is part of the company’s gender diversity policies or it

is important on its own. The most likely answer is that L'Oréal promotes gender equality

as part of the company’s equal opportunity policies. Therefore, L'Oréal’s gender equality

commitment, again, is not considered in the field of human rights.

L'Oréal deals with gender equality as a matter of equal opportunity and non-

discrimination within the company’s diversity policy. As a result, equality between men

and women, and among women, and among men, becomes limited to professional and

workplace equality as instrumental goals aiming to ensure the sustainable growth of the

company. In order to reach these instrumental, profit-oriented goals, the company sets

identical selection criteria for both sexes during processes of recruitment; offers equal

opportunities in their career development; and provides them with the same training and

training opportunities in order to enhance their individual and professional skills (DOR,

2010).

The Sustainable Development Report (2013) that summarizes L'Oréal’s main CSR

strategies, under the name “Sharing Beauty with All” (See Appendix C), makes no direct

reference to “gender” or to “gender equality.” As a result, issues with regard to gender-

based inequality are entirely missing from the discussion of sustainable development. An

implicit gender equality mandate is situated in the chapter, “Developing Sustainably,”

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offering statistical data on the company’s workforce (SDR, 2013). According to the

document, L'Oréal employed 77,451 (formal) workers in 2013. Women made up 67 per

cent of the total workforce and 45 per cent of the management committee members (SDR,

2013). Together, 44,936 employees had training in 2013 (SDR, 2013).

5.4 Conclusion: Gender Equality as a Matter of the Workplace

L'Oréal recognizes its responsibility for promoting gender equality of its

employees, suppliers, and the members of the communities within which the company

operates. The corporate statistics, however, consider and count only women who are

formal workers. Informal workers, who usually work for companies as contractors or as

contractors’ employees, are historically low-paid, provided few or no benefits, and

employed for seasonal, part-time, or temporary work. Globally, women and children are

disproportionately employed as informal workers. Because L'Oréal’s corporate

documents and statistics overlook data with regard to the number, issues, and rights of

informal workers, my research has no ability to expand the analysis to the gender equality

issues of these workers. This is a gap that could be addressed in future research on the

gender equality issues of both formal and informal workers. According to Kilgour (2012),

it is typical for companies’ gender equality policies to focus on equal pay, equal

opportunity, sexual harassment, and diversity of formal workers. She argues that

companies often overlook the need for promoting gender equality in society at large and

consider it as a matter of basic human rights inherent to all human beings (Kilgour, 2012).

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5.5 The Goals of L'Oréal’s Gender Equality Policy

The third research question of this thesis is to specify the goals of L'Oréal’s

gender equality policies. In this section, I provide analysis of the goals that are disclosed

in the Diversities Overview Report (2010), which is a summary and self-assessment of

L'Oréal’s diversity policy that includes gender equality. The document presents the

company’s target actions, indicators and prospects regarding gender equality,

demonstrating a limited approach to identifying the goals and targets of the company’s

gender equality policy.

Unlike the Code of Ethics (2014), the Diversities Overview Report (2010) contains

an explicit gender equality mandate, albeit one that is confined to the formal workplace.

The document elaborates the context of the company’s involvement in achieving gender

equality:

At the heart of the public debate since the seventies, the

topic of gender in the workplace and professional equality
between men and women is still today a priority for both
corporate sector and Public Authorities. […] Committed to
equal opportunities in the workplace for many years,
L'Oréal seeks guarantee diversity in functions that are
currently over-staffed by men or women (Marketing,
Industry), give equal treatment in terms of salary, training,
and facilitate access for women to positions of
responsibility (Diversities Overview Report, 2010, p. 10).

According to this document, the company’s gender equality goals include: (1)

increasing the number of women in managerial positions; (2) ensuring a gender balance

in hiring for positions where there is imbalance, such as marketing and industry; (3)

enabling equal access for women to positions of responsibility; and (4) reducing the

salary gap and employment opportunities between men and women (DOR, 2010). Gender

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equality appears to be accomplished by employing increasing numbers of women in

managerial positions and by creating equal conditions for women and men in the

workplace. This approach overlooks the fact that only a certain percentage of women are

formally employed by L'Oréal. There is a great deal of women (no exact number

available) who work for the company, but who are employed by suppliers and

subcontractors not bound by the company’s voluntary principles. Although L'Oréal’s

CSR program allegedly addresses its entire value chain, including its employees,

suppliers, and subcontractors, the company’s expectations and standards with regard to

gender equality do not necessarily apply to informal workers due to the voluntary nature

of these standards.

5.5.1 Increasing the number of women in management. I argue that the

abovementioned four goals inseparably belong together and formulate two jointly devised

workplace plans: namely, increasing the number of women in management positions that

most often are overstaffed by men and remunerating women and men with the same

salaries. Whereas this approach problematizes women, men are excluded from the

company’s dialogue. As a result, these four goals suggest that women need to “catch up”

with male norms and that limitations in doing so are their own (Debusscher, 2011).

Dealing with women in isolation is unlikely to transform gender relations that prevail in

L'Oréal.

This does not mean, however, that there is no need to increase the number of

women in corporate boards and in the top and middle management of companies. Some

scholars (Terjesen & Singh, 2008; Larrieta‐Rubín de Celis, Velasco‐Balmaseda,

Fernández de Bobadilla, Alonso‐Almeida, & Intxaurburu‐Clemente, 2015) argue that

127
female leaders have a positive impact on CSR because the more women are involved in

decision-making positions, the more developed the CSR implemented by the company

(Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al., 2015). Reasons for increasing the presence of women are

varied. Some scholars appear satisfied that inequalities in employment are simply unjust.

While nearly half of the total workforce is made up of women, the number of women in

higher decision making positions lags behind the number of men (Kirton and Greene,

2005). Another perspective presumes that an increased representation of women in

management positions will bring assets in terms of innovation, creativity, and problem-

solving abilities; however, these may not be assumed to be gender-specific. According to

Roddick (2000), women managers are effective social initiators and their biggest strength

is communication. They build alliances, bring people together, and, most importantly,

they develop intimate informal networks (Roddick, 2000). While there is a case to be

made about enhancing opportunities, Roddick’s position offers an essentialist view of

women that some feminists have opposed. Due to the social construction of allegedly

“feminine” qualities (i.e. humility, creativity, compassion, and understanding), a business

operation can improve its public image, build marketplace understanding, and enhance

customer satisfaction (Roddick, 2000; Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al., 2015).

There is also a moral and ethical approach, according to which gender equality

should be one of the companies’ responsibilities in terms of the well-being of their

employees and the larger, transnational communities for which these companies are

accountable and responsible (Thompson, 2008; Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al., 2015).

Unfortunately, none of the approaches with L'Oréal indicate that gender equality is

important because it is a matter of basic human rights. When it comes to evaluating the

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purpose of the company’s gender equality policy, the most persuasive argument is that it

will be profitable for the company.

5.5.2 The unbalanced gender representation of L’Oréal’s Board. According to

the Sustainable Development Report (2013), 45 per cent of L'Oréal’s management

committee members were women (SDR 2013). In this section, I analyse how this number

is understood, the significance of this proportion, and its implications for principles of

gender equality.

The Annual Financial Report (2013) elaborates the composition of the Board of

Directors and the Executive Committee members, the company’s two highest decision

making bodies. The members of the Board of Directors are non-executive Directors who

are primarily employed by independent companies. They are appointed by invitation of

the Board, based on their special expertise and professional experience (Burgess and

Tharenou, 2002; AFR, 2013). Contrarily, the Executive Committee consists of the

company’s senior employees who have been employed for a long period of time and

reached their positions as a result of their seniority at L'Oréal.

In 2013, the Board of Directors comprised 14 members: the Chairman and CEO

(Jean-Paul Agon), six Directors appointed by the majority shareholders, and seven

independent Directors. All Board members are white, four of them are women (28.6%),

and ten are men (71.4%). The four women are: Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the

granddaughter of L’Oréal’s founder (Eugéne Schueller); Christiane Kuehne, the Head of

the Food Strategic Business Unit at Nestlé; and two independent Directors, Virginie

Morgon and Annette Roux.

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 According to the Annual Financial Report (2013), the abovementioned ratio of

women and men in L'Oréal’s Board is in accordance with the “French Law of January

27th, 2011” (AFR, 2013). This legal regulation aims to improve the representation of

women on the corporate boards of individual businesses by requiring that the proportion

of board members of each sex cannot be lower than 20 per cent by 2014. This percentage

should reach 40 percent by 2017 (AFR, 2013). L'Oréal states that “the Board is doing

everything it can to appoint more female Directors” and, reinforcing the company’s

effort, envisages the appointment of Ms. Belén Garijo in 2014 (AFR 2013, p. 46). Apart

from the fact that increasing the number of women positions in decision-making

processes is a legal obligation with which the company has to comply, from the

documents it does not become clear why female directors are important and what

particular values they contribute to L'Oréal’s business success. Appointing female

directors based on their gender and not on their own merits is only a limited approach to

comply with the law. See my argument on tokenism and gender alibi below in this

chapter.

Reportedly, in 2014, in order to comply with the mandatory “French Law of

January 27th, 2011,” L'Oréal appointed six female (40%) and nine male Directors (60%),

resulting in an increase in the percentage of women on the Board. However, it is

important to note that the underlying “French Law of January 27th, 2011” has never

stated that women were to make up the 40 percent of the Board members and that men

would comprise the other 60 percent. It does state, however, that the members of each sex

could not be lower than 40 percent. This means that the Board would work lawfully even

if the female members made up 60 percent. As much as L'Oréal intends to comply with

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the regulation of the “French Law of January 27th, 2011,” it may not intend to exceed

minimum requirements. I consider this limited interpretation of the law evidence of the

deeply embedded and therefore invisible gender inequality at L'Oréal.

In 2013, L'Oréal’s Executive Committee consisted of 15 members, 12 men (80%)

and 3 women (20%), charged with the everyday operation of the business. The female

members were Brigitte Liberman24, Sara Ravella25, and An Verhulst-Santos26. While

female directors account for the operation of particular cosmetics divisions and

communication, the responsible positions of Administration and Finance, Research and

Innovation, Human Resources, and Advisor to the Chairman are concentrated in men’s

hands. The gender division of the Executive Committee members’ jobs indicates a

problematic organizational structure that segregates occupational power by gender. Some

jobs are considered as women’s jobs, or at least as jobs that are more appropriate for

women while others are considered men’s jobs. According to Trimble (2012), even

progressive companies that implement new and seemingly gender balanced work

structures can undermine women’s career advancement through a built-in nature of

gender bias that reinforces the stereotypical division of certain positions and occupations,

rather than diminishing the preponderance of gender specific jobs (2012). Zena Burgess

and Phyllis Tharenou, in “Women Board Directors: Characteristics of Few” (2002),

approach the same topic from a different viewpoint. They argue that women might be

appointed as Directors by the virtue of their excellent leadership skills, and they may also

24
Brigitte Liberman, President, Active Cosmetics Division
25
Sara Ravella, Executive Vice-President, Communication, Sustainability and Public Affairs
26
An Verhulst-Santos, President, Professional Products Division

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serve as tokens in a male dominated business culture (2002). The idea of tokenism has

been widely used to explain the situation of women who enter work defined as masculine

or socially inappropriate for women (Kanter, 1977). With an oversimplification, tokenism

can be referred to as a numeric skewedness of a work group (Kanter, 1977). The idea of

tokenism buttresses Prudence Woodford-Berger’s gender alibi theory (2007). Woodford-

Berger argues that simply increasing the number of women on the Board without

acknowledging the meaning or evaluating the outcomes of what a more balanced gender

representation may entail only refers to a superficial gender awareness of the company (as

cited in Edwardsson, 2012). Kilgour (2012) agrees, stating that simply mentioning

women or indicating that the company’s CSR policy has gender elements does not

necessarily prove adequate gender-awareness (p. 115). Thus, L'Oréal’s tendency to

increase the appointments of women in the highest levels of corporate decision-making

processes is important, but it is not enough to indicate that L'Oréal has an explicit

corporate policy about gender equality.

Companies tend to support the adequacy of their gender policies with quantitative

indicators that may be misleading when it comes to elaborating the quality of their gender

equality commitments and policies. L'Oréal’s reports often identify gender related issues

alongside with the recognition of the high proportion of women in male dominated

positions. This includes 15 per cent of women amongst Executive Committee members,

27.8 per cent of women amongst manager executive, and 55 per cent of women amongst

managers (DOR, 2010, p. 10). At the same time, company documents fail to explore how

company action plans are designed to better integrate women beyond promotional

advancement within management ranks.

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 A qualitative indicator in terms of the representation of women in L'Oréal’s

Executive Committee is the appointment of Sara Ravella and Alexandra Palt. Ravella is

the Executive Vice-President of Communication, Sustainability and Public Affairs while

Palt is the Director of CSR and Sustainability. The operation and decision-making power

regarding L'Oréal’s CSR policy are seemingly in women’s hands. According to the

findings of Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al. (2015), women’s presence in decision making

positions might lead to a positive effect on CSR ratings, reporting, and performance

(Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al., 2015). Catherine Daily and Dan Dalton, in “Women in the

Boardroom: A Business Imperative” (2003), argue that women managers often contribute

to the development of a more efficient CSR program due to their different perspectives,

skills, knowledge, and experience (2003). Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al. observe that in

companies where women are the heads of CSR departments, “woman-sensitive” company

policies and gender issues are pursued with more sensitivity (2015). As a result,

supporting female employees in particular and rolling out gender-sensitive philanthropic

initiations are more often among the goals of companies where the directors of CSR are

women. The veracity of this statement is proven by several examples in the operation of

L'Oréal. For instance, the Sustainable Development Report (2013) introduces corporate

actions that provide a 14-week long full-paid maternity leave for women employees,

lactation room for breastfeeding mothers at the Indonesian headquarter, and in-company

child care centres and kindergarten spaces in Germany (SDR, 2013, p. 32-34). These

corporate initiatives are indeed positive outcomes in terms of a greater awareness in

women’s issues; however, they affect only a few female employees who work as formal

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workers in facilities that provide these benefits. Again, informal workers are most likely

not affected by the advantages of these corporate programs.

After analysing the gender representation of corporate boards at L'Oréal, I argue

that there is a considerable amount of data missing from these documents. For instance, I

could not find separate data regarding the proportion of women in the top and middle

management levels. The proportion of 45 per cent of women in the Sustainable

Development Report (2013) refers to Management Committee members in general, but

the document does not specify the level of their operations (SDR, 2013). There is no clear

explanation of the gender division expectations of the “French Law of January 27th,

2011”with regard to the appointment of Executive Directors. Furthermore, none of the

documents specify the scope or duties of women directors or the proportion of their

voting rights on the Board. There is a general explanation that identifies some basic

features including professional experience, skills, and good knowledge of L'Oréal as

relevant criteria for appointments; however, the intrinsic reasons on why women are

appointed as Directors and the skills that women bring to these jobs remain unanalysed

(AFR, 2013, p. 46).

5.5.3 Further goals. In general, the gender equality policy of L'Oréal seeks to

reduce disadvantages that (mostly) women face and to bring female employees up to the

status of male workers. The company’s main gender equality goals, as I analysed above,

are determined in the Diversities Overview Report (2010). Bearing its main target

objectives in mind, L’Oréal assigns further goals to achieve gender equality, such as (1)

ensuring favourable terms of remuneration at the end of maternity or adoption leave; (2)

ensuring equal pay for men and women; and (3) providing access to the same training

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programs for women and men (DOR, 2010). It is important to note that L'Oréal’s Annual

Financial Report (2013), which includes the regulation in terms of the remuneration of

Directors and Executive Officers, contains no specific information about the strategies for

pay equity between and among women and men (AFR, 2013). The Diversities Overview

Report (2010) declares that L'Oréal has achieved its proposed goal with regard to the

improvement of professional gender equality within the company including the target of

equal pay, albeit the objectives to measure the success of this goal are arbitrary and

unknown.

I expected the Diversities Overview Report (2010) to be one of the most important

sources in terms of the goals of L'Oréal’s gender equality policy. The document indeed

provides the goals of this corporate policy and some measurable data on the progress

made on achieving gender equality between 2005 and 2009. However, owing to L'Oréal’s

predominant consideration of gender equality being about equal access (to responsible

positions), equal pay (for women and men), and equal opportunities (in career

advancement and professional development) in the workplace, these goals are necessarily

limited. They focus on the professional equality between men and women and put less

emphasis on equality issues outside the workplace (DOR, 2010). In the words of Ruth

Pearson (2007), a responsible corporate policy “[has] to go beyond a concern for women

(or men) who happen to be in the labour force of particular supply chains at particular

moments in time and space” (2007, p. 745). As a result, L'Oréal should promote and

ensure gender equality not only for its employees, suppliers, and subcontractors, but also

for a broader audience including its customers and members of the communities and

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environment in which the company thrives. This large-scale approach, however, remains

invisible in corporate documents.

The location of gender equality within the company’s diversity policy suggests it

is less important and a secondary priority to other CSR issues. According to Adrienne

Roberts (2015), diversity is a strategy for companies in a highly competitive business

world with the double bottom line of expanding the pool of talented workers and

increasing the company’s competitiveness and profitability (2015). Hiring more women,

under the banner of gender diversity and equality, helps companies to harness the

economic potential of women who happen to make up the majority of low-paid, less-

skilled, and part-time workers (Roberts, 2015). At this point, gender equality becomes an

instrumental goal, which is not important on its own, but is instead in the service of other

development goals such as economic growth, competitiveness, and employment creation.

Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, in Womenomics (2010), argue that companies that

increase the number of women who work part-time or flexible working hours improve

their own competitiveness and profitability (2010). According to Roddick, “[m]any

women need to work part-time because it is the only way to cope with their family needs

and responsibilities. And the moment, part-time jobs are, by their very nature, usually

lower skilled, poorly paid and unlikely to provide opportunities for promotion” (Roddick,

2000, p. 128). Does offering women part-time or flexible jobs necessarily lead to their

equality and empowerment?

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5. 6 L'Oréal’s Corporate Policies to Advance Women’s Empowerment

In this section, I analyse how L'Oréal adopts the language and discourse of

women’s empowerment in corporate documents, and constructs corporate policies related

to advance this corporate goal. The initial idea of women’s empowerment, which was

articulated by feminists in the 1980s and 1990s, meant to transform inequitable power

relations through offering opportunities to make strategic life choices for those

individuals (mostly women) who were previously deprived of such ability (Kabeer, 2001;

Cornwall and Rivas, 2015). The feminist concept was soon taken over by transnational

business corporations and the promise of transforming inequitable power relations has

become instrumental, individual, and neoliberal (Cornwall and Anyidoho, 2010; Connell,

2010).27 In the name of empowerment, MNCs aimed to include women in the global

South into their corporate agendas and to capitalize on their economic power, rather than

bring about structural changes to gender relations (Cornwall and Anyidoho, 2010).

Businesses became interested in supporting women’s empowerment movements through

which they gave increased access to women to economic opportunities and financial

services, such as micro-entrepreneurship and micro-credit (Calkin, 2015). According to

Cornwall and Rivas (2015), these tools are not enough to achieve equality because they

facilitate women’s position as efficient economic or market actors, rather than providing

women with agency to make strategic life choices (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015; Marchand,

2009).

27
Neoliberalism is a political program that aims market liberalization, deregulation, and privatization in the
name of global capitalism (Prügl and True, 2014).

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Table 5.4 The number of occurrences of the term “women’s empowerment” in L’Oréal’s
corporate documents

Corporate Document
Women’s Empowerment
(total pages)

Code of Ethics 2014

1
(40 pp.)

Diversities Overview Report 2010

N/A
(34 pp.)

The Annual Financial Report 2013

N/A
(288 pp.)

Sustainable Development Report 2013

1
(50 pp.)

Communication on Progress 2013

N/A
(36 pp.)

Environmental, Social and Governance

Reporting (G4 GRI) N/A
(237 pp.)

Total 2

My undertaking to explore L'Oréal’s women’s empowerment policy is

challenging because of the limited occurrence of explicit references to the term and the

topic in the corporate documents. One reference can be found in the Code of Ethics

(2014), albeit it is only a reference to the UN’s WEPs and has little to do with the

company’s empowerment policies:

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 We are committed to respecting and promoting Human
Rights, namely by reference to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights dated December 10, 1948, and the
United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights dated June 16, 2011. We have been a
signatory to the United Nations Global Compact since
2003 and we support the UN Women’s Empowerment
[italics added] Principles (COE, 2014, p. 8).

Thus, the Sustainable Development Report (2013), which explores the company’s

current social and environmental responsibility policies (CSR), is the only document that

refers to the idea of women’s empowerment at L'Oréal:

In 2013, L’Oréal conducted new experimentations of

inclusive business models. The first micro-distribution
project on the African continent took place in Ghana. The
programme was conducted as an experiment with the
support of Beautiful Soul, a social enterprise specialising
in women’s empowerment [italics added]. As a social
inclusion programme it was aiming to recruit, train and
empower women salons’ owners and beauty advisors from
underprivileged communities to promote Softsheen-
Carson products from wholesalers to end consumers
(SDR, 2013, p. 40).

The use of the term in this context is thought-provoking because L’Oréal, rather

than labelling its own micro-distribution project as it is empowering for women in the

Global South, refers only to another social enterprise, Beautiful Soul, that works for the

empowerment of women. Although L’Oréal links its activity to the idea of women’s

empowerment, corporate documents fail to establish articulated policies that aim to

promote and advance this goal.

The keyword search method, in this case, did not help me to locate the women’s

empowerment discussion in the corporate documents. After close-reading each document

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and analysing the latent content, however, I was able to identify some corporate programs

that, albeit implicitly, aim to empower women. These initiatives are discussed in the

Sustainable Development Report (2013), in the chapter, “Developing Sustainably” (SDR,

2013, p. 30-45). These programs are Share and Care; Buy and Care; Micro-Distribution;

Solidarity Sourcing; For Women in Science; Beauty for a Better Life; Beauty from the

Heart; and Hairdressers against AIDS. The placement of the discourse suggests that

women’s empowerment is considered within the company’s economic development

where women and girls are measured through their economic efficiency such that their

empowerment is a development strategy (McMayhurst, 2011).

In the following section, I analyse the most relevant corporate programs with the

specific goal of advancing the economic and social status of women. I correlated these

particular corporate initiatives with women’s empowerment because their objectives are

in accordance with the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles.

5.6.1 L’Oréal’s Share and Care. The company’s latest CSR strategy, the

“Sharing Beauty with All” program, identifies projects that most likely pertain to

women’s empowerment (SDR, 2013). The development initiatives within this program

propose several mostly welfare and social protection programs for the company’s

employees, suppliers, and community members who are independent from the company,

but who are nevertheless affected by its operations. These projects, Share and Care and

Social Inclusion, offer empowerment through micro-distribution, solidarity sourcing, and

beauty professionalization (SDR, 2013).

L'Oréal’s Share and Care social employee benefit program was launched in 2013

to set a social model that ensures the protection and welfare of all L'Oréal (formal)

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employees (SDR, 2013). This aim is in accordance with the third UN WEPs that requires

responsible businesses to “ensure the health, safety, and well-being of all women and men

workers” (UN WEPs, 2010). The program sets out basic social standards expected to be

the bottom line for all subsidiaries of L'Oréal globally. Despite intentions to include all

workers in the company, the program turned out to offer assistance for women balancing

between their paid job and their domestic responsibilities. The Share and Care program

provides basic solutions for issues that are related particularly to the social well-being of

its female employees. Even though specific services were designed and available to

employees, statistics indicate that 84 percent of the employees who already took

advantages of the opportunities offered by these programs were women (SDR, 2013; p.

34).

Paradoxically, while predominantly women benefited from the services of the

Share and Care program, which conclusion is supported by L'Oréal’s own statistics, men

developed and introduced these social programs, explained their importance, and

evaluated the outcomes. These businessmen are Bertrand de Senneville, the Global Vice

President of HR-Social Relations; Nicholas Pauthiner, HR Director for L'Oréal Germany;

and Helmut Schwarzer, on behalf of the International Labour Organization (SDR, 2013).

The gendered nature of the Share and Care program, which was originally created to

ensure a greater balance between work and home, is problematic because mostly men are

in decision-making positions while it is women who are the programs’ beneficiaries. This

division supports the idea that as well as labour markets, L'Oréal is also a gendered

institution. As a result, both gender equality and women’s empowerment remain

marginalized throughout the evaluation of the employee benefit program.

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 5.6.2 Social inclusion projects. Further significant indicators of the existence of

L'Oréal’s women’s empowerment mandate are the development projects under the

umbrella of “Social Inclusion” (SDR, 2013). This complex program package together

aim to promote access to paid employment for 100,000 people from underprivileged

communities through development initiatives. The “Social Inclusion” programs include

projects such as micro-distribution, solidarity sourcing, and beauty professionalization.

The Micro-Distribution Project is designed for women in Mexico and Ghana to

work as micro-entrepreneurs and distributors of L'Oréal products (SDR, 2013). The

program facilitates women, from socially and economically disadvantaged communities,

to earn income through self-employment. This measure is in accordance with the sixth

Women’s Empowerment Principle that direct companies to implement enterprise

development that empower women (UN WEPs, 2010). The program enables women to

make a living, offering economic opportunities for them. Feminist scholar Marianne

Marchand (2009) argues that neither the micro-credit nor the social welfare programs

truly help women. Contrarily, they instrumentalize female workers in order to meet

higher development objectives (Marchand, 2009). These programs make women work for

development, rather than make development work for women’s equality and

empowerment (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015). According to Lyndsay McHayhurst (2011),

multinational corporations use entrepreneurship to leverage an unstable global economy.

McHayhurst adds that involving authentic “grassroots entrepreneurs” in developing

countries is a cost-effective market expansion strategy for corporations (2011).

Multinational companies are able to increase their sales by reaching 4 billion “customers”

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across two-thirds of the world with the help of hard-working female entrepreneurs

(McHayhurst, 2011).

Feminists often criticize MNCs based on the objects of their development

programs. Patricia McFadden argues that the object of development discourses of

women’s empowerment are almost always women of colour who are economically

excluded and politically marginalized (cited in Cornwall and Anyidoho, 2010). Rosalind

Petchesky adds that in the United States the iconic image of the empowered women is a

black or brown member of a self-help group for rural women with low incomes (cited in

Cornwall and Anyidoho, 2010). I found this pattern recurring in L'Oréal’s projects that

predominantly address individual female entrepreneurs in the global South by providing

self-employment opportunities in Mexico, Ghana, and Nicaragua.

As per the second project created on behalf of social inclusion, the Solidarity

Sourcing program seeks to support suppliers of plant-based raw materials through

responsible purchasing strategies (SDR, 2013). According to the textual content of the

two development programs, workers and suppliers who are beneficiaries of these

programs live in the global South including Mexico, Ghana, Nicaragua, and South Africa,

with the majority of them women. In the framework of these programs, women are hired

and trained in order to enter the labour market and earn a wage (SDR, 2013). As a result,

50 female micro-entrepreneurs in Mexico, 20 in Ghana, and 20,000 women of the total

22,000 suppliers participated in these programs. L'Oréal’s Micro-Distribution Program is

in line with the requirements of the fifth UN WEPs that requires businesses to implement

enterprise development and supply chain and marketing practices for women with the

specific goals of expanding business relationships with women-owned enterprises,

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including small businesses and women entrepreneurs. The Solidarity Sourcing program

advocates for gender equality and women’s empowerment, collaborating with suppliers to

meet the requirement of the sixth UN WEP (2010).

For feminists, L'Oréal’s abovementioned measures to improve the lives of

Mexican, Ghanaian, and Nicaraguan women are problematic. The operation and intention

of L'Oréal, which is headquartered in the global North and designs, executes, and

implements corporate sponsored development initiatives in the global South, must be

scrutinized through the colonial and postcolonial contexts in which they operate

(McHayhurst, 2011).

Based on this approach, the French L'Oréal embodies the First World power that

aims to “help” Third World people. In fact, people and economies in the countries of the

global South are unlikely to “catch up” with the development of countries of the global

North because this equalization is simply not in the corporations’ best interests. Keeping

prices low, which is one of the main priorities for companies and their consumers in the

North, is maintained by lowering the salaries of workers in the South. According to

Sydney Calkin (2015), this is the point where the ideas of gender equality and women’s

empowerment become incompatible with the economic growth and profit accumulation

of MNCs. The economic success of MNCs rely on the exploitation of labour, in particular

gendered labour, despite their well-articulated gender-sensitive CSR policies (Calkin,

2015). In fact, the countries in the South are considered untapped markets for businesses

in the North. In creating employment for women in the South, L’Oréal expands its

market, and, at the same time, uses female producers, employees, and consumers to win

“the loyalty of a billion new consumers by 2020” (Cornwall and Rivas, 2015; SDR, 2013;

144
p. 3). L'Oréal invests in women because, while it provides paid employment for women,

it also boosts its own reputation, profitability, and competitiveness.

5.7 CSR or Philanthropy?

MNCs have become interested in creating and implementing international

development initiatives in order to demonstrate their socially responsible behaviour and

to gain social license to operate through these programs. However, whether these

initiatives are parts of the company’s CSR policies or its philanthropic activities is often

(deliberately) unclear. In this section, I will clarify a common confusion that often occurs

with regard to the differences between companies’ CSR and philanthropy programs.

According to Lyndsay McHayhurst (2011), both CSR and philanthropy are engaged in

global companies’ social activities, but they are distinct from one another. While CSR

initiatives always have financial or material benefits, philanthropic programs such as

donations and activism (should) lack any financial reward for the donor (McHayhurst,

2011). Considering L'Oréal, the line between the company’s CSR initiatives (i.e. Share

and Care; Buy and Care; Micro-Distribution; and, Solidarity Sourcing) and

philanthropic programs (i.e. For Women in Science; Beauty for a Better Life; Beauty from

the Heart; and, Hairdressers against AIDS) is obliterated and inextricable because all of

these programs are potentially financially lucrative for the company.

In 2007, L'Oréal established the non-profit L'Oréal Foundation as a vehicle for the

distribution of the company’s charitable activities. The L'Oréal Foundation has been

developing global philanthropic projects particularly in the fields of science and beauty

(AFR, 2013). L'Oréal’s philanthropic activities seek to align the major themes of science

145
and beauty under the For Women in Science and Beauty for a Better Life initiatives (SDR,

2013). In 1998, the project For Women in Science was launched, mutually with

UNESCO, as a result of the recognition of the need to increase the number of women in

the field of science where women remain underrepresented. According to the official

website of the For Women in Science program, only 30 per cent of all scientific

researchers are women ([Link]/en, n.d.). Guided by the principle of “the world

needs science and science needs [more] women,” L'Oréal rewards five female scientific

researchers with excellence awards annually. One is awarded from each continent

([Link]/en, n.d.). The award includes professional recognition and significant

financial support, and, according to the statistics presented in the Annual Financial

Report (2013), it targets women scientists in 196 countries.

L’Oréal’s other philanthropic project, Beauty for a Better Life, assists people

whose appearance is disfigured by life events including cancer, anorexia, and/or poverty.

L’Oréal offers complimentary reconstructive surgery and aesthetic consultancy, as well as

free training for beauty professionals. While For Women in Science explicitly targets

women, the priority of other programs is to support vulnerable people in social and

economic need. Even though there is no data available regarding the number of women

who benefit from this particular program, the Annual Financial Report (2013) announces

that the beneficiaries of Beauty for a Better Life are mostly women in approximately 20

countries from Latin-America to Asia and from Europe to the Middle East (AFR, 2013).

Interestingly, the company’s philanthropic projects, outlined in the Annual

Financial Report (2013), are complemented by two further campaigns unmentioned in the

Sustainable Development Report (2013). One of these programs is Beauty from the Heart,

146
which aims to help people whose appearance is damaged by illness or “precarious living

conditions” (AFR, 2013, p. 223). The geographical location of this project is not

specified. Another joint program with UNESCO is Hairdressers Against AIDS, which

provides training about AIDS and HIV for hairdressers around the world (AFR, 2013).

The project is running in close to 40 countries, but the names of these countries are not

specified (AFR, 2013).

Critical scholars including Calkin (2015) argue that multinational companies’

philanthropic campaigns have the potential to deflect attention away from the

shortcomings of specific CSR policies and objectives, including gender equality and

women’s empowerment goals and commitments (2015). Although these programs are

supposed to remain outside of the company’s commercial interests, in fact, they

contribute to building the brand image of an ethical company. Whereas the non-profit

L'Oréal Foundation shares the name of the company, there is relatively little that

distinguishes these two entities (Calkin, 2015). Briefly, L'Oréal (for-profit) takes

advantage of the causes that L'Oréal Foundation (not-for-profit) supports by encouraging

consumers to use “the power of consumerism” (Calkin, 2015, p. 162). This so-called

“cause-related marketing” strategy aims to provide community benefit with increased

sales by mostly white women consumers in the West who seek to support socially

attractive causes, often in the South, with their purchases (Doane, 2004; McHayhurst,

2011). Although it may be well intended, it also risks paternalism. CSR objectives and

philanthropic projects work together to bolster popular development issues, such as

promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, as part of its profit-driven brand

identity. By means of well-articulated corporate initiatives, both CSR and philanthropy

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initiatives, such as Share and Care, Solidarity Sourcing, and For Women in Science,

L'Oréal has the ability to develop social commitments and change its brand reputation in

order to tap into new consumer markets (Calkin, 2015).

5.8 The Implementation of the Gender Equality Mandate of UN Initiatives

In this section, I analyse how L’Oréal implements the gender equality mandate of

two UN initiatives, the UNGC and the UN WEPs, because these key initiatives create

globally accepted ethics and moral standards, promoting gender equality and women’s

empowerment. L'Oréal has been a signatory of the UNGC since 2003 and considered a

supporter of the UN WEPs since 2010. Whereas the UNGC’s gender equality mandate

can only be derived from external, universally accepted international instruments, gender

equality is an explicit idea of the UN WEPs.

5.8.1 Implementing the gender equality mandate of the UNGC. To date, the

UNGC is considered the best available initiative to advance the CSR policies of the

signatory companies based on its shared values and moral norms. Despite the lack of an

explicit gender equality mandate, the Compact is considered to play a significant role in

the improvement of gender equality as it encourages businesses to make gender equality a

visible goal and brings companies and other public and private actors together to forge a

consensus about ethical values, moral norms, and human rights issues. These principles

make today’s business practices appear sustainable.

As an advanced level signatory of the UNGC, L’Oréal is required to formulate the

Communication on Progress (COP) and the Environmental, Social, and Governance

Reporting (GRI Report) documents annually, in order to report transparently to

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stakeholders about the company’s continuing support of the UNGC and broader UN goals

and concrete actions towards sustainable development, including gender equality.

L'Oréal’s COP (2013) document contains six references to gender equality (See Table

5.4). The document details the company’s gender equality objectives under the sections of

“Robust Labour Management Policies and Procedures” (COP, 2013, p. 15-19) and

“Taking Action in Support of Broader UN Goals and Issues” (COP, 2013, p. 30-33). The

first mention of gender equality is on page 15 within the company’s commitments,

strategies, and policies in the area of labour, stating that “In 2013, L’Oréal audited 16 of

its subsidiaries [out of more than 70!] in terms of gender equality that covered key aspects

of the HR [human resources] policy such as training, compensation, or promotion” (COP,

2013, p. 16). The next gender equality reference can be found on page 16, which

describes “Gender Equality Audits” as effective management systems to integrate the

labour principles. “Gender Equality Audits” are considered tools of risk and impact

assessments in the area of labour (COP, 2013, p. 16). It is worth to note that all

information in L’Oréal’s COP (2013) document is compiled from the Annual Report

(2013), the Sustainable Development Report (2013), the GRI Report (2013), the L’Oréal

Fondation d’Entreprise Activity Report (2013), and the corporate website. Due to its

summary nature, this document reiterates the shortcomings I detailed previously in terms

of the company’s approach towards gender equality. For example, the COP (2013)

document deals with gender equality issues within workplace issues, according to the

content of the documents it derives from.

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 Three mentions (out of six in total) of gender equality are found in the same

paragraph, under the section on L’Oréal’s advocacy and public policy engagement that

aim to support broader UN goals and issues:

L’Oréal has pro-actively promoted women empowerment

and advancement within the private and public sector,
namely by helping create a women leadership program
called EVE, and, at European Level, participating in the
creation of the Gender Equality European Standard
(GEES) that allows to set a benchmark in terms of Gender
Equality. L’Oréal also proactively supports and promotes
the Economic Dividend for Gender Equality (EDGE) and
7 key subsidiaries are currently undergoing the audits
(COP, 2013, p. 32).

As a result of the placement of gender equality issues, as well as the context in

which they are discussed, I argue that L'Oréal reduces gender equality to a key aspect of

human resources issues, focusing on three priorities: (1) equal opportunities for training;

(2) equal opportunities in career development; and (3) equal pay for women and men

(COP, 2013). However, when it comes to exemplifying the company’s “Robust

Commitments, Strategies, and Policies in the Area of Human Rights” gender equality is

not present (COP, 2013, p. 9). Neither women’s rights nor gender equality is overtly part

of the human rights discourse (COP, 2013).

The second corporate document I analysed to understand the implementation of

the gender equality mandate of the UN initiatives is L’Oréal’s Environmental, Social, and

Governance Reporting, According to the G4 GRI Guidelines (2013) (GRI Report). The

UNGC suggests signatory companies to use the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI)

Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. The GRI Guidelines serve as standard indicators to

measure and compare qualitative data included in the company’s annual COP report.

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L'Oréal’s GRI Report (2013) is a voluminous and elaborate document that summarizes

relevant information collected from the other five corporate documents. As a result, the

GRI Report (2013), similar to the Communication on Progress (2013) document,

combines the content and reiterates the pattern of the rest of L’Oréal’s corporate

documents, discussing gender equality issues within the formal workplace and treating

them as a matter of labour issues.

I argue that L'Oréal makes efforts to implement the implicit gender equality

mandate of the UNGC. The company aims to comply with the principles, as well as the

reporting GRI Guidelines. It reports its progress on the ten principles of the UNGC,

creates the Communication on Progress document annually, and is willing to build these

principles into its business strategies and operations. The commitment to gender equality,

however, never goes beyond a level of minimum compliance. The gender-blindness of the

UNGC’s ten principles is clearly reflected in L'Oréal’s gender equality policies.

5.8.2 Implementing the UN WEPs’ gender equality mandate. In this section, I

show, through some examples, how L'Oréal implements the gender equality mandate of

the UN WEPs, incorporating the principles and recommendations into its corporate

policies. According to the Code of Ethics (2014), L'Oréal considers itself to be committed

to support the UN WEPs, which indicates the company’s commitment to promote gender

equality: “We [L'Oréal] have been a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact

since 2003 and we support the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles” (Code of Ethics,

2014, p. 8). Interestingly, while the company is an advanced level participant in the

UNGC, it has not signed the CEO Statement of Support for the UN WEPs. Even if it is a

formal and non-binding act, by signing the CEO Statement, the highest executive of the

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company signifies the company’s “intention to integrate and implement the WEPs from

the board room, to the workplace, along the supply chain to the community” (UN WEPs

booklet, 2011, p. 13). If L'Oréal is truly committed to gender equality and women’s

empowerment and considers the UN principles as the guide for creating and changing the

company’s gender equality policy, as the corporate documents state, why, then, did it not

take this formal move? I can only speculate the answer. It might be the case that it

requires additional corporate commitments or additional corporate reporting. It might be

that the company has already implemented many of these principles, or that L'Oréal’s

needed reputation and status are already secured without making further commitments. If

the answers are this simple, then why do other companies choose to sign formally onto

the UN WEPs?

The UN WEPs booklet, which outlines the purpose, vision, and the mission of the

seven principles, provides participants with a clear framework and approach to achieve

the common goals of gender equality. Because of space constraints, I have selected two

relevant principles, Principle 1 and Principle 2, to explore whether corporate policies are

truly guided by the UN WEPs and recommendations, or whether L'Oréal interprets these

principles and recommendations in a wider sense at its own discretion.

[Link] Principle 1. Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender

equality. To fulfil this particular obligation of the supporter entity, the UN WEPs booklet

outlines potential measures such as (1) affirming high-level support and direct top-level

policies for gender equality; (2) establishing company-wide goals and targets for gender

equality; (3) engaging internal and external stakeholders in the development of company

policies, programs, and implementation plans that advance equality; and, finally, (4)

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ensuring that all policies are gender-sensitive – identifying factors that impact women and

men differently – and incorporate cultural advances in equality and inclusion (UN WEPs

booklet, 2011).

Based on the content analysis I conducted on L’Oréal’s gender equality policies, I

argue that L'Oréal affirms high-level support for gender equality by reporting annually to

the UNGC. However, I could not find “direct top level policies” for gender equality

among its corporate policies. Even if the company has established company-wide goals

and targets for gender equality, gender equality is not mainstreamed in all corporate

policies at all levels as it is required by the first UN WEP (UN WEPs leaflet, 2011, p. 4).

I found the following evidence in the Sustainable Development Report (2013) that

shows how L'Oréal engages internal and external stakeholders in the development of the

company’s main CSR policy and programs:

L’Oréal held stakeholder forums around the world to

promote dialogue at the local level on both local and
global issues. In their respective countries, these forums
were the opportunity to address a broad spectrum of topics
from environmental issues, diversity and animal testing to
product safety and women’s rights (SDR, 2013, p. 8).

Interestingly, however, the company documents did not refer to any collaboration

between L'Oréal and women’s and/or feminist organizations regarding the

implementation plans that would presumably advance equality.

With regard to the fourth recommendation of Principle 1, I argue that L'Oréal’s

corporate policies are articulated in a gender-neutral rather than in a gender-sensitive

way. The corporate leadership promotes professional gender equality rather than gender

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equality in general and, as a result, the corporate culture has little role in advancing

equality and inclusion (UN WEPs leaflet, 2011).

[Link] Principle 2. Treat all women and men fairly at work – respecting and

supporting human rights and non-discrimination. The focus of this principle embraces

the ideas of equal opportunity, inclusion and non-discrimination. Recommendations by

the UN WEPs booklet within these frameworks are the following: (1) equal remuneration

for work of equal value for all women and men; (2) workplace policies and practices that

are free from gender-based discrimination; (3) proactive recruitment of women to

managerial and executive positions; (4) sufficient participation of women – 30 per cent or

greater – in decision-making and governance roles; (5) flexible work options as well as

leave and re-entry opportunities to positions of equal pay and status; and (6) access to

child and dependent care to both women and men (UN WEPs booklet, 2011).

Regarding equal remuneration, L'Oréal’s Diversities Overview Report (2010)

outlines the company’s commitment to the reduction of the salary gap between women

and men when identified. In addition, the company’s GRI Report (2013) provides relevant

company statistics to support the success of this commitment, such as the ratio of the

average gross monthly salary of permanent employees for both men and women (GRI

Report, 2013, Labour Practices and Decent Work).

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Table 5.5 Average monthly gross earnings (in Euro) of women and men at L’Oréal SA, France

% change in average
2012 2013
wages

Men Women Men Women Men Women

Executives 6,453 5,418 6,760 5,720 4.8% 5.6%

Sup. And
3,197 3,149 3,321 3,283 3.9% 4.3%
Tech.
Administrative
2,386 2,287 2,484 2,382 4.1% 4.2%
staff
Manual
2,712 2,601 2,820 2,726 4.0% 4.8%
workers
Sales
4,291 3,804 4,416 3,944 2.9% 3.2%
representatives

It is worth noting that the table above, which is an excerpt of L'Oréal’s GRI

Report (2013), exhibits data only on permanent employees, who worked two consecutive

years at the French parent company, L’Oréal SA, excluding senior management

(directors). The GRI Report (2013) does not reveal any information with regard to the

average gross salary and remuneration of workers (women and men) who are employed

by the subsidiaries of the parent company. Also, it did not identify the exact number of

employees in these occupations at L’Oréal SA in 2013. As a result, I cannot conclude

whether this information is relevant for the entire L’Oréal Group or whether it is only an

irregular example. Based on the figures disclosed in Table 5.5, however, I argue that there

is no category where women are paid the same as men; even when differences are slight,

they still persist (GRI Report, 2013, Labour practices and decent work). Also, it seems

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reasonable to presume that women’s average salaries have increased at a slightly higher

rate than men’s because women’s salaries begin further behind than men’s salaries.

Although it seems clear that, in 2012 and 2013, women consistently earned less than their

male counterparts, that company’s compliance to Principle 2 regarding the equal

remuneration for work of equal value for all women and men cannot be reliably assessed

due to the incomplete information provided in the documents.

As gender-based discrimination falls behind the scope of the interest of this

research, I choose to eliminate this issue from my analysis. By doing so, I recognize that I

may not include a broad conceptualization of gender equality in this thesis. Regarding the

recommendations that require workplace policies and practices that are free from gender-

based discrimination, I can only assume L'Oréal’s compliance since the Code of Ethics

(2014) prohibits against all forms of discrimination, particularly within the fields of

recruitment, training, promotion, continued employment, and working conditions.

Regarding the proactive recruitment and sufficient participation of women in

decision-making positions that are requirements of Principle 2, I previously discussed that

the company is focused on hiring increasing numbers of women at the managerial level

and appointing 40 per cent women to the Board of Directors by 2017 as it is required by

the “French Law” (DOR, 2010; AFR, 2013). One of the goals of the company’s gender

equality policy, stated explicitly in the Diversities Overview Report (2010), is to increase

the number of women in management and access for women to positions of

responsibility. See my argument above in this chapter.

Concluding the evidence of the implementation of the UN’s gender equality

mandate, I argue that, in a generalized sense, L'Oréal does comply with the non-

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regulatory expectations of the UNGC and the UN WEPs. The company takes efforts to

implement the principles and recommendations into its business strategy and operation;

however, it is inextricable and difficult to trace the concrete steps. Each of the six

corporate documents contain either the company policy, the company’s targets, the

concrete actions, or measurable data with regard to a particular principle. However, this

information is rarely included in the same documents, making adherence difficult to find

and verify. A tenacious reader or researcher might succeed in obtaining the complex

information, but the link between them is tightly entangled. For example, L'Oréal

launched the Micro-Distribution project in order to support the social inclusion of

marginalized people. Although the social inclusion of women is one of the objectives of

the sixth WEP, L'Oréal’s particular action does not explicitly refer to this principle.

In my view, L'Oréal’s gender equality and women’s empowerment policies are

well informed by the principles of the UNGC and the UN WEPs. However, due to the

disclosure of the business case for gender equality and women’s empowerment in public,

this commitment cannot be readily verified. The company began to overtly address the

issues of gender equality in the workplace in 2005 when the first Diversities Overview

Report was initiated. Since then, gender equality has been evident in corporate policy.

However, the concept of gender and the situatedness of gender equality as a matter of

workplace issues may have changed in the last decade.

I can only assume that L'Oréal’s corporate reports rely on candid, accurate, and

meaningful information. However, whereas they are not required to be certified or

audited, there is little possibility to authenticate their accuracy and objectivity (Williams,

2014). Neither the UNGC nor the UN WEPs monitor whether the company reports

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contain true information. According to George Kell, the then Executive Director of the

UNGC Office, the Compact is not designed as a legally binding code (hard law); rather,

“it is a means to serve as a frame of reference to stimulate best practices and to bring

about convergence around universally shared values” (soft law) (Kell and Ruggie, 1999,

p. 11). Soft-law can never become hard-law because this would be opposed to the

UNGC’s self-understanding.

According to several critics such as Prakash Sethi and Donald Schepers (2014),

the result of the lack of formal monitoring and enforcement mechanisms is that

companies take only as many actions as they intend to implement the principles into their

business strategies and operation while benefiting from the prestige and reputational

enhancement that is associated with joining the UNGC.

The proper research question, then, is not if L'Oréal complies with the UNGC’s

ten principles and the Women’s Empowerment Principles, but instead: Is simply joining

the UNGC (and the UN WEPs) and implementing their principles into CSR strategies

enough to ensure the adoption of feminist ideals and concepts of gender equality? The

answer to this question, unfortunately, is no. L'Oréal can be an exemplary member of the

UNGC with a corporate policy that overlooks feminist ideals of gender equality and

women’s empowerment. This, in fact, is far from being effective in bringing about

transformation and structural change in favour of greater equality.

I further argue that joining the UNGC is not the only means to achieve gender

equality. The Compact serves as a compass on a long and laborious road. Due to its

inherent deficiencies, which I explored in Chapter 4, the UNGC is far from being perfect.

Businesses have to dig deeper to theorize gender and gender equality in more complex

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ways, using insight from feminist organizations such as insights about the fluidity of

sexual categories and the intersectionality of identities. These insights could make

corporate policies more effective.

5.9 Conclusion on L'Oréal’s CSR policies

Concluding the findings of this chapter, focusing on all five research questions, I

argue that L’Oréal applies a rigid concept of gender that consists exclusively of women

and men where there is no place for binary breaches. Regarding the roles and

characteristics of women and men, the company recognizes the realm of family, including

parental care of children and elderly parents, as women’s issues, while business and

financial responsibilities are deemed to belong to men. The company needs to reconsider

the foundations of its approach towards gender, providing clearer definitions and applying

language and visual images that include a wider range of people whose identities do not

fit into the artificially created categories of white women and men.

L'Oréal’s CSR policies, in general, contain clearly identifiable commitments to

sustainable development and social and environmental protection, as well as explicitly

address social issues, such as gender equality and women’s empowerment. The company

integrates the idea of gender equality into certain business strategies and its corporate

philanthropy efforts, but fails to integrate them into the main CSR strategy and everyday

operations. L’Oréal tends to overlook gender equality as a matter of basic human rights

and subsumes it within the category of workforce diversity. When it comes to evaluating

L'Oréal’s gender equality policy, the centrality of women is prominent. Women are

regarded as “vessels” of inequalities, and problematically, the “solution-holders” as well

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(Debusscher, 2011). As gender equality issues are confined to the workplace, they are

considered personnel issues for individual (mostly female) employees. The wider gender

impact of the company on marketplaces, communities, and environments is not specified

in any of the CSR reporting guidelines (Grosser and Moon, 2005a).

The focus of L’Oréal’s gender equality policies is limited to regulations

concerning equal pay, equal opportunity, and diversity of female workers at the company.

Summarizing the information disclosed in corporate documents, the gender equality goals

are as follows: equal pay for women and men (DOR, 2010); equal opportunities for career

development, namely increasing the number of women in management and access for

women to positions of responsibility (DOR, 2010); equal access to the same training

programs for both women and men (DOR, 2010); and the elimination of gender-based

discrimination (COE 2014, COP 2013) as part of the company’s diversity program.

The company’s women’s empowerment policies are framed in relation to

education, health and safety, and employment and as part of the company’s philanthropic

activities. Under the banner of empowerment, L'Oréal provides economic opportunities to

help integrate women into the paid labour force. As a result, women are not only the

recipients of the company’s development programs, but, as active participants, they

become responsible for their own empowerment (McHayhurst, 2011). This kind of

empowerment means that it is the right of individuals to participate in the market as

producers and consumers, but overlooks collective forms and benefits of empowerment

(Roberts, 2015). L'Oréal arbitrarily fills the concept of empowerment with its own

meanings and uses it to serve the company’s own interests and profits.

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 In a generalized sense, L'Oréal does comply with the non-regulatory expectations

of the UNGC and the UN WEPs. The company takes efforts to implement the principles

and recommendations into its business strategy and operation; however, the reason and

evidence of concrete steps is inextricable and difficult to trace.

In the following chapter, “Conclusions: Rethinking L'Oréal’s Gender Equality and

Women’s Empowerment Policies,” I conclude the results of this Master’s thesis by

providing a summary analysis including the positive and negative aspects of my findings,

as well as its limitations and possible contributions to the existing feminist literature.

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 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS:

RETHINKING L’ORÉAL’S GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S

EMPOWERMENT POLICIES

“The business world is dynamic, but it’s not a black and white world with perfect ethical

companies at one end and old-fashioned shareholder capitalists at the other”

(Anita Roddick, 2000, p. 62).

This chapter concludes this Master’s thesis by providing a brief summary of the

methods, the theoretical frameworks, and the analysis, including the positive and negative

aspects of the findings. It also provides ideas about the limitations and the possible

contributions of this research to the existing feminist literature, as well as some

suggestions for future research.

This thesis is a case study examination of the gender equality and women’s

empowerment policies of L'Oréal conducted in the context of corporate social

responsibility (CSR) from a feminist perspective. It focused on investigating L’Oréal’s

understanding of gender; identifying the issues and the goals of the company’s policies

related to gender equality; the examination of corporate policies that intended to promote

and advance women’s empowerment; and, finally, providing evidence regarding

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L’Oréal’s efforts to implement the gender equality mandate of the UNGC’s Ten

Principles and the UN WEPs. An aim of this study was to demonstrate the extent to

which a global company, whose success is measured primarily by profit, can be aware of

and address social issues such as gender equality and women’s empowerment.

I argue that CSR is generally critiqued as being a discursive mask for corporate

profit-making activities, especially by large MNCs. Due to business drivers, such as

development and profit, corporate documents cannot be taken at face value as reflecting

actual organizational policies. What a corporation such as L'Oréal says about itself may

be limited and not necessarily reliable. Based on the results of this my review of L'Oréal’

corporate documents, I conclude that in spite of its limitations, the current approach of the

company towards gender equality and women’s empowerment is promising. Furthermore,

I believe that L'Oréal, as well as other MNCs, has the power to make changes to the lives

of millions of women (and men) in a positive way as well as the potential to bring

transformation and structural change in favour of greater equality.

6.1 The Business Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

To conduct the analysis, I used qualitative research methods with the aim of

developing a case study on L'Oréal. In doing so, I analysed the textual and visual content

in six select L’Oréal corporate documents. I also specifically analysed how the gender

equality mandate of the United Nations’ initiatives is transferred into practice at L’Oréal.

The “Introduction” outlined the reasons for this research, including the research

aims and the rationale for selecting L'Oréal as the subject area. It also justified the use of

the select six corporate documents as relevant empirical sources. It further explored the

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history of L'Oréal in light of the socio-cultural context of the trajectory of the beauty

industry and the development of L'Oréal’s business practices, including the increasingly

important concept of CSR. In the “Introduction,” I provided some personal background

information and a brief summary of the thesis framework.

Chapter 2, “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Review of Feminist

Literature and Discussion of Feminist Theory,” discussed key analytic terms such as

gender, gender equality, and women’s empowerment. The definition of these terms was

followed by a review of relevant feminist scholarly articles that assisted me in developing

ideas about the feminist concepts and ideals of gender equality. In this chapter, I also

outlined some feminist works that helped me to understand the complexities of gender

equality. Furthermore, I identified feminist ideas I adopted during my analysis, including,

but not limited to, transnational feminism, transnational business feminism,

intersectionality, and diversity and difference feminism. Chapter 2 further explored a

discussion of feminist theory, locating this research within the existing feminist scholarly

literature, and traced business ideas about the complexities of gender equality and its

treatment within the CSR discourse.

Chapter 3, “Research Methods and Methodology,” explored the qualitative, case

study research approach I utilized in this research to critically examine the corporate

policies of L’Oréal. This chapter elaborated the strengths and weaknesses of textual and

visual content analyses, data collection, and the case study design. In this chapter, I

addressed the difficulties I faced to obtain the copyright holder L'Oréal’s permission to

use the corporate images. I also discussed the limitations of corporate documents as a data

source and the limitations of the written language.

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 Chapter 4, “An Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility and the United

Nations’ CSR Initiatives,” outlined the history of CSR and explored ideas that shaped the

current CSR literature. I critiqued the business concept of corporate social responsibility

and discussed the UN’s CSR agenda in general. I also detailed feminist critiques of CSR

and feminist concepts, as well as the ideals of gender equality and women’s

empowerment utilized to critically assess the gender equality agenda of two UN

initiatives, the UNGC and UN WEPs. Eventually, I drew the conclusion that there is a

palpable tension between the business adoption of the concept CSR and feminist critiques

of CSR.

A detailed analysis of L’Oréal’s corporate reports was presented in Chapter 5,

“Results: A Critique of L'Oréal’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

Policies.” Strikingly, the findings of my research revealed a more limited understanding

of gender and the approach to issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment than

I expected. The following are among the thesis’ most significant findings:

(1) L'Oréal’s perception of the concept of gender is rigid because it is limited to a

women/men binary, and the company’s understanding of the needs and benefits of

women and men employees affirmed a conventional approach.

(2) L'Oréal’s gender equality mandate can be derived from the gender equality

principles of international instruments. The company deals with gender equality as a

workplace issue within the company’s diversity policy. The equality between men and

women, and among women and among men, is limited to professional and workplace

equality. L'Oréal’s considerations in the area of gender equality are evident. Gender

equality can be solved by ensuring equal access (to responsible positions), equal pay (for

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women and men), and equal opportunity (in career advancement and professional

development). However, equality between men and women is an instrumental goal that

aims to ensure the sustainable growth of the company and its profits.

(3) The goals of the company’s gender equality policy focus on the improvement

of the number of women in managerial positions, a gender-balanced hiring process for

positions where there is imbalance, and the reduction of salary gap and employment

opportunities between men and women. Company policies are to enable equal access for

women to positions of responsibility, to ensure favourable terms of remuneration at the

end of maternity or adoption leave, and to provide training access for women and men.

(4) While gender equality is overtly mentioned as a goal, the women’s

empowerment practices of the company are not stated clearly. The empowerment of

women is translated in ways that assume that women (as a group) are efficient economic

and market actors. CSR objectives and philanthropic projects work together to bolster

women’s empowerment as part of brand identity. On behalf of women’s empowerment,

L'Oréal has the ability to tap into new consumer markets. The company’s understanding

of empowerment and its efforts are guided by individualist, instrumental, and neoliberal

approaches that focus on women mainly in the global South, but in ways that may still

expand inequalities between the global North and South.

(5) L'Oréal does comply with the non-regulatory expectations of the UNGC and

the UN WEPs since it takes efforts to implement the principles and recommendations into

its business strategy and operation. However, due to the lack of formal monitoring and

enforcement mechanisms, the company takes only as many actions as necessary for

benefiting from the prestige and reputational enhancement associated with joining the

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UNGC. L’Oréal’s commitment to gender equality does not extend beyond minimum

compliance. The gender-blindness of the Global Compact’s ten principles are reflected in

L'Oréal’s gender equality policy. However, even if L’Oréal was assumed to comply with

these principles without rebuke, it leaves open the questions whether or not these

principles serve the feminist expectations of gender equality and the empowerment of

women and whether or not they are sufficient to bring transformation and structural

change in favour of greater equality.

6.2 Limitations of the Research

I have already noted several limitations of this research, but I am still aware of

some additional limitations that lead me to propose future research directions. Although

the qualitative case study approach was the most appropriate strategy to conduct this

research on L’Oréal’s corporate policies and practices, this approach had several inherent

limitations. Case study method is frequently criticized on the grounds that it generates a

large volume of data; thus, it requires a good deal of time to conduct the research. I have

firsthand experience regarding this limitation. Due to the tremendous volume of data, this

research took over three years to complete. As a result, the thesis results were out of date

even before they could have been completed. My research findings, therefore, reflect on

past information provided by corporate documents that may have since changed. For

example, in this thesis, I analysed the company’s first Diversities Overview Report, 2005-

2010 cycle. In the meantime, L’Oréal rolled out its second Diversities Overview Report

2010-2015 cycle, which illustrates the development and expansion of the Group’s

diversity policy.

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 Many qualitative researchers face similar challenges. It is problematic to

generalize the results derived from the analysis because the interpretation of the findings

depends highly on the subjectivity of the researcher. Critical scholars may question the

trustworthiness and reliability of this analysis. Bearing this in mind, I have emphasized

the relevance of the topic and research questions for current feminist and business debates

and theories. The result of this research can help to expand and “particularize” these

theories (Yin, 2013).

Further limitation of this research relates to the questionable nature of corporate

documents. MNCs, including L'Oréal, often market themselves as gender-aware and

socially responsible companies. However, what a corporation says about itself may be

limited and not necessarily reliable. Corporate reporting is regarded as arbitrary and is

often limited in terms of its details. CSR reports are usually provided by corporate

employees rather than critics whose backgrounds and opinions are likely to reflect

company loyalty. Furthermore, company reports never fully reflect on the current

situation of the company because they cannot keep pace with the rapid changes of

globalization and technical improvement. As a result of these features, the validity of

corporate documents as a data source is questionable; however, I could not identify other

sources of information that could (should) be employed to verify and supplement

corporate claims.

Further limitation of this thesis is related to the problematic nature of written

language, including the limitations, for me, of conducting research in a second language.

According to Stephanie Taylor (2001), qualitative research that relies on written language

including words, terms, phrases, and expressions faces certain difficulties. The language

168
can be false or consciously constructed, words and phrases can be vague on purpose, and

deliberately chosen words may make it difficult to understand the underlying meaning of

the texts (Taylor, 2001).

Finally, although it is clear that gender equality cannot be examined without

considering other interrelated issues including race, class, age, nation, and other

inequalities, there have been limited opportunities to address all of these issues and their

intersections within this particular analysis.

6.3 Contributions of this Research

My research contributes empirically and theoretically to the emerging literature,

both feminist and business, on CSR and gender equality. It brings business ideas and

principles into the feminist discussions of gender equality and women’s empowerment

issues and provides important knowledge about the implementation of gender equality for

business scholars, managers and company leaders, and feminist scholars.

There is a growing literature on CSR and gender issues. Yet, to date, only a few

scholars have analysed these relationships from a feminist perspective. There is some

academic research about the gender equality mandate of UN initiatives, such as the

UNGC and the UN WEPs (Kilgour 2007; 2012). However, despite the considerable

volume of scholarly literature on CSR, neither feminist nor business researchers have

analysed the gender equality policies and implementation of a particular signatory

company of the abovementioned initiatives. It would be important to bring more feminist

attention to what corporations mean when they say they are committed to advancing

gender equality and the actions they take to support these claims. In order to fill this gap

169
in feminist literature, I sought a notable global company that is a participant of the UNGC

and supporter of the UN WEPs, and whose CSR policies overtly address gender equality

issues. This thesis critically engages CSR literature and practices from a feminist

perspective, bringing together debates about gender equality and women’s empowerment

with feminist and business scholarship.

A key contribution of this thesis is the finding that L’Oréal’s understanding of

gender and its gender equality policy scarcely align with feminist expectations about

gender equality (and women’s empowerment). However, I argue that in spite of its

limitations, the current approach of the company towards gender equality and women’s

empowerment is promising, because L'Oréal has the power to make changes in the lives

of millions of women (and men) in a positive way, as well as the potential to bring

transformation and structural change in favour of greater equality.

6.4 Implications of this Master’s Thesis

This research has implications for feminist and business scholars as well as for

practitioners such as business leaders and managers at L’Oréal and other multinational

companies interested in corporate gender equality and diversity programs. Practitioners

can benefit from the findings of this research for improving their CSR reporting on

gender equality and women’s empowerment and developing new corporate programs that

advance these very issues.

170
6.5 Recommendation for Future Research

There are countless possibilities to conduct research on issues related to gender

equality in the context of corporate social responsibility. This topic is multifarious,

diversified, and almost unlimited. The findings from my research highlighted a number of

concrete avenues that could be explored in future studies. I divide these avenues into two

groups. The first one suggests further analysis ideas regarding L’Oréal and L’Oréal’s

policies; the second group makes recommendations for further critical studies on other

inequalities within business environments.

The primary focus of this research was the assessment of the gender equality

policy of L’Oréal, based exclusively on corporate documents. Following this angle, I

would recommend that future research on L’Oréal’s gender equality policy be conducted

to include interviews with both female and male employees at all levels and with

managers responsible for developing gender equality policies. It would also be

worthwhile to analyse not only the practice of the parent company, but also its

subsidiaries in order to develop a comprehensive knowledge about how the corporate

policy is transferred into practice across the entire L’Oréal Group. Admittedly, it would

be an immense project.

My research findings also call for future analysis about the relationship of L’Oréal

to women’s and feminist organizations. Although L’Oréal’s documents refer to the

participation of several NGOs in preparing corporate policies, the participation of

feminist and women’s organizations in these processes is understated and unclear. It

would be worthwhile to explore the ways that MNCs incorporate the diverse voices and

171
perspectives of marginalized groups of people into their policy-making and decision-

making processes.

The results of this thesis also strongly suggest a need for further study on the

intersectionality of other inequalities such as race, class, and age within business models,

including specific companies. There is still much to be learned from this case study of

L’Oréal to inform future feminist perspectives regarding the possible compatibility

among gender equality, women’s empowerment, and business, particularly as it pertains

to the multiple interests of the beauty industry.

It is time to reconsider the role of business in the battle of social issues such as

gender equality. It is crucial to press gender equality on a large scale. Also, it is crucial to

“build human rights criteria into commercial decision-making” (2000, p. 24). Why?

“Because We Are Worth It.”

172
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 Appendix A

The United Nations Global Compact Ten Principles

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally

proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labour

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective

recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental

challenges;

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly

technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including

extortion and bribery.

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 Appendix B

The United Nations’ Women Empowerment Principles

1. Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality

2. Treat all women and men fairly at work - respect and support human rights and

non-discrimination

3. Ensure the health, safety, and well-being of all women and men workers

4. Promote education, training, and professional development for women

5. Implement enterprise development, supply chain, and marketing practices that

empower women

6. Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy

7. Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality

194
 Appendix C

L'Oréal’s Sustainability Program

“Sharing Beauty with All”

(2013)

“We want to bring beauty to all people. Beauty expresses itself in many ways. We believe

in the beauty of protecting the environment and biodiversity, the beauty of supporting

communities and providing security for employees, the beauty of delivering desirable and

sustainable products for women and men who trust in us” (L'Oréal, n.d.).

1. By 2020, we will innovate so that 100% of products have an environmental or

social benefit.

2. By 2020, we will reduce our environmental footprint by 60% from a 2005

baseline whilst bringing beauty to one billion new consumers.

3. By 2020, we will empower every L’Oréal consumer to make sustainable

consumption choices while enhancing the beauty of the planet.

4. By 2020, L'Oréal employees will have access to health care, social protection, and

training, wherever they are in the world.

5. By 2020, 100% of our strategic suppliers will be participating in our supplier

sustainability programme.

6. By 2020, we will enable more than 100,000 people from underprivileged

communities, equivalent to the size of our global workforce, to access work.

195