Chinese Company Receives Backlash After Asking Women To Wear Makeup To “Motivate” Their Male Coworkers

According to a South China Morning Post report, a Chinese company is experiencing blowback after requesting that its female employees wear minimal makeup to work in an effort to “motivate” their male coworkers. The boss of the company in southeast China sent the message, but he later removed it, claiming it was only a misconstrued joke. On November 30, five of the company’s female employees participated in a group WeChat chat that was started by Luo, an executive officer. He once encouraged the women to start wearing cosmetics during their talk. In order to inspire his colleagues, he wrote, “Ladies, starting in December, please wear light makeup to work.” To buy ladies afternoon tea, our gentlemen will raise money through crowdsourcing. Mr. Luo sent out another message to reiterate its significance after a while, but he did not hear back from the organization. “Please reply when you receive the message; otherwise, your performance bonuses will be slashed,” added the man.

The statement made by Mr. Luo went viral when it was shared online by an influencer who also happens to be a buddy of an unidentified employee. Upon hearing his remarks picked up by the local media, he said he wasn’t being serious. We took it down since it was a joke. There isn’t such a thing, as everyone is aware,” he declared. Luo went on to say that the bulk of the 300 workers were men and that, because everyone was so focused on their work, the company regularly ignored the needs of its female workers. Consequently, the organization frequently made choices to offer higher perks to female workers. On Chinese social media platforms, this caused a major commotion. “It’s not funny at all,” said someone. “Is that really a joke? asked a third person. Nobody else is laughing but him.”