Achieving authentic allyship in Pride month and beyond
This week my partner and I walked past a Wagamama restaurant in Manchester city centre with a huge Pride flag emblazoned in their doorway.
“Does that make you feel seen?” asked my boyfriend, Jack, his tone somewhat tongue in cheek.
“Yeah it makes me much more likely to eat gyoza,” I quipped back, knowing that he was enquiring what I thought of big corporations doing loud visual gestures for Pride Month as a bisexual woman.
But actually, I was maybe a little hasty in my dismissal of the gesture from the British restaurant chain. After Googling it later, I discovered that Wagmama had unveiled the logo after donating £5,000 to Youth Pride MCR, a project by Manchester Pride that aims to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ young people and their allies. Fair play.
While some critics might say that £5,000 is a drop in the ocean for a brand that reported £467.4 million in profit in 2023, I’d argue that it’s better than no financial gesture.
I also read the accompanying statement on the company’s website, and liked the idea of their sharing-style benches being framed as a communal experience bringing together a diverse and equally-welcomed community.
If you’re cynical, you could see this as marketing spin; but I generally think any brand…
