Victory in my campaign against Moxy Hotel Austin University
// Week of Sept. 20 //
It was a big week! I have an exciting update on the sexist hotel signage from last week. Other things happened this week, of course, but hotelgate has consumed my waking hours, so I’ll get into other stuff next week.
Check out last week’s article to learn more about sexist signage at Moxy Hotel Austin University. This started last Friday, when I reached out to the hotel and asked them to remove a semi-permanent sign on their building that objectifies women.
On Saturday evening, I received an email from the general manager of the hotel. She told me that she received my complaint and wanted to talk with me directly.
I called the general manager on Sunday afternoon. To be completely honest, I was pretty nervous for the conversation– mostly because explaining why the sign is problematic is pretty emotionally exhausting. I wasn’t sure how the general manager would respond.
In short, the general manager listened to my concerns. I started by asking what the sign means, and she explained their general marketing campaign towards students getting back out there and being bold after the pandemic. I explained how I interpreted the sign as objectifying women. I explained that sexual assault is a significant problem on college campuses, and specifically in Greek life. The general manager largely responded to this by saying that none of how I interpreted the sign was their intent.
She told me that they change the signs quarterly and that she would take my perspective into consideration for future marketing. When the call ended, I was proud of myself for taking the time and effort to have the conversation, but disappointed that no direct change came from it. I updated my Instagram followers and tried to focus on my readings– but that feeling of discouragement stuck with me that evening and throughout the first half of the week.
After discussing the hotel sign with friends on Tuesday night, I was reinvigorated. I decided that I wanted to do more to get the sign removed. I wrote a Novel Hand article explaining what I’d done so far and created a Change.org petition to garner support. I submitted a complaint on the White Lodging website. White Lodging owns Moxy Hotel Austin University – I didn’t know this until I received the email from the hotel manager, who had White Lodging as her company in her email signature.
I also direct messaged an influencer who did an event at Moxy Hotel Austin University in February. I had already followed him on Instagram, and he lives in Austin. Based on what I’d previously seen from him, I expected that he would be receptive to my request to ask his contact at Moxy to take down the sign. I also emailed the influencer’s public relations team.
You can imagine my surprise when the influencer actually responded! He said that he agreed that the sign isn’t okay and that his team had reached out to Moxy. A few hours later, he told me that the company was planning to take the sign down.
Beyond being starstruck that he saw and responded to my message, I was so excited that the sign was going to be taken down. I felt like I had slipped behind the curtain and pulled the levers of power to create change. Messaging this influencer was so much easier than submitting online complaints and shouting into the void.
On Thursday, I received an email from the Director of Communications & Corporate Affairs at White Lodging apologizing for the sign and committing to take it down as soon as possible. As of publishing this article, it hasn’t been removed yet– but I walk by it each weekday, so I’ll know when it is.
I learned a few things from this experience. Here’s what I’m taking from this experience.
Activism has to be done in community.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that getting a hotel to change their sign is “small” in the grand scope of humanitarian and social challenges. But between explaining the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses and the fear of being ignored or dismissed, even the little bit that I had to do to create change was quickly exhausting and discouraging. For me, it put in perspective the immense emotional labor that so many have had to expend in the fight for their human and civil rights.
I only decided to keep going when I was encouraged by family and friends. Each action that I took was on the encouragement of someone that I know well.
I don’t know if I would have kept going without having a group of friends to affirm my decision to direct message that influencer. Or if I didn’t have my sister to bounce ideas off of. And when I did talk with the hotel manager, I was able to tell her that over two dozen of my friends agreed that the signage objectified women.
Whatever change you want to create, don’t go it alone. You need to do activism in community– and you will be so much more powerful when you do so.
My lived experiences and knowledge are valid.
I am fortunate to not have been personally impacted by the kinds of issues that this sign perpetuates (although I have experienced sexism). But in college, I had friends of friends who did. As a member of a sorority, I went through plenty of active bystander trainings. I remember getting a pit in my stomach every time I got an email notifying the student body that a sexual assault was reported on campus.
And still, I went through the mental gymnastics of questioning whether I was overreacting, trying to construct an argument as to why the sign is offensive, and remembering why I reacted so strongly in the first place probably fifty times over the past week. I worried that my Instagram followers or the hotel management would write me off as an overemotional feminist.
Remembering my own experiences, drawing on my understanding of the issue, and leaning on the advice and encouragement of my community reminded me why I was doing this.
Power matters.
What ultimately made the difference was reaching the right person in hotel management and contacting an influencer. I had to leverage the power and social influence of a reality TV star to create this change.
In an ideal world, my testimony as a young woman and recent college graduate would be enough to convince the hotel that the signage is wrong. But of course, in an ideal world, the hotel wouldn’t have put that signage up in the first place.
In the real world, Instagram followers and social clout matter. And living within this power structure, where a male influencer’s word has more power than mine, I had to leverage that power to create the change that my word alone hadn’t created. Whether fortunate or unfortunate, my opinion was more valid when someone with 600,000+ Instagram followers agreed.
A petition with 100 or 1,000 signatures from women like me might have been enough to convince the hotel to remove the sign. But it was much easier to send an Instagram DM than it would be to create and share a petition. I would have happily done it, but the fact remains that leveraging power was easier and ultimately created more timely change.
Wherever you’re trying to create change, think about where the power lies. Be mindful of that. Who are the decision makers? Who has a vested, and probably a financial, interest in the success or failure of what you want to change?
Finally, I would not have been so invested in this change if I didn’t see myself as a member of the University of Texas and greater Austin community. Living and writing Alexa in ATX has put me in the mindset to be invested in my community and its success.
I would love to hear any thoughts that you have on this in the comments! How are you creating change in your community?
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