Mary Kay Inc partners Equal Rights Trust to pioneer gender inequality research

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4 -- Mary Kay Inc, a global leader in women’s empowerment, has announced a partnership with the Equal Rights Trust (ERT), an organisation whose mission is to eliminate all forms of discrimination and ensure everyone can participate in society on an equal basis.

As part of this collaboration, Mary Kay Inc will help ERT jumpstart an innovative field of research on artificial intelligence and algorithms through a gender-based lens, according to  a statement.

“We’re excited to support Equal Rights Trust on their work to help advance equality by design and beyond forge a way forward to collaborations with the private sector,” said Chief Legal Officer and Chief Diversity Officer of Mary Kay Inc, Julia Simon.

“Our work with ERT is specifically focused on framing the new landscape of artificial intelligence and gender equality, a growing concern in the digital age.”

Mary Kay’s support to the ERT will pioneer a new field of research on the discriminatory impact of algorithmic systems.

ERT has developed and promoted models of equality impact assessment, advocating an ‘equality by design’ approach in public and private decision making as a means to ensure non-discrimination and equality of participation.

An immediate priority is to launch an initiative to establish and address the emerging discriminatory impacts of algorithmic decision-making, specifically as it relates to gender. The delivery of the initiative can be broken into three phases.

The partnership with the Equal Rights Trust is just the latest initiative supported by Mary Kay in 2021 to advocate for gender equality everywhere. 

-- BERNAMA