This satirical equal pay campaign sends women to prison

Belgian women’s rights organisation ZIJkant launched an Equal Pay Day campaign built around a bleakly comic discovery: prison is one of the few workplaces where men and women are guaranteed the same rate for doing the same job.

Created by mortierbrigade and produced by CZAR, the brand campaign turns that uncomfortable fact into a film in which women actively try to get themselves arrested.

Directed and scripted by Lionel Goldstein, the spot follows women going to increasingly absurd lengths to get behind bars. They steal in plain sight, announce plans to rob a jewellery store, walk out of a museum carrying a painting and enthusiastically join a bank robbery.

The punchline is also the campaign’s central insight.

Prisoners who work receive a fixed allowance regardless of gender. Outside prison walls, ZIJkant says Belgian women earn 20% less than men.

The campaign lands with the line: “There is no gender pay gap in prison. Let’s close it everywhere else.”

Famous Campaigns has previously covered People Like Us’ pay-gap billboards and the Fearless Girl stunt, both of which made inequality visible through a simple cultural device.