Gender equality movement, F*ck The Cupcakes (FTC) is launching an all-year-round program to “cook up
conversations” between men on the topic of gender equality.
For the launch of the Yeah the Pies program, FTC is inviting the men from the Australian marketing and media
industry to attend the inaugural event on the 11 April – a massive afternoon of cooking, conversations and
actual change – binning the cupcakes and baking pies instead.
As part of the campaign, FTC has partnered with Paramount, Infinity Bakery and Bloke Coaching.
Hosted by MasterChef champion, mental health advocate, and all-around good bloke Brent Draper, and
professional coach Iain Schmidt, as men bake, they will be encouraged to cook up real conversations and then
celebrate at an after party with pies all around.
FTC wants to engage what it has identified as the 30 per cent of ‘the movable middle’ men in the Australian
population. They are defined by their openness to progress and new ideas and a liberal-leaning that
encompasses empathy. They are successful, educated, and likely exposed to new ideas through their children.
They are men that FTC believes are most likely to change in response to its efforts.
The latest FTC campaign aims to provide this group of men with a real-life event to drive the gender equality
agenda, starting with the men in the advertising and media industry.
FTC founder and Innocean Australia CEO, Jasmin Bedir, said: “We’ve struck a chord with our sentiment that
International Women’s Day is meaningless if women continue just to talk to other women. But it is incredibly
difficult to get men at scale engaged in the topic of gender equality, which was confirmed by the Gender Pay
Gap data released earlier this month.
“The ‘Yeah the Pies’ program will be a blueprint for organisations to engage men the right way so IWD 2025 is
not again another room filled with women and cupcakes.”
Innocean executive creative director, Wez Hawes, said: “A lot of men want to be involved in gender equality
and do more, but don’t know how. Men also find it hard to talk face to face, preferring to open up shoulder to
shoulder. That’s why we’re baking some pies and strapping in to chat about some of the big, small, and
sometimes awkward themes of what it means to be a man and cook up conversations that will ignite real
change.We’re going to show what an IWD event could look like if you f*ck the cupcakes, bring on the pies.”
