The parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Homegoods has made improvements to their website, likely in response to Washington Initiative for Boys and Men highlighting clear instances of gender bias. The overall effect is to somewhat reduce the degree to which the corporation’s website conveys a preference for female employees and suppliers over male employees and suppliers.
Immediately after we published our blog post with the headline “Do TJ Maxx and Marshalls need more outreach to men?” on January 27, 2021, we sent the message below to TJ Maxx’s media relations contact, inviting them to comment on the difference between TJX Companies Inc.’s focus on women employees compared to men employees. We included a link to our blog post.
We sent the same email to the media relations contacts for Marshalls and Homegoods (which are brands also under TJX Companies Inc.), swapping in those companies’ names.
Judging by the user analytics, it is likely that between 10 and 20 staff of TJX Companies Inc. viewed WIBM’s post within two hours of us emailing them the link.
TJX Companies Inc., the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the U.S. and globally, is ranked 80th on Fortune Magazine’s ‘Fortune 500’ list for the year 2020. They have 286,000 employees and are headquartered in Massachusetts. In Washington state, TJX owns over 30 TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Homegoods stores.
“Women In Our Workplace” page taken down
Since January 2018, TJX’s website had featured a “Women In Our Workplace” page, which said, “We believe our efforts to recruit and retain women are an important part of our workplace diversity.” It went on to explain that women are already a majority of the corporation’s overall workforce, managerial staff, and recipients of promotions. Women also hold half of TJX’s leadership positions and board of directors positions.
TJX removed the “Women In Our Workplace” webpage sometime between February 8 and 13, 2021. The Wayback Machine Internet Archive has a copy of the page. Below is a screenshot.
“The Power Of Women-Owned Businesses” page taken down
TJX’s website had since December 2018 featured a webpage titled “The Power of Women-Owned Businesses”. It profiled Elaine Osgood and her company Atlas Travel, “the exclusive travel services provider to TJX in the U.S. since 2007.”
TJX removed the webpage sometime between February 8 and 13 of this year. The Wayback Machine Internet Archive saved a copy of the page.
Are TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Homegoods proud of their male employees?
In our January 27 article, we said that male employees at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Homegoods stores may wonder how their employer’s focus on female employees conflicts with being judged without regard to their sex when promotions are awarded. Also, male-owned suppliers seeking to do business with TJX may wonder whether their focus on female-owned suppliers will conflict with being evaluated without regard to their sex in consideration for contracts.
Beyond the website improvements described above, we hope that TJX Companies Inc. will consider whether their culture is fully welcoming and inclusive toward both men and women. Why does TJX prominently highlight statistics about women in their workforce? Are they aiming for specific goals for the gender makeup of their workforce, management, leadership, and board of directors? What are those goals? Given the existing gender disparity among their workforce, management, and employee promotions — where women are in the majority — does TJX want to increase its efforts to recruit and retain men?
Here is what we know and do not know after TJX’s recent website improvements:
We continue to know how TJX feels about women and their female employees, judging by their acknowledgment of women on the following webpages. [5/5/2025 update: We removed hyperlinks that no longer work…]
- Our Workplace: Associates Bring Our Business to Life
- Our Workplace: Embracing Inclusion and Diversity
- Communities: Preventing Domestic Violence
- Communities: Providing Education and Training
- Responsible Business: Delivering Real Value to the World
- 2020 Global Corporate Responsibility Report
- 2019 Key Highlights
- Board of Directors
We don’t know how the corporation feels about their male employees. The only time TJX’s website mentions men, it is with regard to selling men’s clothes, recruiting military men and women as employees, and ensuring there is no pay gap between men and women.
We have received no responses from TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Homegoods after emailing each of them twice.