Walmart - Annual Report Analysis

Walmart is an U.S. multinational retail corporation that operates discount outlets, supercenters, and warehouse clubs. Walmart has been long known for women’s discrimination, however, in 2011, a class action lawsuit, Walmart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, exposed its company-wide discriminatory practices and policies. Although the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Walmart, Walmart still invested heavily on improving its image with women then showcased these improvements in its annual report to counter the bad publicity and appeal to its female investors. In its annual report, Walmart uses pictures of mother and child to show understanding of motherhood, uses pictures and texts of women in its new Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative program to show its involvement in empowering women, and uses pictures and texts of female employees to projecting an image of a female-friendly workplace.
The Walmart annual report uses pictures of mother and child to show its dedication to helping women fulfill their family's needs. The Walmart U.S. page, under the Operating Segment column, a picture shows a young mother browsing the center aisle of a Walmart store with her toddler seated in the cart. Each shelf in this aisle is fully stocked and neatly organized with clear price signs on top, showing the great selection of products available at at low prices. On the bottom of the page is a slideshow with more pictures of mother and child. One picture shows a mother and her teenage daughter in their kitchen, smiling and holding two full bags of groceries with Great Value products, Walmart's generic brand, sticking out on top of one of the bags. Another picture shows the kitchen section of the store, where a female Walmart employee is happily showing a cooking pan to a mother with her toddler in one arm. This strategy attracts female investors through showing its relationship with its female customer base.
Walmart uses pictures and text of women from different countries to shows its