🗓️ Idiom: Tokenism(n)
💬 Meaning
- When a company or group makes a small public effort to look responsible or caring.
- It shows a symbolic action that is not backed by real change or serious commitment.
🧠 Example Sentences
- The company added a green logo, but without real action, it felt like tokenism.
- Some businesses make a donation once a year as tokenism, but they do not engage with the community long-term.
- Tokenism can happen when an organisation tries to look fair, but does not support real change in its policies.
🏛️ Origin
“Tokenism” comes from the word “token,” meaning a symbol or small sign. It began to be used in the mid-1900s to criticise organisations that made small, public actions to appear fair, caring, or responsible, without real effort behind them.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
Adding a few eco-words to a product without changing how it is made may be seen as ________.
Answer
tokenism
2. Multiple choice:
What does “tokenism” mean?
a) Making deep and lasting changes
b) Doing nothing at all
c) Making a small or symbolic effort to appear responsible
Answer
c) Making a small or symbolic effort to appear responsible
3. Rewrite the sentence:
“The company was guilty of trying to look caring without any real action.”
Answer
The company was guilty of tokenism.