LovePendants Debuts Design for Gender Equality

New York--LovePendants is adding its voice to the conversation surrounding gender equality, and it is doing it through jewels.

The customizable charm company has debuted a Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality collection, available now on its website.

The collection features the universal symbol of a woman with her arms stretched upward. The website states that the symbol represents, “those the world over who are rising up and uniting against any person or group that discriminates against them and devalues, puts in jeopardy or impairs their equal place in society and the business world.”

The charm starts at $76 for a sterling silver or gold-plated sterling silver version with Swarovski crystal available in a variety of colors.

Natural gemstone versions of the charm begin at $168 in sterling silver with a choice of white topaz, blue topaz, amethyst, citrine or green quartz. These editions are also available in 14-karat gold. The most expensive is a bracelet that features diamonds and retails for $939.

Robert Leser, the founder of LovePendants, said in a press release and on the website, “We are passionate about this issue and will donate 40 percent of all sales of our Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality collection to the National Organization for Women (NOW).”

LovePendants carries a variety of charms with symbols ranging from initials to animals to zodiac signs. They also have a series of awareness ribbon charms, 20 percent of the proceeds of which benefit the Cancer Research Institute.

NOW works toward female equality in a number of arenas, including politics.

Leser’s addition of the Women’s Empowerment charm comes at a time when public allegations of sexual misconduct against a number of powerful men in Hollywood, the media and politics have rocked the nation and world.

A recently released series of findings from Pew Research (gleaned from surveys conducted throughout 2017) showed that 66 percent of Americans “attribute the allegations mainly to widespread problems in society” while only 28 percent believe they have more to do with the actions of individual perpetrators.

On Jan. 1, more than 300 women in film, television and theater announced the creation of Time’s Up, an initiative to fight sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace.

And on Jan. 3, Iceland began requiring companies to prove that they pay women and men in the same positions equally.

Even prior to the slew of allegations that began with movie producer Harvey