Last Wednesday, Wal-Mart announced it would release a new “Women Owned” logo that would appear on retail packaging of products from women-owned companies. This initiative is part of a broader campaign by the retail giant to source its products more from women-owned businesses.

“As the world’s largest retailer, we have the opportunity to use our scale, purchasing power and local presence to help others,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, president of the Walmart Foundation and senior vice president of Walmart Sustainability, in a company press release. “By sourcing more products from women-owned businesses, and making it easier for customers to identify those products at the shelf and online, we’re helping to empower women and their families. We’re excited by the power of business, and retail in particular, to increase women’s economic mobility.”

Products displaying the women-owned logo have a third-party validation through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council and WEConnect International, which verify that the business is at least 51 percent owned, operated or controlled by women.

Most feel this is a great initiative by Wal-Mart, but there are others who have recently speculated that it’s a ploy by the retailer to help smooth over relationships with women’s rights groups.

“In 2012, nearly 2,000 women in 48 states filed charges against Walmart with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination in pay and promotions,” reported Amy Westervelt of The Guardian in this recent article. The charges followed a class-action lawsuit, which the Supreme Court dismissed, stating that the 1.5 million female Wal-Mart workers were too large and too diverse a group to be considered a “class” and that the individual complaints had too little in common to qualify as systematic gender discrimination.”

What are your thoughts? Do you believe Wal-Mart’s new women-owned logo is the retailer’s latest step in its embrace of women, or is it simply pandering to the masses?