Empowering Girls & Women through Adverts?

Today I came across another empowering advert for women and girls. It seems that the trend is growing year by year with more and more brands jumping on the bandwagon.

Some people criticise the trend by labelling companies as hypocrite (“they are trying to sell beauty products/wax and raisors to shave our bodies after all!”). But isn’t wonderful to see this type of empowering messages promoted by adverts instead of the usual “fix yourself -be this or that” stuff?

At the very least these adverts diversify the range of images and role models available to girls and from my point of view this could be the start of a gradual change taking place…if we start to reward the companies sending this type of messages instead of criticising them under the “hypocrisy label”, more and more of them will follow and the entire advertising landscape could gradually transform into something more real and inspiring than the fake beauty images currently surrounding us: it makes perfect sense.

Check out the full playlist of empowering adverts here and don’t forget to comment!

 

Slutty Clothes for Young Girls: Irresponsible Parenting?

shirt1200018border

I am receiving positive comments regarding the “Don’t you tell us it’s just a shirt!” slides.

But what many parents are more worried about is the “slutty” trend of clothes targeted to girls at younger and younger age: mini skirts so mini that knickers are permanently on show and mini tops so mini that nothing is left to the imagination. High heels are on the rise too and we talk about 6-8 years old sizes!

I have read also many articles regarding parents complaining to chain stores for selling inappropriate clothes to young girls (a padded bra and tongue for 4 years old was a case in point) and in many instances the complaint seemed to work, at least when there was enough collective upraising regarding a particular “unsuitable” item.

Sadly, as we know, most of these clothes are still around.

The thing is: shops are selling this kind of attire as long as there is demand for them and at this stage we would expect the parents to be the buyer of course, so… this means that there are parents around who are buying into this trend, right? Instead of labelling these parents for being uncaring or irresponsible it would be better to consider that perhaps – due to their culture/background and upbringing – they simply haven’t thought about the issue in our terms.

Some parents may think that bringing up a daughter to be a gold digger or footballer wife is indeed a good thing. Messages and slogans that some parents perceive as disempowering, may well be perceived by another class of parents as empowering: indeed, the power of female sex appeal! It all depends on perspectives and if you live your life surrounded by a raunchy culture it becomes second nature to think and act in those terms. For this reason, I don’t agree with many comments accusing parents who buy this sort of clothes being irresponsible and not caring about their daughters: the way forward should be to avoid accusations and judgements, engaging in dialogue and reflection instead.

In my view, creating resources and thought-provoking material to awaken people’s consciousness of certain issues is one way to move forward. And another way is to be open-minded and ready to start a dialogue: next time you see someone buying into the slutty trend, try to put yourself in their shoes, thinking within their own frame of reference (not an easy thing I admit), instead of dismissing them as they were not capable of thinking. I have tried this myself with a mother and the conversation we started has made me realise that my preconceptions were far from accurate 😉

Another slide for reflection today, please pass it around!

Can we stop this stupid T-shirts’ trend against our girls?

shirt00016frame

I am reading so many negative and angered comments from parents and girls alike regarding what I would call “the stupid T-shirt trend”!

The ones below are just an example of parent’s comments left on the Facebook page of one of the shop in question:

customers feedback on t-shirt_0

customers feedback on t-shirt_1

customers feedback on t-shirt_2

So despite many parents’ dismay, it looks like some marketers are working really hard to make sure that girls wear the right labelling attire, brilliant! So that anywhere they go the message will be loud and clear about their dumbness? No thank you! 🙁

I was talking with a girl the other day who seems to proudly display her “drama queen” shirt: I asked her “what is it to be proud about being a drama queen?”, she quickly dismissed me by saying “oh, it’s just a T-shirt!”, but I suspect that there are many young girls out there who would not be offended in the slightest to be referred to a “drama queen” or “gold digger” these days: the pervasive media culture surrounding them makes them think that somehow these are normal girls’ attributes (along with being shopping/fashion/make-up fanatic).

The trouble with this type of marketing is that it is a lazy, unimaginative way to push girls into a corner.

Fortunately, they are plenty of ethical businesses fighting back this trend and new companies producing clever and witty T-shirts are popping up all the time: so let’s make sure to give these girls an alternative and I am confident it will be soon out of trend to wear  “I am a princess” shirts!

I made a few visual slides regarding this point, I would love to see them circulating far & wide on the web. I’ll post them today, your job is to pass them around! 🙂

shirt100016frame