Unilever beauty brand, LUX, is launching a campaign to highlight the impact of casual sexism faced by women in their everyday lives by inviting men to experience it first-hand for … read morethemselves. Whether on the street or in the workplace, women are constantly judged on the way they dress, walk and speak. From catcalls to inappropriate compliments, everyday sexism is shockingly commonplace – and is causing women to self-edit their beauty and how they express their femininity as a result. Although the problem exists on a global scale, many men don’t consider that they are doing or saying anything wrong. Nor are they aware of the damaging impact that seemingly offhand comments like ‘Cheer up, you look prettier when you smile’ may have on women’s self-worth. The new LUX campaign, titled “In Her Shoes” and created by WPP’s Wunderman Thompson Singapore, aims to spark a conversation and bring about real behaviour change by giving men the opportunity to – quite literally – walk in women’s shoes. The campaign cleverly leverages City Walks – a quickly growing platform where users can take a virtual stroll around different cities around the world – to offer men a glimpse of the sexism that women suffer by doing something as simple as taking a walk. The campaign has been kicked off in the Middle East. When users visit the platform, they can click on “In Her Shoes”, a special button allows them to toggle between experiencing the walk as a man, or as a woman. While men can enjoy an uninterrupted ramble, soaking up the sights and sounds of the city, the female perspective is very different. Crossing a bridge or wandering down a side street attracts unwanted attention from groups of men, with users subjected to casually sexist remarks like “Why this red lipstick?”, or “Stop here, I wanna talk to you!” To build on the campaign and transform the perpetrators of sexism into allies, feedback was collated from male users who have experienced the LUX “In Her Shoes” as a woman, encouraging self-reflection through a series of questions asking how the ordeal made them feel, and how they think women feel as a result.
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