Life

How I Became a Dove Girl

I'm no cover model, but this ad campaign I joined.

By Shannon Melnyk, 24 Aug 2007, TheTyee.ca

Dove Girl

Melnyk: 'Feeling beautiful is a choice.'

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Last year was my grandmother's 90th birthday. As a homage to her, I had a photo taken in the garden green raw silk dress she wore over 50 years ago, when she was my age. She was my model for beauty, back then a woman had an ensemble. Matching, fitted, very Jackie-O with a Ukrainian prairie twist. She was a poor farmer girl whose solution to pale cheeks was mischievously kissing her two fingers with freshly painted lips and spreading the love to her naked apples. I still see her in my mind's eye giggling as she passed along her secret to my mother when she was still in ponytails, and then to me. This morning I found myself dabbing my cheeks as I have been every day for almost 37 years.

And now, faster than you can say airbrush, suddenly my photo for grandma has ended up in the hands of an enormous beauty conglomerate, and my face has become fodder for public consumption.

It began with an e-mail forwarded by a friend asking me to cut and paste a photo of myself and express what I defined as beauty; the makeshift scrapbook effort would be posted on a website magazine so friends could share their images and stories.

I saw that it was the brainchild of Unilever, the giant behind the Dove campaign that has garnered both international kudos and controversy for using real women, and claiming to buck the advertising industry's addiction to computer enhancement, to promote a change in the way we view women. Given my feelings about the power in this message, I was all for a little female bonding amongst friends.

'A choice'

What never dawned on me was the fact that this was Dove's creative idea of a casting call for a real magazine designed to carry their Shine campaign for Dove hair products. If I bothered to read the not-so-fine print, I would have realized I was showing off grandma's wares for the nation.

Virtual arts and craft project forgotten, and writer's block temporarily cured, I was not prepared for the phone call that claimed I was chosen from thousands of women for the Shine campaign, and would I fly to Toronto from the West Coast in a couple of days to spend an undetermined amount of time being limo'd around to interviews, parties and photo shoots in Toronto? Clearly this was a laugh at my expense, and when I realized this woman was who she said she was, I had squeaked out the words "Why me?"

Then I recalled the Internet pyjama party I had attended, and wondered just what it was that I said I thought encapsulated beauty. And then I remembered. "Feeling beautiful is a choice," I wrote. Indeed, it wasn't a birthright, a natural right of passage or even a gradual swell of self-appreciation. It was a choice I had made only recently in my mid-30s after a full-out navel-gazing tirade that took up precious years and included countless regrets.

Agreeing to step on the plane was a reminder of just how far I had come.

The hard road

Some girls start out with a divine spirit, coming into themselves easily, beautifully, naturally. Others are late bloomers whose gifts are born out of soldiering through adversity and self-hatred to come into their grace. And then there are those who take the hard road. The unforgiving road, the road to "Never-Never" Land. Never being enough, never having enough. My sense of self came from the latter two categories.

I will admit to having spent a lot of energy trying not to offend the general public with my body. My behaviour in my youth played out suspiciously like a tragic comedy. It probably started when I refused to bare my shoulders at a very young age. I can't remember why now, but it made perfect sense at the time. I remember my mother yelling, "No one is going to notice! Everyone is too busy worrying about themselves!" But I was on a roll. I started wearing huge sweatshirts to hide what I thought was an enormous pot-belly and lopsided breasts. I also had the joy of christening the new University of Alberta Hospital Burn Ward after suffering severe burns to my face in an attempt to tan the ghost within. I shaved my arms after, one day, I raised my hand in class and a boy shouted, "Give the gorilla a chance!" I curled my lashes and coloured my hair to near baldness. I yo-yo dieted, and yet I did not even have the pleasure of being overweight until my actual 20s.

Better days

Fast forward to my 30s. I have shed almost 50 pounds and a 15-year relationship. I have stopped chasing professional identities that were not meant to be mine. I finally discovered that not feeling good takes up too much energy that is better served enjoying my life and rediscovering my passions.

So Dove's invitation to celebrate, well, myself (!) seemed uproariously fitting. Go big or go home. I toodled off to Toronto and met some equally stunned women of mixed age, race and province, with whom I would break bread for a week: we shopped, we lunched, we bonded; we were treated to the salon and to media-darling school. The most touching experience I had in the process was seeing a child's eyes in one of the women who looked as if, for the first time, she truly saw others view her as beautiful.

The irony of the event, however, was that while we were all busy rejoicing in the idea of reality, the ultimate reality was the sudden attack of vanity we experienced come the day of the shoot. We were increasingly intrigued and paralyzed by the fact that there would be no airbrushing. I, for one, had not slept for a week and was carrying around 10 pounds of water. One young woman had become self-conscious about a break-out; another wanted to shop for a better bra at the 11th hour. We reverted to being the women we know best, in our quietest moments of uncertainty.

It was in this moment I realized how necessary campaigns like this are. No matter how cynical we choose to be about the marriage of our market economy and social responsibility, the simplicity behind the hoo-ha is the more positive and balanced images we see in the media, the more our young girls have a fighting chance in the culture of over-sexualized youth, designer-label-driven peer groups, anorexic heroin chic, booby hooter-girl bar scenes and the cover-girl perfection that drips with the cruel message: "look like me and only then will your life will be perfect."

How're your labia?

Because it is socially acceptable for women to fuss about their shortcomings, there is a cultural misconception that we talk about everything. Most women, for example, do not sit around and talk about their large or sagging labia. I can't say I've been in Starbucks recently and heard "mine look like dumbo ears, how about yours?" But most women also are unaware, however, that labiaplasty has grown to be one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures. Pornography executives say you would be hard pressed to see a woman in a magazine or film without surgically shaped and reduced labia. The result of this practice of course is the misconception of what real labia look like to the male population.

Some kind of pornography is usually a boy's first introduction to the female nude body. So imagine the fall-out when a man sees the real deal. My first reaction to the surgery stats was complete sadness. My secondary reaction? A sort of self-mocking curiosity about whether or not my labia would stack up with the rest should someone put a gun to my head and cast me in a porno entitled Dove Girl Does, say, Dauphin. Laugh, but the embedded comparative gene erupts in us when it is least welcome.

In I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame, the University of Houston's Brené Brown defines shame as "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging" and believes its spread has been created by conflicting and competing expectations about who women should be. How interesting, then, to see a corporation underwriting the making of Evolution, the Dove campaign's Canadian short film that used time lapse photography to show how grotesque the amount of time, makeup, hair tricks and, largely, computer enhancement it takes to roll a woman out of bed and onto a billboard. Evolution seized the Grand Prix this year at the prestigious Cannes Lions Advertising Festival.

The message of the film is one I have arrived at personally. You are enough. Peace at last, peace at last.

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[Tyee]

Shannon Melnyk is a Vancouver-based writer currently working on a screenplay that just so happens to be an examination of manufactured realities. She can be found at www.shannonmelnyk.com or on page 12 of this Dove catalogue.

31 Comments:

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  • ME2

    4 years ago

    It's all in the motion......

    Large labia or small labia, big boobs-small boobs, plump body or skinny body, there's many a man who thinks the woman he loves is as beautiful as any woman who has ever existed. And so she is.

    It's said that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and even a plain woman with poise will display beauty to the wiser man - even into her mature years.

    The man who's looking for perfect body parts deserves the woman who relies upon them for bait.

  • Roberta

    4 years ago

    I support Dove's 'campaign for real beauty' too.

    Even though it's not perfect, what the Dove campaign is doing is the only thing I've seen in the last 40 years that might start to break down that giant wall of toxic crap women are bombarded with everyday in every single ad in every single mainstream medium.

    Thanks for this article.

  • dorothy

    4 years ago

    How on Earth do they...

    get the time to worry and flip and introspect this much, and still keep life on the go, make a living, look out the window or even (now it gets wild) stand under the wide open sky and yell out loud once in a while?

    I can remember my own assessment session, conducted when I was out of the worst fogs of teenagehood at around 17: My eyes were quite beatiful, the hair would do for covering my head, and the rest was largely dependent on how much I would screw with potato chips and chocolate bars and/or take a hike once in a while.

    Since then, I have been too busy to worry about looks. When I met my one and only, it was not about looks, but about attitude. Even though he is the kind you can pick out from a crowd at 500 feet, just due to the way he moves. But that is entirely a reflection of character, believe me.

    So my advice is: quit letting 'them' do it to you. It's all about profit (theirs), and they can cannibalize your life if you let them. There has not been a worse crime perpetrated on women than the 'beauty' and fashion industries. Truth is:

    When we're twenty, we have the face the Gods gave us; When we're thirty we have the face our thoughts gave us. When we're forty we have the face life gave us, and when we're fifty, we have the face we deserve. So, the best and only effectful investment in beauty is to work on being 'deserving'.

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Battleground

    The female body has often become a battleground, usually with the aim of keeping us quiet and submissive. This has prevented us from having any real power over our lives and from impacting the world aound us in a significant way. Men do it to us and we go along with it. I remember an interesting study where a group of men and women were shown a photograph of a normal HEALTHY weight woman and asked to comment. The majority of men labelled her as overweight, and many labelled her as FAT. Most of the women though she was overweight as well. Hmmm...if a HEALTHY normal weight woman is considered fat, what does that say about us? Why isn't a healthy weight woman held up as the ideal of beauty? The fear and loathing that surrounds the female body is pure and simple misogyny and we women are complicit in it. Today's ideal female form is often represented as a childlike and masculine figure, hungry and devoid of fully developed secondary sex characteristics. I myself have been "cursed" with a womanly hour glass figure with fully developed secondary sex characteristics. I have large breasts, a small waist and a big derriere. I am also normal weight. My fully female form has been a source of ridicule and loathing (couching fear perhaps?) from both men and women. I have been taught to feel ashamed of my womanliness and I have often gone along with it and internalised this loathing. Enough already! Why do we want to look like men? Why do men want us to look like them, or even worse, like CHILDREN? What is really going on here?

  • Stump

    4 years ago

    Say what?

    Quote:
    Men do it to us and we go along with it.

    Yes. I really must stop buying truckloads of Cosmo and Glamour subscriptions and forcing them upon my female acquaintances.

    Further to the "you get the face you deserve" theory, I tend to believe women get the men they fish for. Check your bait and your fishing hole. If you don't want to catch a shark don't hang so much meat overboard, if you know what I mean.

  • nightbloom

    4 years ago

    Good article. Creature, I

    Good article.

    Creature, I can't help responding to this:

    Quote:
    Men do it to us and we go along with it.

    Yes and no. Women can be pretty hard on each, and have a peculiar way of "policing" other women when it comes to these things. Whether it's "fat chicks" or bad wardrobe, no one shoots down women with more relish and efficiency than other women. I've seen this so many times. So we can't put all the blame on 'evil men'. And men are objectified by women in other ways just as unsparingly (i.e. men as "success objects"). Btw, for every legitimate case of bulemia/anorexia I guarantee you I can find you ten young men on steriods in any commercial gym in North America. So there are some common issues here.

    Anyways, excuse the digression, I just had to repond to that.

    Again, great article.

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Response...

    Seems I've touched a nerve. Some good responses and comments. I don't remember however labelling men as evil and women as innocent victims. I did say that men do it to us and we go along with it. I also said it was misogyny and women are complicit in it. Misogynists are not exclusively male, some of the most virulent ones I have come accross are women. As for the suffering of the male, this article wasn't about that was it? And I am sorry, men's bodies have never come close to being the political battleground that women's bodies have been through the ages. Yes, there is pressure on men. Women prefer them to look a certain way and I guess there are women who are still stuck in the 50s who think success is an aphrodisiac. I still ask why we women want to look like men? Why do men want us to look like them, or even worse CHILDREN?

  • Stump

    4 years ago

    What if?

    Quote:
    I did say that men do it to us and we go along with it.

    What if it's actually the other way around. What if women do it to themselves and men go along with it? What would be the solution then?

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Stump!

    Touché. But come on....where and how long have women had power over their own bodies? Name that planet. I'd like to move there. Enough of this. Got a job to go back to. Keep it thoughful.

  • Hyeena

    4 years ago

    what's a labia?

    what's a labia?

  • Stump

    4 years ago

    how long

    Quote:
    where and how long have women had power over their own bodies?

    Here. For a couple of generations now. Women have as much work to do re-educating their own side of the equation as we men do. One's self-esteem can't be taken or bestowed by another... I believe it's a bit of a cop-out to blame another for one's self-designated shortcomings. Easy to do for sure and something we all fall into from time to time, but not a valid excuse IMO.

  • Eleanor Oh

    4 years ago

    This article addresses some

    This article addresses some important issues, and it's nice to get an insider's perspective on what it means to be a "Dove girl," even if the situation came upon Shannon Melnyk largely by accident. She seems to have a sincere interest in changing the way we view women, for the better -- but I'm not so sure about Dove.

    Consider Unilever's other ad campaigns, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIUQ5hbRHXk, for "Fair & Lovely," a skin-whitening cream marketed primarily to women in India and Malaysia. Some of these ads have been taken off the air for charges of racism, and rightly so.

    From Salon.com:

    "[Aneel] Karnani establishes with little room for disputation that Unilever and HLL have been playing on racial sensitivities to market Fair and Lovely to poor women in India and elsewhere in Asia. The television and magazine advertisements he describes would not last a nanosecond in Western markets, if any advertising director was suicidal enough to run them. They show depressed dark-skinned women getting progressively more light-skinned, and in the process, getting good jobs, landing boyfriends and achieving happiness."

    http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/02/13/fair_and_lovely/

  • James Burns

    4 years ago

    Beefy

    I do find it strange that so many women seek to blame men for the fact that women are their own harshest judges when it comes to what is considered feminine beauty.

    Why is it that so many women seem to think that the fashion industry's notion of feminine beauty is shared by most men? One of the primary reasons tall thin women are popular as fashion models is because they make good coat hangers. Their lack of form prevents attention being drawn away from the clothes.

    All humans are genetically wired to find indicators of good health attractive. Indicators of health include symmetry particularly in facial features, youth, normal movement patterns (and if you've ever been able to identify junkies at a distance just by the way they move you'll understand what unhealthy movement looks like), scent, height, blemish free skin, in the case of women a particular hip to waist ratio, and in the case of men a particular shoulder to waist ratio. And there are thousands of other details in both appearance and behavior that influence what indicates good health and thus superior survival attributes that people find attractive. What's more signs of ill health, like the morbidly obese or skeletally thin, signs of disease, deformity, all these things will make someone less attractive. The more in balance and positive healthy features are in a human being, the more attractive people will find that person. You can rail all you like about the unfairness of it all.

    That said, beauty is an aesthetic notion. It goes beyond mere attractiveness. It is deeply embedded in culture, and it is an infinitely malleable concept. But it will always be influenced by our evolved drives, and the culture we are a part of. The question is whether or not we can be aware of those influences, because it is only through awareness that we can begin to have some measure of control over them.

  • nightbloom

    4 years ago

    Thanks for the links

    Thanks for the links Eleanor; and Creature: for the most part I agree with you. Good post, James.

    It's perfectly valid to critique the prevailing beauty ethic and the warping pressures it generates on young women. I think men should encourage women to develop that critique as far as they can (which many mainstream young men of the X & Y generation already do, to be fair).

    The only misgivings I have is when that critique ventures into the blame-game and starts pathologizing men & demonizing male sexuality. I think it's important for women to steer clear of that crutch. Most hetero-men I've known have actually been pretty down-to-earth in their appraisal of women's physiques, even when it's "just guys" talking (contrary to the stereotype). I've encountered almost universal repulsion to to the anorexic and waif-boy physiques on women, and a fairly widespread appetite for the...er...roomy "rubanesque" girl.

    I think the origins of harsh self-judgment, stringent "food discipline" and all the other perverse rituals of self-deprivation and control young women put themselves through must ultimately be sought within.

  • Kelly Crane

    4 years ago

    Escaping Advertising

    There is a reason that girls typically start to feel shame about their bodies at puberty - it is because the shame is about being a woman. It is obvious that advertisers rely on this shame to sell their products, and will even go on to create a need and the product to fill it (who ever used to worry about so much we are now told we need to "fix"). It makes me think Brazil is onto something when the one region there banned all public advertising. Imagine being free of all those messages except in those circumstances where one actively pursued the particular media.

  • harry

    4 years ago

    together we're better

    Quote:
    I did say that men do it to us and we go along with it.

    no, everything is not the fault of men. nor is it the fault of women (original sin, anyone?).

    but this is a patriarchal society, and as such men have definite privileges. take the wage imbalance between the genders for an example. remember that it was not so long ago that women were openly patronised in the media...we've come a long way, but obviously if articles like these are still relevant, we're obviously not there yet.

    let's lose the "us and them" thing. positive and healthy attitudes come from within, but also from families, communities and cultures, too. one can't just say "hey you oppressed/depressed/stepped upon person, why don't you just get a better attitude?"

    stump's reminder that one who attracts sharks is hanging too much meat applies even here. it's recognised that a person like folks, so therefore, if there are troubled folks who don't value themselves in a relationship/family/community, one must reflect as to how they contribute. everbody is involved in this, everbody has to work together to fix it.

  • dorothy

    4 years ago

    it is REALLY in the eye of...

    Just have to share this story from many years ago:

    Big stately woman from Northern European country, works for the diplomatic corps. Gets stationed in Ethiopia, just following the victorious 5-year struggle to get down to ‘ideal’ weight, of which she is very proud. She meets and falls in love with an Ethiopian man, a small, slender guy, who barely reaches her shoulders. She is very self-conscious, and of course, due to their obvious differences, they discuss their respective ‘looks’. His expressed sentiment: you’re stunningly beautiful, but you could use another ten or twelve pounds on you!

    Go figure.

  • Stump

    4 years ago

    going too far

    Quote:
    It makes me think Brazil is onto something when the one region there banned all public advertising.

    Sounds great... in theory. In practice, unless there were exception upon exception, positive messages, such as Dove's, publicity for charitable events, even billboards advertising things like the children's help line would all be gone. I'm not so sure that's what we want. I know I'd sooner have the freedom to buy my own ad space if I had the money and the inclination to publicize something.

  • nightbloom

    4 years ago

    Quote:And I am sorry, men's

    Quote:
    And I am sorry, men's bodies have never come close to being the political battleground that women's bodies have been through the ages.

    I know this isn't the topic of the article, but just as an afterthought on this particular statement by Creature above (sorry Creature - I know what you're trying to say).....But it's important to insert the caveat that men and women experience the politicization of their bodies in very different ways. We shouldn't be invalidating the one in our efforts to recognize the other. We need to broaden that discourse if we're going to go there at all. Ask the Vietnam draftees or the boys coming home in body-bags from Afghanistan right now whether they ever saw their bodies as a political battleground. Their bodies are the ultimate political battleground. In most societies, every young man is susceptible to this reality (male expendability). It has been so throughout human history.

    Sorry for another digression, but I think it's important to highlight the grey areas inherent in those kinds of absolute statements. The gender discourse needs to be enlarged to encompass these equally valid realities. This doesn't invalidate the politicization and exploitation of women's bodies...it simply acknowledges the diversity of ways that both genders experience this phenomenon. Creature's statement was worded a bit too exclusively to pass muster, though I appreciate where she was going with it.

  • Roberta

    4 years ago

    Dove's racism

    Thank you Eleanor for that information about whitening cream.

    Another big problem with Dove products is that they are not environmentally friendly.

    Unilever is not an enlightened corporation. Everything they do is to increase profit margins.

    I'm just glad to see a shift in their advertising mandate. It's been a long time coming for a corporation to realize that they might be able to sell us stuff without always employing the usual media schtick of playing upon our manufactured insecurities and fancied needs.

    but yes, still killing us softly...

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Ouch!

    Methinks I touched an anti-feminist nerve! I guess the comic is correct: There is one thing that men and women can both agree on. We all hate women. Thanks for proving my point.

  • nightbloom

    4 years ago

    What a silly response on

    What a silly response on your part, creature. Too bad you see it that way, even when people bend over backwards to validate your arguments. I'm sorry, but it sounds like you've got some issues you're projecting.

    As I said: validating one form of "body politic" (sic) shouldn't mean invalidating another. There are common issues here. You're the one who came on strong with the binary oppositional mentality and the absolutist exclusionary statements about how "nothing comes close"..yada-yada. Sounds like you don't like being challenged on your preconceptions. Playing the "you're just anti-feminist" card when confronted with alternate viewpoints is a big cop-out.

    Maybe you need to stop perceiving opposition where there is none, and open your mind to the diversity of ways which the bodies of both men and women are politiized and exploited. Nothing "anti-feminist" about it...in fact, it's the heart of true feminism.

  • James Burns

    4 years ago

    Bushette

    Quote:
    "Methinks I touched an anti-feminist nerve! I guess the comic is correct: There is one thing that men and women can both agree on. We all hate women. Thanks for proving my point."

    Ah I see. So to paraphrase you... you're either with me or against me. If you don't agree with me 100% you're with the terror... er... anti-feminists.

    Your reaction is no surprise really, close minded fundamentalists come in all flavors.

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Crossing the line.

    You may attack my views all you want. That is perfectly o.k. I am not asking anyone to agree with me and I like to be challenged. It keeps me thinking. I have enjoyed reading most of the views expressed. I do however, object to being personally attacked. Keep it adult.

  • James Burns

    4 years ago

    Fundamentalists

    Your views were being criticized. Close minded categorical labeling of people who don't share your point of view, is something fundamentalists engage in all the time. They use that tactic because they can direct all their rancor and blame at a convenient other. In your case that other is clearly men.

    It's also handy, because it enables quick retorts.

    It didn't surprise me that you didn't like having your behavior reflected back at you.

    The point many have been trying to get across to you in this thread, is that issues around body image and beauty go well beyond simple issues of gender. They involve evolved drives, convoluted aspects of culture, and particularly in our culture the commodification of the body, female and male.

    But they also involve negative behavior on the part of men AND women. It may feel good for you to blame men for everything, including women's poor behavior, but taking that approach not only won't solve any problems, it will simply result in conflict as those you unfairly label simply decide to resist your every effort, and treat you in exactly the same manner you treat them.

    So really, who here is the adult, or are you just engaging in more of the same? Instead of trying to label people the bad guys engage the ideas.

  • creature

    4 years ago

    Dear James,

    Calling ME Bushette and a close-minded fundamentalist are not PERSONAL attacks? The only person I adressed personally in my comments is Stump and I only did so to attack his arguments and he kept the argument at the level of debate. You are more than welcome to rip apart my arguments James, but don't rip apart the person making the argument. This is the internet after all, and my bet is if we all got together for a beer, we might all be a little surprised and confused at who and what we were meeting. The shark and bait analogy is very apt here. Who really is the shark and who is the bait? Heated debate should be fun, infuriating and is always more enjoyable when someone takes on the role of designated shit disturber. Attack the message, the messanger is just enjoying the reactions the message provokes.

  • James Burns

    4 years ago

    Dear, dear, dear

    A mass labeling of those who disagree with you as anti-feminist women haters is not a sign of someone with a fundamentalist point of view? In this case that men are the evil doers? You repeatedly state in your previous commentary that the fear and loathing surrounding women's bodies is simply misogyny and that women are merely complicit in it. You heap the blame on men. Well I''m sorry, but women are at least as much a cause of the fear and loathing surrounding women's bodies, as are men. It's not mere complicity.

    As has been stated by myself and others, there are reasons certain shapes and appearances are considered attractive or beautiful. Some of those preferences are hard wired into us by evolution, some of those preferences are due to cultural factors such as the commodification of the human body, especially the bodies of women. Some of them have to do with men attempting to exert power over women. Some of them have to do with women attempting to exert power over women and men.

    Your simplistic diatribe laying the blame at the feet of simple misogynistic men and a few complicit women is in error. Yet when this is pointed out to you, you resort to labeling those who disagree with you as, anti-feminist women haters.

    [COMMENT OFFENSIVE TO ANOTHER COMMENTER REMOVED. -TYEE EDITOR.]

  • nightbloom

    4 years ago

    It's ironic how we've come

    It's ironic how we've come full circle on this....thirty years ago any woman claiming to be a feminist was liable to be called a "man-hater".....now any man who speaks at all in this debate (even when he agrees) is accused of being a "woman-hater". Funny, that. Small wonder why people eventually just stop listening.

  • dgiVista.org

    4 years ago

    Unilever is a pig

    Thanks also to Eleanor for the tip on Unilever.

    After watching the whole Dove thing morph into this thing [viral, activist marketing students take note of it all], I stand by my initial repulsion almost 3 years ago to a company coopting this whole struggle for the sake of the bottom line:

    [url=http://dgivista.org/Politics/sparky/2004/11/real-soap-real-beauty-real-feminism.shtml]

    If Dove/Unilever did not expect a profit boost from the the entire project, it never would have happened.

    I wish it were not so, but I conclude that it still is. If they really cared about the feminist/self-concept debate, they would anonymously fund an organization to help women and men move past the cosmetic [pun intended] and into the substantial. But that would erode their profit margins and those of all global beauty industrialists.

  • Yammer

    4 years ago

    Motive vs. effect

    Unilever is, of course, doing its Real Beauty campaign to increase its bottom line. It's very clever, getting lots of media and public attention without having to shell out a fortune for supermodels, who are a bad imagine and price fit for their line of cheap soaps.

    So what? It's still a good idea.

    I have no problem with corporations accidentally doing things that are positive. Evolution is just this process: random mutations which thrive.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    Ditto

    Quote:
    I have no problem with corporations accidentally doing things that are positive.

    Me neither Yammer - it's just too bad that it happens so seldom..and they have a clean slate when it comes to doing good things on purpose unless there's a lot of money in it.

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