It’s really difficult to be objective to oneself and to one’s appearance, but can one assess just how tough, opinionated and demanding one is? We are harder on ourselves than we should be – as emerged from the latest Dove campaign that started last week.
Revealingly called Choose Beautiful, the campaign questioned almost 6.5 thou. women about their appreciation of beauty. The women range from 18 to 64 and inhabit cities as different as San Francisco, Deli and São Paolo. Will you be surprised to learn that the results were pretty discouraging?
80% of the polled are of the opinion that every woman has some beautiful feature. Yet, almost all of them (96%!) refused to regard themselves as beautiful. A staggering number of women (78%) admitted they are not confident about their appearance.
The belief that every woman possesses a beautiful feature is not equally strong everywhere. In the States it is shared by 88%, while in Brazil this number is up to 91% and in India – to 94%.
Every third woman considers their biggest beauty pressure is a self-imposed one. 70% believe that beauty is not only skin deep.
Dove’s campaign was promoted with a telltale video where women were asked to walk either through a door tagged “beautiful” or through a door tagged “average.” Many of them chose the “average” door, some of them unhesitatingly, others upon several seconds’ consideration. There was one woman who declined to go through at all!
Nevertheless, some women chose the “beautiful” door and were delighted with themselves, one of the women saying she felt “triumphant.”
Dove has decided that this state of affairs ought to be remedied, and, aided by psychologist Nancy Etcoff and confidence expert Tara Cousineau, came up with a “Mindful Me” tool kit for the campaign. Probably, it’s just what you need to feel better about yourself?
