Gender equality is a hot topic right now. Whether you are engaged in or tired of the rally cry of #MeToo and Hollywood’s Time’s Up campaign, there is a good helping of healthy conversation about women and men and history and change happening pretty publically in 2018. From an advert for nail polish to another clip heralding women in science, these clips are reversing roles and fleshing out the boundaries of what it means to be female. Is this a vision of our near future, or a just an echo chamber of the current conversation on gender disparity? Presented as part of The Future Laboratory‘s recent Female Futures forum here in Sydney, these advertisements seek to appeal to women in some way. Which ones have got the deeper message right, and which have borrowed from old formats to simply jump on the bandwagon? Watch and decide.
Sally Hansen’s ‘Shetopia’
Welcome to Shetopia, an imagined place made by and for women. Here women and men are working together for a better world where no one is short-changed, undercut or cut-off. This film celebrates Self-Made women everywhere in the name of the brand’s self-made founder, Sally Hansen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMO877opcPw
What If Millie Dresselhaus, Female Scientist, Was Treated Like A Celebrity
How many female scientists can you name? Here, General Electric imagines a world where brilliant women in science are treated like stars. What’s also pretty cool, is that they’re actually helping to create that world too. GE has set goals of having 20,000 women in STEM roles by 2020 and obtaining 50:50 representation for all our technical entry-level programs. Very cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ6_fOX7ITQ
We never said it was easy
Hornbach—basically the German version of Bunnings—wants women to literally smash stereotypes (presumably using Hornbach sledgehammers). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35E4Sly_4Ks
Invest like a woman
Ellevest founder, Sallie Krawcheck believes the investment business has been made by men, for men, and that this has kept women from achieving their own financial goals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP2tmG-njSc&pbjreload=10
Blood normal
Historically, tampon advertisements have only shown blue ink instead of blood. Swedish-owned brand Libresse has shaken it up a little by creating the first-ever tampon commercial to actually show blood. Are we ready for taboo to no longer be taboo? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm8vCCBaeQw Stay in touch, and learn more about our upcoming events. Subscribe here.
