Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful Has Lots of Support — and Plenty of Critics

Dove recently relaunched its #SpeakBeautiful campaign, aiming to encourage self-esteem in young girls and examine the effect social media has on the way girls view themselves. Before the campaign reemerged, the Dove Self-Esteem Project conducted a survey that found that “72 percent of girls encounter negativity on social media that damages their self-esteem every week,” and “70 percent of girls believe social media has a strong influence on the way they look at themselves.” Part of the campaign suggests that people tweet out two positive comments for every negative one they see tweeted by a woman or girl.

Critics are upset that the campaign focuses on girls’ negativity, though, labeling it “old fashioned sexism” that’s akin to telling women to smile.

Many think that the campaign teaches girls to suppress their feelings and not to fight back in situations of injustice.

And people aren’t cool with the idea of accepting the world’s negativity without being allowed to express their opinions about it.

“We know from talking to girls that this is a real issue. 7 out of 10 girls encounter negative posts on a weekly basis that can be damaging to their self-esteem and as a result girls opt out of normal activities such as going to school, visiting the doctor, participating in sports or giving their opinion,” Theresa McDonnell, Dove’s Director of Digital Engagement and PR, told Yahoo Beauty. “It is important to help women and girls navigate commentary that damages their self-worth. We are very proud that since launching #SpeakBeautiful in 2015, there has been a 42% decrease in the amount of negative beauty conversation on Twitter, but there is more to be done.” Dove launched the #SpeakBeautiful Squad with a goal of transforming social media into a place where girls can feel confident and be themselves by providing them with tips, advice, and resources to armor themselves against negative commentary. “Thus far it has sparked needed conversation and debate about stereotypes and body shaming,” McDonnell added. “As a brand committed to inspiring and empowering confidence in women and girls, we will continue to provide relevant solution-oriented resources that can help women navigate social media for a girl in their life.”

Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful Squad, a group of four women including Ariel Winter, came together at an event in New York City on Thursday night and met with a group of girls to discuss cyber bullying and defending themselves against bullies in a positive way.

Winter kicked off the discussion by differentiating between an “upstander…” and a bystander, and by telling the girls the importance of being an upstander.

“Unfortunately, right now a lot of people are kind of scared that they’ll be uncool if they comment on someone’s page and say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool to do to my friend.’ A lot of people are really scared to do that and I think that that’s really unfortunate, because at the end of the day we really need to speak up and set the precedent that it’s not okay to comment on people’s pages negatively,” Winter explained at the event. “And a lot of people wonder, ‘Does that mean I write something negatively back to this person?’ and no. The answer is always…fight negativity with positivity… You can say, ‘I really don’t appreciate that, and that’s really hurtful, and I hope next time you’ll rethink writing that on somebody’s page.’ And I think maybe go to their page and comment something nice on their page, even though they’ve commented something mean on someone else’s, but it really changes the conversation and it changes the way people look at you and it changes the way people look at themselves.”

Winter, whose positive message encouraging outspokenness didn’t make it into Dove’s criticized Twitter campaign, continued. “You also have to remember when people are writing negative comments on your page or other people’s page, it comes from a place of their own insecurity” she said. “So it’s really hard to understand that at first because you’re like, ‘that’s so mean, I can’t believe they would say that.’ But you have to understand that it’s coming from a place of insecurity themselves, so you have to respond to it positively and do your best to speak beautifully, as the campaign promotes, because it really will make a big difference.”

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