Challenging harmful gender norms

Some of the strongest forces behind persistent gender gaps are harmful social norms and stereotypes that limit expectations of what women can or should do. These barriers discriminate against women. They are all around us, and they are deeply ingrained.

What's more, these outdated norms are holding back the global economic growth and social progress that will come from women's empowerment and gender equality - the growth and progress that are at the heart of the UN's sustainable development goals. The UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women in 2017 concluded: “Changing norms should be at the top of the 2030 Agenda”. We agree.

We want to use our influence, insight and expertise to challenge these adverse social norms and gender stereotypes - in our business, and in society at large. It’s a central element of our Opportunities for Women strategy, which also embraces access to rights, skills, resources and jobs, and livelihoods across our full value chain - including through Advancing diversity and inclusion in our own business. And we believe that challenging those social norms can have a transformational impact.

In all this work, we’re guided by our vision (PDF | 7MB) of a world in which every woman and girl can create the kind of life she wishes to lead, unconstrained by harmful norms and stereotypes. And a world in which men, too, are free from the confines of adverse social norms and stereotypes of manhood and masculinity.

That's also a world in which economies are growing and creating opportunities for men and women alike. One in which people - and our business - can flourish.

We're convinced that business generally − including ours − can help change consumer behaviour and challenge social norms. That means changing the images we see, and the words we use, so we reflect the real aspirations, achievements and interests of women and men alike. Our Unstereotype initiative plays a vital role in this.

Through our brands, we have the chance to reach billions of people every day. That gives us an enormous opportunity to challenge stereotypes – and some of our biggest brands are leading the way.

Our Wheel fabric solutions brand reaches more than 150 million low-income households in South Asia each year − and it’s inspired by fresh thinking as well as fresh clothes. The brand aims to use its communications to tackle deep-rooted societal conditioning when it comes to gender roles and bringing in fresh thinking.

Beginning with its prize-winning campaign featuring 6 Pack – India’s first transgender band – Brooke Bond has continued to share authentic portrayals of people, tackling taboo topics and breaking down stereotypes to spark debate and encourage people to bond over a cup of tea. Focusing on topics such as dwarfism, homosexuality and mental health, Brooke Bond continues to address stereotypes in countries including Canada, Russia, Pakistan and South Africa, by identifying and speaking out about locally relevant tensions and societal prejudices.

In 2018, Brooke Bond launched the second edition of its celebrated Cannes Grand Prix-winning 6 Pack Band. Aiming to break stereotypes around mental health by featuring six special needs teenagers, Brooke Bond focuses on their musical abilities rather than the stereotypical focus on their disabilities.

Dove’s #MyBeautyMySay campaign features stories of amazing women who stand up for their own beauty, refusing to let comments about their looks hold them back. Find out more about #MyBeautyMySay or watch the video.

Dove has a long history of supporting self-esteem. Since 2004, the Dove Self-Esteem Project has reached more than 35 million young people around the world with body confidence and self-esteem education − and it aims to reach 40 million by 2020.

The brand's commitment to making beauty a source of confidence, rather than anxiety, is reflected in its global launch in 2018 of a No Digital Distortion Mark across all branded content, letting women know that the image they see has not been digitally altered to fit someone else's ideals of what beauty is.

A young taekwondo athlete who is also a proud hijab wearer helps Sunsilk continue to provide unstereotypical role models, with its new range for hijab wearers called Hijab Recharge. Sunsilk positions her as a source of inspiration, not only for hijab wearers but also for other girls who want to challenge social norms and craft their own exploration journey. See the Sunsilk Hijab video.

Opening up possibilities for women and girls is at the heart of Sunsilk's brand purpose. Sunsilk has partnered with the NGO Girl Rising to create the Explore More Toolkit, with a curriculum designed to help young people explore their horizons. Find out more in Enhancing entrepreneurial and life skills through our brands.

One in three women worldwide experience sexual or physical violence.¹ Recognising that in India mothers in Tamil Nadu were concerned about their daughters’ safety outside the home, our Hamam soap launched the #GoSafeOutside campaign, encouraging girls to learn traditional Indian martial arts and breaking the stereotype that they cannot defend themselves.

Vietnamese society still places the burden of running the household on the shoulders of women, who pressure themselves to be dedicated home makers, sacrificing meaningful moments to finish their daily chores.

With the help of key opinion formers and celebrities, our Sunlight home hygiene brand developed its Life over Chores initiative to kick start social debate about how women can have an enriching and fulfilling life beyond chores. Life over Chores includes a video, workshops and social media.

Lux aims to inspire women to defy judgements and to dare to express their femininity unapologetically. At times, the more effort women put into looking beautiful, the more they tend to be judged. Lux is working with the creative and entertainment industries − which have an important role to play in shaping judgements on women − to address this assumption.

The brand is recognising and supporting women in the entertainment and creative industries who rise above judgements and challenge the stereotypes. In India, Lux tapped into the pop-culture of movies by launching the Lux Golden Rose awards, Bollywood’s first and only all-women’s awards show to celebrate women who boldly dare to express their femininity. Similarly, in Indonesia, Lux is working with the music industry and launched the Lux Sound of Women Awards, the first women-only music award show that recognises women who dare to express themselves unapologetically.

Men can also face restrictive stereotypes − and some of our biggest brands are finding ways to help evolve traditional gender norms.

Dove Men+Care, for example, aims to celebrate and expand men's opportunities to take on caring roles − and the brand advocates policy changes to support them. Its #DearFutureDads campaign, launched in June 2018, raises awareness of the importance of paternity leave.

The brand has also partnered with Promundo, a global NGO with expertise in engaging men and boys in promoting gender equality, to launch the Helping Dads Care report, a pioneering study which looked at the attitudes and behaviours around paternity leave.

Dove Men+Care developed a digital Paternity Leave Resources hub on dove.com with resources for dads and their networks, and in 2019 launched a Pledge for Paternity Leave in the US so that dads, allies, and business leaders can all show their support for paternity leave. Together, these efforts highlight the benefits of paternity leave and demonstrate its positive impact on society in both a global and local context.

AXE is committed to fighting the limitations of harmful masculine stereotypes and liberating men from the labels and pressures that are holding them back from being their most attractive selves.

Research with AXE’s global partner, Promundo, found that over 57% of guys have been told that ‘real men’ should behave a certain way. Axe believes there’s no one way to be attractive, and wants to inspire young men to define what it means to be a man for themselves. Through a global partnership with youth charity Ditch the Label, AXE has so far supported over 1.3m young people through online support and resources.

Of course, any single business can only reach so far in tackling stereotypes that ail the industry and society. To make an impact at greater scale, we need everyone to embrace it.

In 2017, at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, we joined forces with UN Women to launch the Unstereotype Alliance, which brings together industry leaders across creative, marketing and media to take collective, urgent action in eliminating outdated stereotypes in advertising and driving long-term, positive cultural change.

We believe this is a chance to make a real difference at an industry level – and to address some of the barriers that limit people’s potential. By 2018, 34 global companies had joined the Alliance.

Laundry, cooking, cleaning, collecting water and caring for people – in some parts of the world, these unpaid tasks in the home can take up to six hours a day. They’re the necessities of life, and we should all be responsible for them. But all too often, they are done disproportionately by women and girls. Unpaid work like this is hampering women’s access to opportunities outside the home, holding individuals back and contributing to the gender gap.

If women’s unpaid care work were compensated at a rate roughly equal to minimum wage, this would add about $10 trillion to global economic output (around 13% of global GDP).² Globally, women spend between two and 10 times longer than men on household chores like laundry, cleaning and cooking, and caring for children and family members.

So how can we help change this gender norm? We don’t pretend complex issues like this can be solved by one business, with one initiative. But making people think about the status quo can be a first step to challenging it, if it isn’t fair. And by putting our brands at the centre of the change we want to create, we’ll keep building the consumer trust we need to grow our business.

We believe our laundry and other Home Care brands have a big part to play in helping to recognise, reduce and redistribute the amount of time spent by women and girls on household chores. One example is WE-Care − a three-year partnership between Surf and Oxfam that works to enable women to have more choice over how they spend their time, and greater opportunity to claim their rights and engage in social, personal, economic and political activity.

Communications are key to getting the message across: the programme involves using different channels as well as face-to-face household visits by local agents. In February 2019, the new #iLabaYu (#ILoveYou) communications campaign was launched in the Philippines. The campaign encourages men to share in household chores, particularly laundry, and to contribute to raising a future generation of Filipinos who live out the true meaning of respect and equality beginning at home. Advocacy is also essential − and the programme actively engages global and local decision-makers with the aim of influencing policy and investment.

At the same time, the programme aims to provide better access to water and laundry infrastructure with new or improved communal laundries, household laundry facilities and water systems or centres.

The programme aims to reach 70,000 people directly and millions more through communications. By 2018 it had distributed 9,500 time and labour-saving devices and helped improve 66 water infrastructure systems, reaching more than 37,000 women and girls. It also helped train nearly 2,000 'care champions' to further raise awareness.

We’re embedding the idea of unstereotyping throughout our business and value chain. Given the severity of the barriers to progress these norms present, they have to be tackled at multiple levels and in a variety of ways. Elsewhere within Opportunities for women, we describe our work on:

• advancing diversity and inclusion, through which we’re building a stronger business with empowered women, including by addressing unconscious bias
• promoting safety for women, including challenging harmful norms within the communities we and our suppliers are operating in
• working with our brands and functions to provide women with access to skills to enhance their entrepreneurship and opportunities in life
• expanding women’s opportunities in our retail value chain to empower them in their communities, showing it’s possible to challenge limiting stereotypes, and to succeed.

¹http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en

²The power of parity: How advancing women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth, McKinsey Global Institute

Main image by Hanna Chriqui, Bangkok, Thailand