Dove Wants To Stop Women From Bullying Themselves

Dove has worked tirelessly over the years to empower women, and its most recent campaign is no different. Dove asked several French women to write down every single negative thought they had about themselves, and then hired actresses to say those negative thoughts to each other. The hook? The women who originally had these thoughts witnessed the actresses’ exchange.

Once the women’s thoughts were voiced aloud, it sounded like straight up bullying. As the women realized that the actresses were saying their internal insults, they began to understand how truly damaging those words would be if said to another woman, therefore recognizing that it was completely unacceptable to say these things to themselves.

Some of the self-loathing thoughts included “your face looks like a bulldog” and “sit up straight otherwise your belly looks big,” proving that women bully themselves on a daily basis without even realizing it. One of the women was almost in shock when she heard them, saying that she “hopes her daughter never speaks to herself like that.”

Even an innocent bystander who overheard the actresses’ conversation intervened, calling the actress out for being incredibly harsh to her dining companion (who was also a paid actress). This nice woman’s gesture gives me more faith in humanity and also validates just how brutal our internal thoughts can be.

The “One Beautiful Thought” video is just one of the many attempts from Dove this year to encourage women to be nicer, both to themselves and others. Earlier this year, Dove teamed up with Twitter for a #SpeakBeautiful campaign, aimed at stopping negative body image tweets—seeing as there were over 5 million negative tweets last year.

This Dove campaign begs you to ask, "if it's not acceptable to say to someone else, why say it to ourselves?"

Image: Dove France/YouTube (2)