So, How Do You Want Your Women?

Driving down the South Superhighway with my brother last Sunday evening, I couldn't help but notice the huge Dove billboards on their Campaign for Real Beauty. Challenging the stereotype of beauty shoved down women's throats through different media, they try to show that real beauty is skin deep through a series of events and awareness materials. A laudable effort, really. But why was I bothered by the huge billboards showing women, and then the tallied options of dichotomized physical traits (such as fat or thin--okay, okay, they didn't exactly use those terms, but you get the picture)? On the website, with all the explanations, and complementary information on "real beauty," it didn't seem as weird. But up there, on a billboard surrounded by other billboards of waif-like models, the photograph of the woman and the tallied options looked more like a menu to me. So, how do you want your woman? Fat, or thin? On that billboard in that particular location, the woman seemed objectified. With the tallied options there indicating the number of people who prefer fat or thin, you couldn't see past that--fat or thin. You couldn't see past her physical appearance, because that is precisely what is being served up to you on a silver platter. It seems like an alternative campaign on physical appearance. Up there on the billboard, that is exactly what it is. I don't know anything else about this plus-sized woman, apart from the fact that she is plus-sized (and attractive).

Their other events, like their essay writing contest for teens (in the US), are good efforts of instilling self-esteem beyond physical appearance in young women. But their ads for me are something else. With anonymous women gracing billboards, and people voting on options regarding appearance, it doesn't go beyond the physical. I don't know anything else about that woman. I only see her physical traits. So, sino ang ahensyang namamahala sa kampanyang ito?