When inclusivity goes wrong: the #DearSister campaign

To celebrate the release of its movie Mary Queen of Scots, about the relationship between cousins Elizabeth I and Mary (Queen of Scots), Universal Pictures UK partnered with Women for Women UK, a charity helping “women survivors of war rebuild their lives”, for a user-generated content campaign focused on sisterhood.

In posts on both their channels, the organisations encouraged followers to share stories of what sisterhood means to them.

I get how they reached this idea. It’s 2019 and brands want in on the female empowerment movement. Movies featuring two female leads and leaders are rare.

Promoting women supporting each other is a great idea, and according to Women for Women Executive Director Brita Schmidt, the campaign was inspired by “the letters that Elizabeth and Mary wrote to each other as rivals in power and in love”.

But here’s the thing. At the end of the story, Elizabeth got Mary beheaded. There is just no way round it. And that is just not my idea of sisterhood, or social media’s apparently, as the #DearSister hashtag was quickly flooded with slightly ironic comments on the campaign (to be fair, alongside some heart emojis).

How this could have been avoided

Celebrating women’s leadership is not a bad idea as such but in this case, we’d suggest something as simple as a history book.

When inclusivity goes wrong: Johnny Depp in a Dior campaign to support girls’ education

“What would you do for love?” asks Johnny Depp, alleged wife beater and face of Dior’s Eau Sauvage fragrance, in the French luxury brand’s latest philanthropic initiative.  

The actor is one of many Dior celebrities featured in the #DiorLoveChain launch video. The fashion house will donate $1 for each user-generated post on Instagram, Twitter or Weibo to girls’ education charity WE.

Depp has been fronting Dior’s Eau Sauvage campaign for over two years. Despite the domestic abuse allegations and receipts, calls from charities and customer complaints, the house decided not to drop him last summer, yet another proof that as a famous and wealthy white man, you can get away with so much. Donald Trump is in the White House, Casey Affleck won an Oscar, Mel Gibson was nominated for an Academy Award. And so on, and so forth.

In this context, the Dior marketing department didn’t comment on the domestic abuse allegations (“Dior declined to comment”-type statements), probably hoping that as a result, they would be kept out of the conversation.

It’s been just over a year since Depp and Amber Heard reached a divorce settlement and released a joint statement which, the way I read it, confirms domestic abuse (I know some people read it differently, it was drafted for that express purpose). Yet between the Pirates of the Caribbeans 5 flop and a messy suit and countersuit against his former management The Management Group, it hasn’t been the greatest year for Depp.

So Dior could easily have not included him in their roster of #DiorLoveChain celebrities and influencers. This is exactly what the BS “scheduling conflict” excuse was created for.  

Instead of which, they have him endorse a campaign for girls’ education, contributing to the narrative of Johnny Depp, good with (for?) women, which also included his exes defending him.

As men’s fragrances are mostly bought by women as presents, Dior has a vested interest in some semblance of Johnny Depp rehabilitation. Yet the company clearly isn’t concerned by the optic of their campaign, or any possible backlash. 2016 reminded us that (white) women don’t always vote in their interest, whether with their ballot or their wallet.

Male or female, everyone posting content with the #DiorLoveChain hashtag or buying a bottle of Eau Sauvage is contributing to how easily society rehabilitates white men guilty of domestic abuse, to the fact that we always question and suspect the victim and ultimately, to rape culture.

There are hundreds of ways you can contribute to girls’ right to education, including donating to the Malala Fund. Just don’t make it one that has a negative impact on other aspects of women’s rights.

Influencers: Emma Watson’s weird Instagram strategy

Emma Watson has 25.8 million followers on her personal Instagram account, where she (or most likely an agency), posts about her feminist activism, UN work and movies. 

Three weeks ago, when Watson started promoting Beauty & The Beast, she set up a new account, @the_press_tour, solely to document her premiere and press junket outfits. It currently boasts 455,000 followers. Watson’s agency has been posting regular pictures of her clothes with captions. 

The common point between all those outfits: they are environmentally conscious, mindful of the conditions in which their makers work and have been validated by consultancy Eco-Age. Indeed, for a few years now, Watson has been using her fame, whether on red carpets or editorials, to promote a new way to do fashion.

Which is why I find the logic behind setting up a dedicated press tour Instagram account specious. Surely, promoting mindful fashion would have been more efficient on an account with 25.8 million followers than on one with 56 times less.

My best guess is that Watson’s digital team knew that with the upcoming press tour, they would be posting more frequently than usual, with posts more focused on fashion than usual, and worried that some people would unfollow @emmawatson as a result. 

Representation matters, Business of Fashion

Fashion industry think-tank Business of Fashion (BoF) is currently accepting applications for Future VOICES, a great initiative to find new talents under 30. 

The competition is open to both men and women globally, though you wouldn’t know, based on the @bof Friday Instagram promotional post (reproduced here), which represents a series of mostly-blue male pictograms.  

The post has, at time of writing, received 29 comments, including one by @jayhoup asking “Is this only for men? Shame.” and one by @gabrielle_runzer questioning “Where’s the women???”. @Daisyschofield posted some female emoji and “think you’re missing something”. I asked whether women could apply too, to which @bof said “of course”. BoF didn’t follow up when I asked why the asset only represents men. 

This adds up to nearly 15% of comments pointing out that the asset is sexist. Maybe not sexist in intention, as I doubt whoever created it wanted to exclude women, but sexist in action. 

Whatever the reason, the result is inherently misogynistic. It assumes that when seeing male pictograms, Instagramers will understand that the competition is open to all. It assumes male as the default setting. 

Study after study shows that representation matters and that young women are less likely to apply for positions when they can’t see other women in the field. On the face of it, fashion performs better than most industry in terms of gender equality. Except that a lot of decision-making still sits with men. 

Take American and British Vogue, ran by Anna Wintour and Alexandra Shulman. Both have been the subject of behind-the-scenes documentaries. In The September Issue and Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue, the editors-in-chief present their covers to the Condé Nast execs. In both cases, they are the only women in rooms filled with men. 

Future VOICES, a partnership with Topshop, is a great initiative. Hopefully, it will help assuage another inequality issue: the fact that to start a fashion career, one often needs to intern, unpaid, which has a deterring effect for young people from many backgrounds.

In 2016, with an American election marked by sexism, the BoF asset might seem very tame. Some might excuse it because ultimately, BoF is achieving something good. However, not being sexist, the Donald Trump way, doesn’t mean that you’re not reproducing latent sexist ideas. BoF should know better than using an asset showing only men to call for applications.