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.