Dove, enough with the fear and self-loathing, ok?

If women hated themselves as much as you say, Dove, there wouldn’t be a zillion selfies in the world.

Real Beauty was a magnificent campaign. It was an elegantly executed reminder to women that we can be pretty rough on ourselves sometimes. But Dove and Ogilvy thought it should be said again. And again. And again. Now it feels like abuse.

We’re not that self-obsessed, self-loathing or miserable, Dove. We know that no one’s perfect and most of us cope with that.

The latest Dove stunt, Ogilvy & Mather, Paris is clever. But it’s contrived.

Grown-up women do not write down self-hate lists. That puts far too much importance on the things all people, and not just women, think fleetingly about themselves. Or anything. The thought, “I look drawn today,” was probably eclipsed by, “Wow, that smoothie was the best one I’ve made yet,” a moment later. Yes, both thoughts are inconsequential. That’s my point.

The stated goal of the campaign, #OneBeautifulThought, is to ask women when they last had a beautiful thought about themselves.

Really? Does it?

Dove stated that the film is intended to showcase women’s thoughts so that the brand can help women rethink how they talk to themselves.

What it overlooked is that women (being part of all people) have 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts a day. How many of those do you think are negative self-thoughts? 10? 20? Twenty is one two thousandth of the number of things women think about. In order of importance, it’s likely not one of them made it into the vast majority of women’s top 100.

[Candide McDonald, editor]