The problem of sexism doesn’t all lie within men who tell sexist jokes, make off-colour comments or spout stereotypical slurs about women. People who witness sexism but say nothing also have to accept their responsibility in perpetuating anti-female attitudes and behaviour.

Australia’s national body for the prevention of violence against women, Our Watch, is pointing to those people in its campaign by Thinkerbell. The campaign, Doing nothing does harm, is a series of simple slice of life reconstructions, except that when sexist behaviour occurs, an awkward silence follows – a silence in which the camera pans in on the onlookers while a stopwatch alerts the viewer to the fact that they have time to do something.

If the viewer chooses to do something, they are rewarded with being de-targeted so that they won’t see the ad again. If they choose to do nothing, they will continue to be re-targeted – seeing the ad (and the sexist behaviour) again and again, and encouraged them to act.

Thinkerbell’s campaign was developed in response to new research that revealed four in five Australians (79%) want guidance on how to take positive bystander action, with only 14% of Australians currently likely to act.

Adam Ferrier, consumer psychologist, Thinkerbell, noted, “We wanted to create a campaign that mimics real life. This work both captures the awkwardness, and harm, that occurs when people choose to do nothing, however it also rewards people for taking action – in that they will witness less sexist behaviour if they do.”

Our Watch chair, Natasha Stott Despoja AM, commented, “We know from our research that disrespectful attitudes and behaviours are part of the culture that can drive violence against women. When everyday signs of disrespect go unchallenged, it is normalised, excused and tolerated.”

Thinkerbell worked with Victoria Berthinussen and the team at Google to develop the technology that allows people to be detargeted after taking action, a creative world first on YouTube. Our Watch has also developed an interactive website which provides a deeper understanding of how people could act when they see disrespectful behaviour towards women.