Why Dove’s latest campaign is not feminist at all

I really loved the initial Real beauty campagins that Dove launched, the ones that featured women of different shapes and sizes. Well, their new campaign is supposed to promote the same idea, but I find that it actually contradicts it.

Dove hired a sketch artist to show that when a woman describes herself, she is a lot harsher than when a stranger describes her. This, in principle sounds amazing, and very empowering, right? The claim is: Dove’s latest Campaign for Real Beauty ad uses an FBI sketch artist to examine women’s perceptions of themselves. The results proved women are much more beautiful than they think But this is what I think: Why is the «traditional beauty» portrait automatically more beautiful than the other one? If a woman actually looks like the «uglier» one, does that mean that she is screwed? By defining which traits on a women’s face are pretty, you are reinforcing the traditional view of beauty, and saying that being skinnier and with a smaller nose is what you need, which isn’t true. The pictures that you show have beautiful women in them, and you are saying that if they have wrinkles, chubby cheeks and moles they’re not beautiful anymore. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and someone is more beautiful when they love and accept themselves. Saying that you are pretty only if you have most of the characteristics of a certain check list, is not feminist at all. The empowering action that we need as a society, is not someone telling us that we are skinnier that we think, its that the common belief changes to think that everyone is pretty, unique and special. When it comes to marketing, I think that companies need to be very careful about what their message is, and think it through; sometimes they might just be reinforcing society’s stereotypes instead of helping to eradicate them.