5 Inspiring Feminist Campaigns You Should Know

Modern feminism has more and more being shifting from vigorous protests and active turnouts — today, feminism is a weird buzzword in marketing, and many brands incorporate feminism in their campaigns and make it the central idea to challenge gender norms and empower women.

The last several years have transcended women-empowering activism into the digital landscape, as feminists became increasingly skilled at creating movements and conversations online. As a result, we have seen many digital feminist campaigns that literally changed the world for the better. Here is a look at five inspiring feminist campaigns from the past several years which show that there is still work to be done, but they are on the right way, and their achievements are worth celebrating.

1. UN Women Takes Upon Gender Inequality In Google Searches

Greatly alarmed by the number of digital representations of gender inequality found in such simple places as the Google search engine, UN Women decided to take action and created a series of ads, which use genuine Google searches to reveal how widespread and prevailing sexism and women discrimination is. Basing the campaigns on the searches of 2013, UN Women shows how much women are exposed to negative stereotypes and open denial of women’s rights.

“When we came across these searches, we were shocked by how negative they were and decided we had to do something with them,” — said Christopher Hunt, Art Director of the creative team.

For the UN Women, it became clear that the need to empower women’s rights and equality has never been more urgent. The idea campaign called “The Autocomplete Truth” was rather simple: four women from different areas of the world were photographed with Google autocomplete phrases placed on their mouths — representing how women’s voices are silenced all around the globe. The campaign was spread through various news websites and blogs under the hashtag #womenshould, and eventually became a huge success, creating numerous headlines across most popular magazines and websites, and received 755 million views globally.

“The ads are shocking because they show just how far we still have to go to achieve gender equality. They are a wake-up call, and we hope that the message will travel far,” — added Kareem Shuhaibar, copywriter of “The Autocomplete Truth”.

2. Planned Parenthood Fights Komen For Being Defunded

Planned Parenthood, a renowned American organization that provides reproductive healthcare and well-being services, is quite adapted to facing different assaults and threats from politicians and other organizations towards themselves, and a couple of years ago Planned Parenthood again saw a decision addressed to defunding them completely.

Susan G. Komen, the best-funded breast cancer organization in the U.S., announced that it will not continue to financially support the organization because it “has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation”. This decision to stop the funding would mean that around 170,000 women would not be able to get screenings and early detections of breast cancer.

And here is when online feminism becomes a true force. The flare-up traversed across email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and over 1.3 million tweets posted within a matter of a week. The online resistance was too hard to handle, and eventually, Komen’s vice president for public policy Karen Handel has resigned. The massive backlash worked: former supporters of Komen said they will not keep donating to Komen and would rather do this to Planned Parenthood.

The #standwithpp hashtag, which was used in this digital activism, is still alive today and is used to call out people to support Planned Parenthood in their various programs.

3. #ItsOnUs — Barak Obama’s National Initiative Against Sexual Assaults

In 2014, the now-former president of the U.S. Barack Obama launched an “It’s On Us” initiative — a campaign that is aimed to bring awareness to the events of sexual assault across America and put an end to it. “An estimated one in five women has been sexually assaulted during her college years — one in five,” — Obama noted. “Of those assaults, only 12 percent are reported, and of those reported assaults, only a fraction of the offenders are punished.” The initiative asks everyone to make a commitment and become a part of the national fight against sexual assault.

The campaign had four goals to achieve: to recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault, to identify situations in which sexual assault may occur, to intervene in those kinds of situations, and to create an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable and its survivors are supported. People willing to support the campaign can involve in different ways: take a pledge, take action on the local campus, share ideas using hashtag #ItsOnUs, or share the National Sexual Assault hotline with a friend or a loved one.

Obama’s administration took steps to put the sexual assault events to an end by establishing guidance to every district of an educational institution, creating special working practices to inform and talk about sexual assaults, and ensuring that the existing laws adequately protect the victims. “It is on all of us to reject the quiet tolerance of sexual assault and to refuse to accept what’s unacceptable,” — said Obama.

4. #WhyIStayed Campaign Draws Attention To Domestic Violence

After a surveillance video of Ray Rice hitting his then-fiancée and knocking her down was released, the motives of his now-wife to stay were immediately questioned. In response to that, Beverly Gooden, the author of Confessions of a Church Girl, introduced the campaign under hashtag #WhyIStayed, which empowered women to share their stories of why they stayed with their men despite domestic abuse.

Within the next twenty-four hours from the campaign launch, thousands of people used the hashtag to share their stories — sometimes truly heartbreaking — on Twitter. Many renowned online publications have discussed the stories and the impact that this digital activism has. The hashtag #WhyIStayed was even expanded to another one — #WhyILeft, and women were actively posting the two-sided stories, explaining reasons they stayed and left with their abusive men.

The campaign did not end in the digital landscape, it also transcended to other platforms — the hashtag was the driving force to create a community education event in Harper College, and TV daytime talks were organized on the issue. The campaign created a whole community of victims who were brave to share their stories, and those who never encountered the situation but genuinely sympathized with the abused.

5. #YouOkSis Movement Addresses Street Harassment Cases

Street harassment — this is what many women get exposed to fairly often, and in short, it is any unwanted attention that makes a person uncomfortable. According to the national report provided by advocacy group Stop Street Harassment, 48% of blacks, 45% Hispanics, and 36% of whites have experienced some forms of verbal abuse, and the numbers for physical assaults on the streets are slightly below but still say that street harassment is an issue to be solved.

Feminista Jones, an activist, social worker, and blogger, has created a digital campaign to tackle the problem under hashtag #YouOkSis to center the conversation around women of color who often feel like their experiences are not highlighted much. The idea for the hashtag came to Jones when one day she saw a young mother pushing a stroller with a newborn, and asked her “Are you ok, sis?” From that point on, the movement has received many supporters across social media channels, and especially Twitter.

“The voices of black women are very censored. The voices of black women who navigate low-income areas and the voices of black women who experience street harassment from men of all different races were missing,” — Jones says. “I felt that rather than having other people speak for us, we should speak for ourselves.”

As Jones adds, she has seen a lot of men saying that the campaign opened their eyes to what women go through, and how they could have done something. Some even said they would do better, which means, to Jones’ pleasure, that the movement is working.