Do you feel passionate about the self-esteem of your child? If so, please share your thoughts with the Dove Self-Esteem Project (DSEP) – and you could win a £200 voucher - NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

The folks at Dove would love to hear your thoughts on their new Self-Esteem Project and the launch of their new online space packed full of resources, specifically designed to help parents build their girls' body confidence and self-esteem.

The new website is here: selfesteem.dove.co.uk/

Dove say, "Do you notice your daughter comparing her looks to others? While this is a normal part of adolescence, it can also be a slippery road for her self-confidence."

"Our ambition is for beauty to be a source of confidence, not anxiety. The DSEP was founded in 2004 to ensure the next generation of women grows up to be happy and content, free from misconstrued beauty stereotypes and the burden of self-doubt."

"Dove's aim is to improve the self-esteem of over 15 million young people by 2015. It is well on the way, having reached more than 11 million so far, but there are lots more girls to reach. And with more than half (54%) of girls citing their mothers as their primary role model*, Mumsnet is working with the DSEP to give mums the information they need to help raise their children's body confidence".

"In addition, Dove has also been doing a lot of work directly with schools - the DSEP made a donation of £250,000 to Beat (Beating Eating Disorders) to deliver free self-esteem workshops for 11-14 year old school children. Already, 152,175 lives have been reached and Dove wants to reach thousands more this year, so get your school to book a free workshop now by visiting www.dove.co.uk/en/".

School student, 14 year old Emily, shares her views on the workshops: "My view of beauty has changed massively - I now realise that nobody's perfect and everyone has flaws"

So have a look and let Dove - on this thread - know what you think. They are finalising the website now and want to use your feedback to help make it better. Please note your comments may be used to help shape future edits of the site and the programme.

Please state the age of your DD(s) when you respond.

~ What's your general feedback - is it user friendly? Is it helpful? What is good about the site, what's appealing to you/ your DD? Is it something you think you'd use? If so, how? If not why not? What's missing? What self-esteem issue do you think is not covered so well?

~ On the activities which are on this site, including (but not limited to) My Mosaic and Retouch Roulette - what are your favourite/ least favourite activities - and why? All activities can be viewed on the website.

~ Generally talking about self-esteem and girls - how - if at all - has this affected your DD? How do you and your family deal with it? What age did any issues start? Do you think the website would help your DD?

~ Parents of boys: whilst the DSEP focuses primarily on girls, it understands that boys are also affected by self-esteem issues. The DSEP will be working on dedicated materials for boys so Dove would love to hear your thoughts on how boys are affected by self-esteem or body image issues.

All comments welcome.

Add your feedback on this thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £200 voucher to spend at www.experiencedays.co.uk

Thanks
MNHQ

• Source: Real Truth About Beauty Revisited - Dove Global Study 2010 Please note your comments on this thread may be used by Dove elsewhere.

I've always hated the patronising dove ads but just really looked at the links about Facebook. Hideous. Facebook is where young girls go so maybe instead of creating a website which I bet v few will visit dove should have invested it more wiselyto condemn sexism in social media.

Ha Ha. I've just spotted there is a prize draw for commenting on the thread. Have they just added that to entice people to post positively on the thread? (Well, they're not going to randomly choose one of the less positive commenters!)

Mardy, I think they're probably waiting for someone who doesn't feel passionately about their children's self-esteem to come along

Hmm a little off topic but... they didnt ban that and they ban photos of breastfeeding??????? The world is mad.

I have 2 DDs aged under 5. Knowing what I went through as a typical teenager, I do 'feel passionately' about their self esteem. I tell them often that they are beautiful, but also that they are clever, kind etc, to hopefully show them that their looks are not the be all and end all. I also make a conscious effort not to talk about my looks/weight too much in front of them as they already copy everything! But, I 100% agree with all those who have mentioned the hypocrisy of this campaign.... Real women are beautiful but you will be even more beautiful if you buy our products-. and the fact Dove are linked with Lynx, feels even more hypocritical. I realy hope (and from this thread suspect) that most people are clever enough to see this for the marketing campaign that it is.

2 DDs, age 10 & 12

~ What's your general feedback? The site was slow to load in places but looked really good. The real or retouched game was good and there was lots of information on body image and the media.

However, having read about the skin lightening products and connection to Lynx (most sexist advertising campaign ever) it is hard to take Dove seriously anymore. It seems incredibly hypocritical and unethical to sell a company as caring about body image and self esteem when they make their money off the back of insecurity, low self-esteem and lack of confidence in how one looks.

~ On the activities which are on this site, including (but not limited to) My Mosaic and Retouch Roulette - what are your favourite/ least favourite activities - and why? I liked My Mosaic as it reminds me as a parent to help my DDs celebrate all of their qualities, not just the way they look. It is a shame this isn't reflected by Unilever as a company.

~ Generally talking about self-esteem and girls - how - if at all - has this affected your DD? How do you and your family deal with it? What age did any issues start? Do you think the website would help your DD? I like to think I'm pretty clued up, tbh. I have an open dialogue with my girls and they are confident and happy at the moment. Their teenage years are just around the corner though, so it never hurts to be reminded. I would have liked to share this site with my tweens but feel uncomfortable doing so, knowing what I now do about Dove.

It is such a pity that a nice idea has been tainted by the fact that is seems to be a mercenary way of targeting a younger customer base, not an ethical or caring move at all.

I have a DD aged 6.5 years

~ What's your general feedback - is it user friendly? Is it helpful? What is good about the site, what's appealing to you/ your DD? Is it something you think you'd use? If so, how? If not why not? What's missing? What self-esteem issue do you think is not covered so well?

The website is pretty well designed, user friendly with the filtering options. Few topics that I read like Encouraging her individual expression, Bullies and teasers, Respecting and looking after yourself are really good to read.

Topics that I feel missing are questions that a growing child might ask , but that which should be answered with great care by a parent

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~ On the activities which are on this site, including (but not limited to) My Mosaic and Retouch Roulette - what are your favourite/ least favourite activities - and why? All activities can be viewed on the website.

1- Favourite and 5 - least favourite

1. My favourite was "My Mosaic" - it talked about the individual self about their talents and what they like about them
2. Letter_Challenge - great , will make the child understand about bullying and how to stand up for themselves better
3. What is Beauty - another great exercise
4. Mum Translator - was good
5. Retouch Roulette - Nope! It was a comparison (somehow I feel it has a negative impact)

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~ Generally talking about self-esteem and girls - how - if at all - has this affected your DD? How do you and your family deal with it? What age did any issues start? Do you think the website would help your DD?

My DD is skinny and some grown ups too call her skinny right at her face. She sometimes tells me ," Mom, I do eat well but why do people call me skinny still " My answer to her , "You are growing tall, darling"

My DD is growing and a website like this would be helpful to tackle some basic problems that every mom and child (daughter) would come across like beauty, self-confidence, looks , what other people will think , etc

My daughter is only 5 and already I think it is so important. In her first months of school even at such a young age she had such a hard time with girls not wanting to play with her. She is not used to this coming from a huge loving family and it really knocked her confidence. She no longer wanted to go to parties and started to say she hated school. I didn't expect it at such a young age and struggled to make her understand. For this reason I think the website is fantastic, unfortunately it is an issue and something out girls and boys alike have to deal with,p. As a parent it is hard to know what to say and how to handle it and any help is always appreciated. I think it should be aimed at a larger age group though because this happens even at a young age.

If I wanted to raise my DD's self confidence I would not think to use a website created by any soap company, notwithstanding the issues others have raised regarding Lynx, etc. for Dove specifically.

I would get her involved in sports, teamwork, volunteering, achieving to the best of her abilities. I would get her to read widely, opening her mind to the world. Introduce her to feminism.
Doesn't someone on Mumsnet run an online magazine for girls, Jump, that is meant to be about more than make-up? That sounds like something I might encourage her to look at. Not an advert for toiletries vaguely dressed up as something else.

I find it all a bit creepy really, Dove 'campaigns'. And patronising. I know Dove doesn't care about women or their self esteem. If it did, Dove would be a women's charity working to help girls around the world access education or organising marches to protest about page three or something. There would be no soap and no shareholders.

I want my DD to have self-esteem, more importantly I want her to be resilient, to experience setbacks but know how to learn from them and how to move on without letting the setback become a permanent hurdle.

I've had a look at the site and I'm not thrilled TBH. The Retouch Roulette is an interesting idea but lazily executed, everyone has been retouched but the women featured are very attractive and the retouching that has been done is almost imperceptible (darkening lips or eyebrows, wearing shorter shorts - so the equivalent of changing your lipstick or clothes) not really the sort of unachievable retouching which leads girls to aspire to impossible body shapes. I've seen the same sort of message done far better here.

it is creepy. it's grooming. worse it's getting mummy to take part in the grooming.

I'm pregnant with our first child so not really in the demographic, but I agree that the roulette is far too subtle, I've seen much better examples of celebrities being airbrushed. The women all have perfect skin, hair and teeth so I don't think really help the issue.

I also agree that the way to improve self esteem is not to focus on beauty at all, but on kindness, intelligence and talent.

I care about my daughters' self esteem.

So I try to keep them as far away as possible from the beauty industry and its advertising and grooming.

HTH

(I have never bought a Dove product and never will.)

I have had a quick look at the website. I notice they seem to have done a survey and one of the questions is;

Who has the biggest influence on your daughter?s body confidence?

The answers are celebrities 50%, friends 25%, parents 25%

Right.

What about advertisers and marketers?

Advertising, for the beauty industry and the fashion industry in particular, is a major influence on female body confidence (particularly when featuring celebrities....)

Morning. And many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post on this thread and to look at the Dove Self-Esteem Project (DSEP) website.

Apologies for the delay in responding to those of you who had raised some critical points. We weren't ignoring you - we always welcome feedback, as we hope you all know; we've been talking to the Dove team about those particular points and they've been listening to us.

Dove are very keen to invite some of those who've criticised them most strongly on this thread to come along and see some of their work in action. We'll be contacting some of you off-board about this but do please post on this thread, too, if that's something you'd be interested in doing.

Here, also, is Dove's response to the main points of criticism that have been raised...

"Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts on the Dove Self-Esteem Project and the website we are developing. We really appreciate your time and feedback, and we welcome your views on how we can improve it. We'll certainly be taking what you have said on board, so we can make it a better and more valuable resource.

"We also take seriously the comments raised by some of you about the wider Dove Real Beauty campaigns - and we'd like to try to address them here.

"Firstly though, the issue of Facebook advertising: as we posted on Friday, we have actively worked with Facebook to address the issue of gender-based hate-speech, and we welcome Facebook's commitment to take additional measures to tackle the problem. Dove takes this issue very seriously and does not condone any activity that intentionally insults any audience. We have heard, and share, the concerns and remain committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. We assure you that we will continue to carefully review and revisit our advertising and marketing decisions.

"Some of you have also raised the issue of us being part of the same company (Unilever) as Lynx. We do operate as entirely separate brands and those brands obviously have very different target audiences. But we do want to make it clear that Lynx's advertising is designed to be tongue in cheek - in a way that very much aims to make both men and women laugh. Nonetheless, we will certainly share your comments with the team at Lynx.

"Yes, we do sell skin lightening products in Asia. They are used by women to even out their natural skin tone, reduce the appearance of spots, and protect their skin from the sun. We think they are comparable with the self-tanning products we sell in Europe and North America, where women use them to darken and even out their natural skin tone.

"Talking specifically about Dove and our Self-Esteem Project, we absolutely hear your feedback that we need to show far more diversity in our campaigns, and we assure you that we are listening and will address this. Over the eight years since we launched our Campaign for Real Beauty, we have featured older women, less able-bodied women and women from a range of ethnicities but we agree that we can do more, and do better. We also take on board your comments about including boys - as stated in the OP, the DSEP will be working on dedicated materials for boys, so this feedback is very valuable to us.

"We do truly believe that, as a beauty brand, helping women and girls feel better about their bodies is something we can do credibly. We are hugely passionate about it and we believe that widening the definition of beauty in society and taking action to promote better body confidence is something we are well placed to do.

"We've conducted vast research into how feeling bad about how the way you look can impact young people's lives in a negative way ? for example, we know that 53% of British girls avoid certain activities because of how they feel about the way they look. It's this sort of statistic that drives the work of the Dove Self-Esteem Project; we want to help improve this picture. We feel strongly that a better sense of body-related self-esteem can help people realise their full potential.

"The DSEP is completely separate to our commercial business of selling products; we never push our brand or any products in schools, and the DSEP certainly isn't about trying to market to young people. Over the last eight years, we have worked in partnership with Beat (the Beating Eating Disorders charity) to help create materials and resources that aim to help young people feel better about their own bodies. It is Beat who conduct the self-esteem workshops, funded by the DSEP, in schools. Any Mumsnetter is welcome to contact us to find out more about these workshops and how they are run.

"We know not everyone will agree with what we are doing but we genuinely believe that a beauty company can help work towards creating a wider, more inclusive definition of beauty in society."

lurcherlover said something which expresses a lot of the feeling here and elsewhere:

The FB crisis damaged your brand, but what has damaged it more is your pitiful response. Those pictures are "insulting"? And I suppose domestic violence is just a bit of slapping around, is it, and you don't really see why it's such a big deal?

So Dove's response today to this thread, saying:

"Firstly though, the issue of Facebook advertising: as we posted on Friday, we have actively worked with Facebook to address the issue of gender-based hate-speech, and we welcome Facebook's commitment to take additional measures to tackle the problem. Dove takes this issue very seriously and does not condone any activity that intentionally insults any audience."

Argh. Dove you are NOT LISTENING!! To use 'insulting' as a term for images depicting violence and abuse on women and girls is like saying pictures of the Nazi Holocaust are 'insulting' to Jewish people. It's MORE than insulting. To just describe it as insulting is to trivialise the hate behind it. Don't you get that yet, Dove?

Apart from a few meaningless platitudes and an invitation to engage with you further, what do you have to offer? Apart from a request for how the product-buying public, can help you?

I agree, FluffyMonster.

That response is typical corporate communication - an entire paragraph that doesn't address the issue at all and just reiterates that Dove aren't prepared to take further action. It's insulting consumers' intelligence.

A total of 13 brands have now moved to pull their ads from Facebook in the wake of the campaign, including Nissan UK and 100 other brands are supporting the campaign. Why aren't you making a robust stance?

Please allow me to post this link again.

How do you reconcile this with your public message?

Who's your target market, Dove? Here's a clue; she's the same gender as the woman who's lying on the botton of those stairs and being insulted by that heinous meme.

I'm gobsmacked that they've repeated basically the same response they made to our earlier criticism of their behaviour on Facebook.

Dove, be very clear on this: you have got this one wrong. You are not handling it appropriately. The only response to the FB debacle that is appropriate, that makes you look like a concerned company, is to pull your advertising from the site until you have proof that FB has taken action to stop those images from ever appearing again (and no, their "reassurances" don't count). That is the ONLY course of appropriate action, and that you haven't done it speaks volumes. What matters more to you? To be seen as a company which opposes dv and will not associate with a site that apparently condones it, or to sell more soap?

For goodness' sake, please talk to us as the intelligent and articulate women we are and stop patronising us. We can see through it and you're just digging yourself a big hole.

Your latest response has made me even more determined to never buy a Dove-branded product again. I have used only your soap in the shower for my entire adult life, so this isn't a decision I've made lightly. But I cannot support a brand which is so dismissive of violence towards women. It would feel like I'm condoning the abuse.

Excellently worded platitudes by the communications and marketing team there Dove. Shame you let down your claims with your FB stance

Insulting equals condoning and promoting the beating up, punching, strangling and raping of women in your world eh?

I came on this thread pondering if any publicity is good publicity. Perhaps you don't care about the hammering on this thread because at least Dove is getting exposure?

I can't believe that is true so I then wonder what this sort of mauling does to MN business activity....how it impacts on future advertisers. I'd want my product to be pristine to face the MN audience. I wouldn't risk this sort of publicity. So what about reacting and changing rather a load of spin bullshit What about a real intention to listen and respond.

You may think tanning products = lightening (and tbh I agree with you in part ). But it's still marketing a product designed to tell the public they need it because the skin they were born with is not the right colour? How can that fit with your campaign?

I just don't get it. It says they don't push their brand in schools. So why did it have a link for teachers?

That FB link is awful. Well done to the companies that have pulled their advertising from FB.

Everything else is just marketing junk and platitudes.

I don't mind the soap, I have some Dove moisturiser. But I'll avoid it too now.

Does anyone know if skin bleaching products permanently lighten skin tone or if they're a paint which washes off, like self tan does?

Because if skin lighting products do actually permanently bleach skin, intrinsically altering who a person is, they're hardly comparable to a bit of wash-off orange on the population of Essex.

Either way, I agree with CabbageLeaves that the message is that women are "wrong" the way they are.

That is, I used to not mind it. Now I just associate it with all this stuff. FB violence included.

Not good enough, Dove.

As another poster says - skin lightening products being akin to self tanning products - maybe (although, actually, no - it's not the same at all - how could it be, in the world we live in?) but the POINT, Dove, is that you sell and market products that encourage people to try to change what they naturally look like. You want us to be dissatisfied with our natural skin tone and to buy stuff off you to change it. What kind of message is that? And actually, does Dove sell self-tan? Or are you more interested in us all being white, like the majority of people on your website?

And why, in your response below, do you say you've heard the message about self esteem being important for boys too, but then continue to refer only to girls and women in the rest of your reply?

Don't even get me started on the Facebook stuff.

You aren't listening and you're making a pretty poor pretence of giving a shit, frankly.

0/10.