'Beauty Should Bring Confidence, Not Anxiety,' Dove on Image of Women in Video Games

Are you familiar with the Dove brand? This company operating in the cosmetics industry has launched a campaign titled "Real Virtual Beauty", which draws attention to the problem of excessive sexualization of women in video games.

Dove's social campaign is promoted by a short video in which a virtual heroine named Cinthia fights a battle against a "boss," as well as against the stereotype according to which every female game heroine must be a sex bomb.

Cinthia's fight for her "self"

The short video shows Cinthia donning tight armor with ample cleavage on a daily basis, and facing virtual monsters. However, after the fight, when the spotlight fades, the girl returns to the dressing room and is relieved to remove the outfit, which reveals a completely different build of the heroine. Cinthia is clearly uncomfortable pretending to be someone she is not.

In the end, the heroine decides to ditch the superheroine outfit and fight virtual opponents on her own terms - being herself at last.

The story culminates with the slogan: "let's make virtual beauty real".

Alarming data

Why did Dove launch such a campaign? The brand's campaign was launched in response to alarming data according to which:

• 60% of girls and 62% of women "feel distorted in games."
• more than 1/3 of young girls feel a negative impact on self-esteem due to the lack of diversity in avatars,
• 74% of women want more female characters in virtual worlds.

As conveyed by Dove Vice President Leandro Barreto, the creators through this campaign wanted to convey that "beauty should be a source of self-confidence, not anxiety." (per The Drum).

It is worth mentioning that in creating the video promoting the social campaign, the Dove brand collaborated with Epic Games and the Women in Games association.

• social campaigns
• sexism
• women in games