Image Courtesy: All Screengrabs and GIFs from YouTube video uploaded by @doveunitedstates
Do most women think they are beautiful or average to look at? This isn't so much a hypothetical question but actually a real life experiment conducted by personal care brand Dove. As part of their Choose Beautiful campaign, Dove travelled to places like London, Delhi, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo to ask women if they thought they were beautiful.
"To prove that beauty is a choice," the team set up doorways side by side labelled 'beautiful' and 'average' and recorded everyday women making a choice to walk through one door.
"I wanted to go through the 'average' door but my mum just pulled me over to the 'beautiful' door," said one young woman. "I just wish more young girls realized it," explained her mother.
According to research by the company, 96% of the women in the UK, 86% in China, and 61% of the women in the US "felt anxious about the way they look."
The company also noted that among the 56% of women in India who were apprehensive about their looks, almost all agreed that "every woman has something beautiful about her, but that often they don't see it in themselves."
"Am I choosing because of what's constantly bombarded at me, what I'm being told that I should accept? Or am I choosing because that's what I really believe?," said a mother who walked through the 'average' door.
Lest you dismiss the women who chose the 'beautiful' door for themselves as vain, listen to why their experiences and the reasoning behind their choice. "It was like the telling the world I am beautiful," explained one such woman.
While most of the women who walked through the 'average' door felt disappointed with their choice later, what is incredible to hear is how many women decided they would choose the 'beautiful' door the next time around.
"'Beautiful' is a great word, so why not see what is on the other side of that?," said one woman.
The campaign does an above-'average' job in proving that the 'beautiful' door is not only available, but also open for all women across all ages, sizes, and colour to choose freely, just as long as they choose it for themselves.
Which door would you pick now?