One moment they were there, and the next they were gone.
In New York, International Women’s Day was celebrated by removing women from every advertisement, magazine cover and billboard in the town. They all disappeared, they simply weren’t there.
Why? Because despite the achievements in women’s rights made in the past 20 years, women still are “not there” yet. And some seriously powerful women decided to show the world what it would look like if we simply disappeared.
The #NotThere campaign was launched by The Clinton Foundation and website Refinery29.
Although it’s a U.S campaign, the story translates across nearly every country world-wide, as does the point that women still aren’t able to participate in society in a full and equal way.
Read more: 15 things that’ll happen before the gender pay gap closes.
It’s also attracted major star power, with the likes of Amy Poehler, Cameron Diaz and Sienna Miller appearing in the official campaign TV advertisement.
Chelsea Clinton said she hoped to grab people’s attention so they start to question “Well, why aren’t women there?”
“And then maybe they start to question other places in their lives where women are not as present as men. Whether that’s in their work environment or the entertainment that they consume or the news that they watch or when they think about the leaders of corporate America or political America. Just really starting to question, ‘Wait, why are there not more women…in every part of our lives?'”, she told Refinery29.
The campaign coincided with International Women’s Day but also marked 20 years since Hilary Clinton spoke on women’s rights at UN conference in Beijing.
It also comes as The Clinton Foundation released the No Ceilings report, which looks into female representation around the world.
“Sometimes there’s a shame attached to feeling that they are held back by the ceilings. So, we want to say, ‘no, there’s no shame, there are still very real ceilings, we have made progress but we still have a long way to go,’” Chelsea said, according to Refinery29.
The campaign also encourages women to blank out their Twitter and Facebook display pictures, to continue showing the world what it would look like if we all simply weren’t here.
Top Comments
I believe in equality for women, but I think right now everyone should put their energy into fighting for the rights of women who are truly oppressed before fighting for us women in the western world who are slightly oppressed. When young girls are no longer forced to marry at age 12, but can chose when and who they marry; when women are no longer punished because someone raped them; when women no longer deal with acid poured on their faces by their husbands; when women are no longer forced to live in the cold outside the village because they have their periods; when women can drive, vote, get an education etc, then we can go back to fighting for more women CEOs and higher pay for women in the western world.
We will put our energy into both, at the same time, since it's not at all difficult to care deeply about terrible things being done to women in one place while still caring about very real systemic sexism in another.
Jesus Christ.
I'd love a western woman in 2015 tell me what real hardship they face that other women don't.
You'd think women were enslaved in the west by the way the harp on about equal rights.
There's lots that you can read up on; why not start at your local library? It really shouldn't be up to friends or strangers to spend their time educating you.
I think the domestic violence statistics speak for themselves, the number of women last year who died at the hands of someone they were married to or had a relationship with also speak for themselves, this as an issue is interconnected with the larger issue of equal rights and how women are perceived and what their value and worth in western society is. Considering that the standing of women in a society has a direct impact on the financial standing of a country and it's ability to be progressive I would think it is an issue which would be important to everyone, including western men.
Women's rights isn't about hardships in comparison with other countries. It's about being treated as equals in our countries. [most] Women in the developed western world don't want special treatment, just things like equal pay for equal work, the ability and the right to walk down the street without being harrassed, being able to report (for example) a rape and not being accused of making it up or 'asking for it'.
Women are being killed at the hands of their domestic partners at the rate of one a week and not only is very little being done to enforce stronger safeguards for these women once the abuse has been reported national funding has been cut and safe places for these women to go, as well as services they can access, have been cut.
I'm making an assumption that you don't have a wife, or a daughter, otherwise these things might matter to you
I think that you would benefit from spending the day dressed as a woman. You might then see why women "harp" on.