Whether it’s showing pubic hair or diverse body shapes, mainstream media and advertising is finally becoming more representative of real life and real people – and about bloody time.
The latest campaign that portrays this is the This Girl Can advert, which was developed by Sport England to promote sport and activity among women.
Since dropping, the advert has gone viral across the internet, where people are praising how inclusive and representative it is.
The advert, which shows women rock climbing, swimming, and weightlifting, is captioned: “No one gets to choose how you exercise other than you. Your body, your call. And whatever that looks like, we think it’s worth celebrating.” Yaaaaas.
The advert celebrates all women in sport, including a breastfeeding mother during a netball match, a lady displaying a visible tampon string and a daughter encouraging her mother to work out.
Unsurprisingly the advert has amassed heaps of praise, with women dubbing it ‘perfection’. “Lordy is that a tampon string at the end, amazing,” wrote one Twitter user, while another added: “The tampon string…an actual tampon string in an advert!”.
Discussing the inspiration behind the advert, Lisa O’Keefe, director of insight at Sport England, said: “This Girl Can is about helping women feel confident, so they can overcome the fears about being judged that our research showed was stopping many from getting active.
“Since we launched five years ago, we’re seeing more relatable images in advertising and social media, but there’s still a long way to go until women’s lives are being shown in a realistic way.”
The advert aims to encourage the 39 per cent of women who currently aren’t working out to get involved in sport. It comes on the back of a recent This Girl Can survey, which found that a quarter (24 per cent) of women are left feeling inadequate thanks to the fitness influencers they follow online.
We have a feeling this super empowering new campaign will help…