A powerful new ad campaign from India focuses on one of the most common challenges faced by women around the globe: balancing work, life, and family. While it is a laundry detergent commercial, its message is pretty awesome: It is urging fathers and husbands to help women with household chores, and is going viral with the hashtag #SharetheLoad–so much so that Sheryl Sandberg stamped her approval on how poignant it is.
The video starts off in a typical Indian home: A boy comes home from school, a mom comes home from work, and not surprisingly, mom is managing the house. Her father, her son’s grandfather, is watching her masterfully take control of everything–from her job, to dinner, to chatter with her son. What happens after this is beautiful.
The grandfather realizes the clear truth: The mom does everything herself alone. He apologizes to his daughter for not realizing this sooner, for only perpetuating these patriarchal roles. This illustrates how stereotypes affect all of us, and how we don’t even notice, because these habits are passed down to us. As Sandberg eloquently said herself, it shapes lives forever:
“When little girls and boys play house they model their parents’ behavior; this doesn’t just impact their childhood games, it shapes their long-term dreams.”
Proctor & Gamble and BBDO Worldwide’s Mumbai office created the video to show how fathers and husbands can take small steps (like doing laundry!!) as a way to create more equal homes. The video even won a Glass Lion at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for earlier work on the campaign, and has already gone viral in India, where domestic roles still remain a controversial topic.
If you haven’t seen the video yet, watch it below:
This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen – showing how stereotypes hurt all of us and are passed from generation to generation. When little girls and boys play house they model their parents’ behavior; this doesn’t just impact their childhood games, it shapes their long-term dreams.In this #SharetheLoad campaign, Ariel India, P&G, and BBDO Worldwide show how fathers and husbands can take small steps (like doing laundry) to create more equal homes. They won a #GlassLion at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for earlier work on this campaign. The real win is the way they are changing stereotypes and showing that a more equal world would be a better world for all of us. Dads, #ShareTheLoad and #LeanInTogether for equality. Thank you Andrew Robertson, Marc Pritchard, Sonali Dhawan,Vidya Murthy, Sharat Verma, Shailesh Jejurikar, Josy Paul, and Mohammed Ismail.
Posted by Sheryl Sandberg on Wednesday, February 24, 2016
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