International Women's Day 2014 Campaigns

From Star Plus’s ‘No More Kamzor’,Tanishq’s ‘Snap Out of It’ to Franklin Templeton’s hashtag #FTWomenEmpowered - the advice by Nora Ephron is at the center of this year’s Women’s Day campaigns. For god knows how many years, women have been considered as the‘weaker sex’,‘victims’,‘fragile’ - who need sympathy and strength from men to survive. However, in the last couple of years there’s been a change in the way society sees women. Though, it’s a very insignificant change - a lot needs to happen here, but there's hope! We’ve rounded up some of the most amazing women’s day campaigns in 2014 happening online and offline. 

Women, whether your daily chores include sending your child to school with clean hair, clean nails, clean teeth, clean uniforms, or handling erratic clients at office -  Tanishq Mia gives you a chance to let your hair down for a day. All you have to do is to ask someone to shoot a 30 second video and shout out why you think you want to snap out of the daily, mundane chores. 15 of the amazing submissions from the women living in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore will be chosen and they will be gifted a day of unlimited fun and frolic. 

There’s nothing more irritating than domestic duds - who fall asleep on the couch surfing channels, are useless around washing machine or dishwater and turn into pathetic wimps around kids. And chances are, you married one! Your once normal life has turned upside down; you’re now an omnicompetent multitasker who spends most of the time managing house and office,and the rest cleaning up the mess your husband leaves when he is awake. Oh! How you wish you could be in your husband’s shoes - lying in the couch surfing channels and he cleaning the house and managing kids. Well, there’s now a chance to do that atleast in the virtual world - courtesy Godrej’s Dance to women’s tune online campaign. It’s an only-for-women app, so men don’t even think of logging into it. To play, one has to log into her facebook account, post a hot picture of hers and a not-so-hot picture of dear hubby and select a task she wants to watch her husband do. The tasks range from- cleaning the house, cooking, doing laundry and even romancing. Make him dance to your tune, and enjoy the show. 

A new initiative by the channel, the show would celebrate women who refused to bow down and wrote their own success stories -on their own terms and in their own way. The show aired on 8th March at 1pm and Vidya Balan hosted it. The actress when asked about the show said “When STAR Plus approached me to be part of No More Kamzor, I didn't have to think twice because as a woman, this is very close to my heart. It is truly an honor for me to be a part of this event which will inform, empower and inspire millions of women across our country. What better way to celebrate womanhood on Women’s day?!”

The doodle features 27 female chromosomes plus a video with over 100 inspiring women from different countries- all of them saying “Happy International Women’s Day” in different languages. The doodle celebrates "amazing things women around the world have done and continue to do".  The list of women includes president of Lithuania, Russian actress Nonna Grishaeva, Pakistani activist Malala, Indian songstress Asha Bhosale and a host of women who are not world inspirations but in their small ways have motivated people around them like Tanha Islam an aspiring engineer in Bangladesh. Ryan Germick, Google doodle’s team leader, said: “International Women’s Day is a really hard topic. How do you surmise what women represent in a graphic?”

He explained why the team felt an interactive video would help. “It’s a quick glimpse of what some women across the world are doing. We’re just going for people doing great things. A 20-part DVD wouldn’t have scratched the surface. We decided with the doodle format we could probably do a fun video." We tried to be as sincere as possible, he added. "In certain countries, it’s OK to give a woman flowers for International Woman’s Day, in other countries it’s patronising. We tried to concentrate on the universal positive aspects of it.” The doodle released a day before women's day has already created considerable buzz in the media.

The US Consulate General in Chennai conducted a photo collage project 'Breaking Traditions: Inspiring Change' to celebrate International Women's Day. The photos were accepted till March 5 and posted on the Consulate’s Facebook page. The photographs sent should reflect powerful images of people breaking traditions, and inspiring change for women’s advancement in every walk of life. They should also celebrate the social, political and economic achievements of women, while focusing attention on areas requiring further action.

Dove does it again with empowering selfies. The whole idea is to redefine beauty and break the body image status quo. The campaign says "Take a selfie and show the world how beautiful you are." 

Women empowerement and their economic independence and financial security are not 2 separate issues. In fact they're related. Many a times women don't leave violent relationships due to financial dependency. Questions like ‘If I leave him how would I have all my needs – groceries, medications – met?' 'How would I take care of my kids?' keep women trapped with abusive spouses. According to a report published in Forbes "85% of women who leave an abusive relationship return. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a significant proportion of women who return to the relationship attribute their inability to deal with their finances as a major contributing factor, which is often enhanced by the fact that the abuser often has all of the economic and social standing and complete control over the family finances." Franklin Templeton's campaign reiterates the importance of women's economic empowerment. It ran a day before women's day and recieved great response. 

If you've come across any other women's day campaign that ran this year, let's know in the comments section.