On 5th August, a friend of a friend spotted the following sign in Missguided in Bluewater, and shared it on Facebook:
A bit of momentum built up on Facebook/Twitter about it, and Rachel Gardner set up a 38 Degrees Petition that evening, with this reasoning (something I’ve referred to in my book):
Teenage girls feel under increasing pressure to create and send nude pictures of themselves. An NSPCC report says teenage girls are most adversely affected by the sexting culture. Once online, these nude images can be seen and used by anyone, making girls and vulnerable young women the victims of bullying, revenge porn and exploitation. Many of these nude images can even make their way to child abuse websites. It is illegal in the UK for nude images of under 18’s to be created, sent and shared. ‘Send me Nudes’ legitimises the culture of sexual coercion that teenage girls and young women experience daily. In posting ‘Send me nudes’ in their store, Missguided are promoting a negative and damaging culture. Instead, they should be empowering young women to value their intrinsic value and express their uniqueness through the art of fashion. So we are calling on Missguided to respect girls and take down their sign.
One of my tweet’s was used in Daily Mail and Mirror, others included this kind of one:
Edging 6,000 signatures on this petition for #Missguided – https://t.co/3emEKIHRQz – orginators planning on contacting company later 2day
— Dr Bex Lewis (@drbexl) August 7, 2017
Tweets had also been sent to the Missguided Twitter account, and by the time the petition closed, there were over 9,000 signatures. The petition closed because Missguided responded quickly, covered the sign up, and said that they would be replacing it with something else pronto. A friend who works on a lot of campaigns said that this was one of the fastest responses to a campaign she’d ever seen!
It got a lot of press coverage (and therefore may be a good example for teaching):
- The Pool
- Cosmopolitan
- Evening Standard
- Shemazing
- Buzzfeed (thought this one reported it best)
Unfortunately, this is not the only brand doing this:
Erm @NastyGal – could you maybe read this petition please? https://t.co/Abt1QxhRAB re this item. @RachelGardnerRA @RebeccaRumsey pic.twitter.com/eokBXpdNRx
— Dr Bex Lewis (@drbexl) August 15, 2017
