Exec Summary 

Sexist language affects everyone, but it impacts women and girls disproportionately. Isn’t it just a bit of banter though? Surely if you use it in a jokey way, it’s harmless? We set out to highlight the insidious nature of the sexism hidden in everyday language, to challenge people to think about the words they use. By creatively demonstrating the double standards hidden in English - and other languages - we got a conversation going. The campaign was seen over 20 million times across online news websites.

Brief 

To mark International Women’s Day ‘23, we wanted to create awareness of and a fresh impetus for change about the sexism that hides in everyday language, holding women and girls back from their full potential.

Objectives 

● To prove that a significant proportion of British men don’t think that sexist ‘casual banter’ can damage women and girls. 

● To highlight the insidious nature of everyday sexism hidden within the words and phrases many of us use. 

● And to deploy creativity to inspire people to think twice about the language they use in a way that doesn’t shame but carries people with you.

Strategy 

Sexist language affects everyone, but it impacts women and girls disproportionately. When someone says bossy, you think of a woman. When someone says boss, you think of a man. Same behaviour - different labels. Unconscious biases are hiding in our language, reinforcing old stereotypes and helping to hold women and girls back from reaching their full potential at school, work or home. 

To confirm the insidious nature of the sexism hidden in everyday language, we worked with research house Perspectus Global to ask 1000 British men ten questions about language and how they use it. The results were shocking: 1 in 5 respondents said they don’t consider using sexist language to be problematic, men are most likely to use sexist language to ‘be funny’, 20% use sexist language to bond with mates, and only 14% of them feel comfortable calling others out if they hear them use sexist words and phrases.

Spurred on by the depressing findings, and with the support of Gender and linguistics specialist Louise Mullany, Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham, we decided the best way to get men (but also women) to think twice about the words they use was to draw attention to the linguistic ‘double standards’ in English that are all around us. Player vs Slut. Passionate vs. Hysterical. Ambitious vs. Pushy. Assertive vs. Bossy. Each is an example of women behaving in the same way as men but having their behaviour labelled differently, negatively.

Research by our multilingual production agency partner on this campaign, Locaria, revealed that these linguistic double standards also exist in many other languages (including at least French, Arabic, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian and Spanish). Concerned that these linguistic double standards seriously demean girls and women (but also femaleness itself), we tasked a creative team with highlighting the issue in a minimalist, visually arresting way. A simple idea that would work as a multinational, 360-degree campaign - stopping people in their tracks with a rug-pull moment as the now-obvious ‘double standards’ loom into view. Posters and digital outdoor ads ran during March, accompanied by a big social media push. We also launched a ‘Pledge for Positivity’, a microsite for teachers, individuals and brands to download a ‘starter for ten’ guide to avoiding sexist language, and tips for engaging others around the issue.

Partnerships 

With zero budget for this passion project, The Double Standards campaign relied on widespread expert support to help get it into the real world. To that end, CPB London is proud to have worked with media agencies Assembly, Goodstuff and Open Media; public relations agency KWT Global; martech group Foundry; and multilingual content activation agency Locaria. 

Results 

● Seen over 20M times across online news websites 

● Over 1.9m impressions on social media 

● The campaign caught the eye of academics, individuals, teachers, brands and influencers, provoking conversations on social media and in the press.