Only seven percent of Filipino women consider themselves beautiful.

 

This startling statistic was the result of a study commissioned by Dove, and the brand responded by rolling out the #IAmBeautiful campaign in December 2012. “We said we would change that number. We said it was unacceptable for us. We would make more Filipinas embrace their real beauty,” said Mian Datu-David, Unilever’s marketing director for skin, at a Dove event last week.

 

Through their social media campaign, Dove asked women to post photos of themselves and use the hashtag #IAmBeautiful. Fifteen million women responded. Mian said, “We’ve made 15 million women declare that they are beautiful.”

 

But the work isn’t over yet. Wanting to understand why women stop feeling good about themselves and why beauty becomes a source of insecurity, Dove commissioned another study.

After interviewing 209 Filipino girls (ages 11 to 18) from Luzon to Mindanao, they found out that two out of three girls feel pressured to be beautiful and that seven out of 10 girls consciously avoid activities because of the way they look. Mian said, “What we found out was women stopped feeling beautiful at age 10.”

 

Insecurity

 

In a video, Filipino girls were asked about their definition of beauty. Their answers: “Maputi,” “skinny,” “pretty yung smile,” “makinis,” “matangos yung ilong,” “maganda yung buhok,” “small face, large eyes.”

 

And when asked if they thought they were beautiful, the girls in the video all said no. “Pango po kasi ako,” one said.

 

“My skin’s horrible, super oily,” another girl said.

 

“When I’m with my friends who are really pretty, you can’t help but compare yourself,” said another.

 

One added, “I can’t leave without putting makeup on, you can’t make me.”

 

Mian said, “If we are going to change the way women in the Philippines perceive themselves, we need to start young. It’s in those early years when these women’s self-perception is formed. It’s in these years when she’s most vulnerable to insecurity. With the right intervention, we can make a difference.”

 

Dove believes they can do this by reaching out to Filipina mothers with their #WeAreBeautiful campaign. “The same research showed that eight out of 10 Filipino girls look up to their mom as their role model, as the single biggest influence in their lives. If we can reach the mom, we can reach the girl. We believe if we can make moms look and feel beautiful, we can make girls look and feel beautiful. If we want to make an impact on the 20 million young girls in this country, we need to reach their mothers.”

 

Legacy

 

This was echoed by the Dove: Legacy short film, which tells mothers, “The way a girl feels about her beauty starts with how you feel about yours. What’s your beauty legacy?”

 

In the film, mothers were asked to list the things they liked and disliked about their bodies, and their daughters were asked to do the same. The mothers were surprised to see that their daughters’ lists mirrored their own.

 

“I did say to her I don’t like these things, these body parts of mine, and I think that’s why she picked it up,” one mother said.

 

“How I feel about myself really affects how she feels about herself,” said another.

 

Another noted, “Self-worth and beauty, it is an echo, it can echo from me to them, from them to others.”

 

Psychologist Dr. Honey Carandang agrees. “The Filipino mother is the most significant person in the Filipino family, especially to the Filipino daughter. The importance and significance of the mother figure in the daughter’s life must be recognized, emphasized and celebrated. The child absorbs what the mothers says, what the mother feels, what the mother values, effortlessly, unconsciously and totally.”

 

Mombassadors

 

At the Dove #WeAreBeautiful press event, mombassadors Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan, Christine Jacob and Tintin Bersola-Babao talked about the role of their mothers in building their confidence.

 

Maricel said, “I grew up with a single mom who was gorgeous. Every time she would have me around, they would say, “Imelda, ang ganda-ganda mo.” Then they’d look at me. ‘Siya ba yung anak niyo ni Tony? Kamukhang-kamukha ni Tony.’ My dad, Tony Ferrer, is the X-44 or James Bond of the Philippines. I always thought, ‘Wow, my mom’s really beautiful and I look like James Bond.’

“But I never really struggled with how I looked because my mom always showered me with love, and I was the center of her life and she made me her priority. It wasn’t something that I had an issue with. If I looked more like my dad, then it was something to be celebrated.”

 

Christine said, “Beauty was never an issue. I was always swimming… but my mom was with me all the time. She was my masahista, taga-buhat, taga-linis, taga-laba. She was my companion at all times.”

 

Tintin said, “In grade school, I was the tallest sa class and I was dark-skinned. They would call me agatona. The boys would treat me like a monster, so I would cry. But my mom would always give me praises and assure me, ‘Maganda ka, kahit ano pang sabihin nila.’ Hindi siya nagkulang doon. My mom told me, ‘Focus on your talents.’ When I reached Grade 7, everything turned around. I used everything to my advantage… I became president of the class.”

 

Maricel and Christine, who both have five children, and Tintin, who has two, say they are trying to do the same for their kids.

 

Christine said, “I am with them all the time, making sure I really encourage them. Parenting for each mom is so different because our children are very different from each other. The best thing is to really spend time with your child and get to know kung ano ba ang kiliti nila, what makes them tick, what upsets them.”

External forces

 

They all agree that external forces also have an impact on a child’s self-esteem. Tintin said, “If my mom didn’t lack all these loving and caring gestures, where did the insecurity come from? Sa school, classmates, peer pressure.”

 

Maricel added, “I think we all struggle with the way people are careless with their words, and that’s what we have to guard against. Within the confines of a home, a mother will always shower her children with love, with care, with all the positive things but outside, sometimes the world isn’t so kind. This is the thing that I want my children to know.”

 

Christine, who has two daughters, an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old, knows this too well. “My 13-year-old daughter, she’s already being peer pressured about the way she looks. She’s so payat but all of a suddent her friends will say, ay, your legs are so fat, they’re not shapely. So she comes home and she won’t eat. It’s something I have to deal with every day. So I’ll say, ‘Love, you’re so payat already and you’re gonna grow up pa and you’re going to get taller so don’t worry about it.”

 

Maricel also believes it’s important for mothers to take care of themselves. “My message to mothers is they have to love themselves. Because the children will know that they also need to love themselves. If they don’t love themselves, they can’t give that love to others. Mothers also struggle with loving themselves because we always think we have have to give everything to our family, and we put ourselves last. It took a mentor to tell me 15 years ago, ‘Maricel, you’re making a big mistake by putting everybody first and yourself last.’

“That’s when I started treating myself to times with my friends, my family, going to the parlor a little bit more, buying things for myself and not feeling guilty about it because when I come home happy, everybody’s happy.”

 

Dr. Carandang agrees. “It’s not easy to make the Filipino mother not feel guilty for taking care of herself. One time, I said in a workshop, ‘If you have a chicken in the house for dinner, what’s your favorite part of the chicken?’ One mom said, ‘The leg.’ But when you have chicken at home, what part do you eat? ‘The neck.’ Why do you eat the neck? Okay, tonight, when you go home and you have chicken, you sit down and tell your family, ‘Today, mom’s going to have the leg.’”

#WeAreBeautiful

 

For Gina Lorenzana, Unilever’s VP for personal care and mom of three, this campaign is personal. “My eldest is a daughter already in her 20s, but I remember her as a 12-year-old, running to my room, and crying, saying, ‘Mom, why am I not taller?’ And she would say, ‘Mom, why do I have curly hair? All my friends have straight hair.’ I’m inspired today, seeing a whole host of mothers who feel that they can make a difference… We can make their growing up years much more confident and a little less painful. Just imagine what they would do as they would grow up to be great adults.”

 

She said, “We can all start by posting a photo of ourselves and our daughters, posting something that we love about ourselves with the hashtag #WeArebeautiful. If we start with ourselves, feeling beautiful about ourselves, we can also then pass this on to our daughters. I encourage all mothers to start today and start in our own homes.”