Calls for a petition to make self defence a part of school and college curricula for female students
Reaffirming its position of being a tough fitness brand, Reebok India has launched an engaging social experiment on International Women’s Day that makes a compelling statement on societal insights. Being a proud women first brand, with a rich combat training history, Reebok undertook a powerful experiment – Bruises can be good – that tapped into specific cultural and social conditioning to spark conversations to bring about a legislative change in the country.
According to the National Family Health Survey (NHFS-4), every third women, since the age of 15, has faced domestic violence of various forms in the country with 27% women experiencing physical violence. Making a strong critique, “Bruises can be good” unravels existing societal insights on violence and assault.
Conducted in Mumbai with select participants across both genders, spanning age groups, the experiment invited them to observe a young woman, marred with bruises. The audience reaction varied from “must be some horrid accident”, “victim of domestic abuse” to “Terrible Outcome of eve teasing”. In a sudden movement, the bruised girl in the film, stands up to perform a martial art move, surprising the audience and undoing their reactions to her bruised body. With a voice over, it is revealed that she is a combat athlete and that her bruises are good as they are proof of her strength of defeating any opponent in combat.
Highlighting that most of us perceive bruises and marks on women to be a result of violence, Reebok has made a petition on Change.org to Make Self-Defence a Mandatory Part of School and College Curricula for Female Students; Reebok wants to send this to Min. of Women and Child development, Govt. of India and is calling out to everyone to sign this petition. Reebok partnered with e-commerce portal Myntra to spread the awareness about the cause and the petition that leads it. You can sign the petition at www.bruisescanbegood.com
Speaking about it, Silvia Tallon, Senior Marketing Director, Reebok India, said, “Our idea behind “Bruises can be good” was to showcase the skewed lens with which our society views bruises and women. The engrained perceptions of bruises being violence inflicted, shadows the inner strength of the woman and allows us to undermine them. Since combat training is in our brand gene, Reebok honours these bruises as a mark of physical strength and mental toughness that can face any challenge. On International Women’s Day, we salute women who beat the odds and are FitToFight physically, mentally and socially.”