The Spanish Society of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery Clinics (Semyce) has conveyed its disagreement with the ‘I am real, I am authentic’ campaign promoted by the Ministry of Equality through the Women’s Institute, considering that “excludes” and marks “as unreal” to a large sector of the female population.
“If what we are trying to do is put an end to clichés, let’s not spread new clichés”, they have transferred from Semyce in a statement in which they have wanted to clarify that they do not have “no political bias” and that, therefore, they would not like to be put “any label” on these statements.
From Semyce they do not doubt that this campaign “has been carried out with the best intentions”, but even so they consider “that it excludes and points out as unreal and authentic to a large sector of the female population”, they have pointed out.
«From this campaign what many women receive who dye their gray hair, or have an aesthetic treatment to remove your wrinkleswax or undergo reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, is that they are less real, less authentic”, they have pointed out in relation to the video of this campaign.
Although they have assured that they have “nothing to object to those women in the ad who have freely chosen how they want to wear their maturity or their physical appearance”, from Semyce they defend that women “who think differently are as real and authentic as these”. «The women of the 21st century, at least in Spain and in a large part of the world, unfortunately not all of them, are adults, free and they know what they want», They have thus settled their statement.
“Awareness” campaign
The Women’s Institute launched this campaign in October 2022 with the aim of «sensitize and raise awareness to the general population about gender stereotypes based on the imposition of normatized and unreal female beauty models, which become a parameter for their assessment of their physical appearance”, according to the organization regarding this project.
These stereotypes, according to the Women’s Institute, “condition” the vital expectations of women, especially girls, and can lead to “generating situations of aesthetic violence in its most extreme manifestation.”
In this context, they maintain that the campaign seeks to “inspire security and self-confidence” in the generality of women, “demonstrating in a constructive tone that beauty is not subject to standardized canons”, nor is it the “only characteristic” that women define.
