By Georgia Zervudachi - Planner (Originally published in The Drum )

The empowerment conversation needed to happen, and I am very glad that it has. However, in the social space, where trends rise and fall at an exponential rate, a saturation point may have been reached. I don’t need my razor to tell me that I’m more than just what one person labels me, my sanitary pads have already challenged a phrase that I casually used to use, made me reconsider female stereotypes and fired me up to challenge them. The bar has been set pretty high, and unless you are challenging my perceptions or offering me a new perspective that relates to both me and your brand/ethos/product, it feels like you are jumping on a band wagon.

The narrative needs to shift. We can hero the many millions of fabulous women who have achieved great things and messages of empowerment, but that has almost become an easy cop out. What about the hub and the hygiene? We need to normalise and reflect the reality of ordinary women and girls. Why should they be targeted as such just because that is how it has always been? GoldieBlox countered this brilliantly - why shouldn’t a group of girls be playing with tools? It’s not saying "YOU CAN DO IT", it’s shifting to “Why shouldn’t/aren’t you doing this, its totally normal and really not a big deal.”

Ultimately, the question needs to stop being "What do women want?", and instead be “What do people want?" We have access to much better data than just age and gender, and people expect more and more from advertising. There are plenty of women who don’t want children and plenty of men who just want to feel special. Feminism is essentially about equality and that is what needs to be reflected.