2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

By Lebanese law, men and women are not equal. The discriminatory laws reduce women to “half citizens”. If it takes a man to become a full citizen, so be it! We started online, asking women to add mustaches to their profile pictures and change their gender, to become men. The complex discriminatory laws were simplified into statements to be shared, and an online petition was circulated. NGOs, activists, reporters, bloggers, students and artists, helped build hype by generating their own content. On March 8th, International Women's Day, women dressed as men and took the movement from the virtual world to the real one. By nightfall, 20 meters away from parliament, the movement was joined by hundreds of other women. The event made it to the opening of the 8 o'clock news on leading local and Arab channels. We received international exposure featuring in magazines, radios, newspapers, as well as numerous regional and international blogs & websites. The movement got 1.2 million USD of free media coverage. On August 4th 2011, i.e., 7 months after the start of the “No Rights No women” movement, The Honor Crimes Law was abolished. The Domestic Violence law is now in final study by the parliament.

The Brief

We discovered that very few Lebanese women knew how discriminated they were by the law, and that even fewer measures were being taken by the government to change their situation. We wanted the Lebanese community and the lawmakers to imagine a world without women, in hopes that something would change. We named both the movement and the campaign “No Rights, No Women”.

Results

Our Facebook page was viewed over 16,700 times in only 1 week. More than 1,000 “female” facebook profiles changed their genders to “man”. Thousands of tweets and re-tweets were circulating. 57 regional and international blogs were covering this initiative. 1.2 million USD of free media coverage. (Stat - IPSOS).

Execution

We started 4 weeks before International Women’s Day, by asking women to add mustaches to their profile pictures and to change their gender on Facebook. The complex discriminatory laws, that were widely unknown, were simplified into statements that could be shared as statuses, posts and tweets. Local and regional bloggers, became instantly intrigued by “the women with mustaches”, and wrote about the cause helping create hype for the event. Our page became 1) a forum uniting NGOs, activists and Lebanese women from around the world 2) “gallery” of user generated content inspired by the campaign. On March 8th, we took the movement to the real world. That morning, women went out dressed as men. Corporations and universities woke up to offices with no women. By nightfall, 20 meters away from parliament, hundreds of women came together to walk for equality.

The Situation

We were approached by a group of Lebanese women fighting for women’s rights, to create a campaign for their new organization. By Lebanese law, men and women are not equal. Lebanese women have no right to pass their nationality to their children. They have no custody rights. There is no law that protects women against domestic violence…

The Strategy

We wanted to quickly engage a large amount of people, by creating a simple act that would generate maximum impact. We wanted women to give up their “womanship” to claim their citizenship, by becoming “men”. The digital platform was the starting point and the most engaging field of the campaign. Social Media was the ultimate tool to raise awareness about our cause and to involve the biggest number of people. A tangible physical act had to follow in order to shock but also to attract Media, as well as all online platforms, so that from a small initiative our campaign could reach national and even an international scale.