All this week I’ll be highlighting different campaigns from around the world encouraging us to embrace our differences. It’s all part of the build up to International Women’s Day this Friday (8 March). Today I’m looking at a video from Denmark.
All too often, we’re quick to judge other people and assign them to a category or box based on almost any element of their personality or lifestyle. From asylum seekers to single parents, emos to atheists, from Brexiteers to remainers, or even men and women – our first impressions can often end up being our lasting impressions.
In 2017, Danish channel TV2 introduced an advert designed to challenge stereotypes and think instead about the similarities different groups might have with one another.
The powerful video starts by literally putting people in boxes drawn on the floor – a group of nurses face off with a box of people in suits, football supporters in a box next to one containing fitness fanatics, etc.
A voice in the room says they’ll all be asked a series of often personal questions and they hope they’ll be answered honestly. The first: “who in this room was the class clown?”
Slowly but surely, a few people step out of their boxes to form a different group, posing for a photo together. They return to their boxes before the next question: “Who are stepparents?”
Another new group is formed, again posing for a photo.
We see new groups of people formed that have seen UFOs, people who love to dance, people who have been bullied, and those that were bullies.
It’s easy to forget that when we put people into boxes we’ll often end up dismissing the things we have in common with one another.
International Women’s Day (8 March) strikes at the heart of this imbalance and encourages us to embrace our differences. With years of gender inequality to work through, videos like this one from TV2 serve as a helpful reminder that we often have more in common with people than we first realise.
An inclusive and diverse workforce sharing our individual experiences can bring about positive change.
