My oath: UNIFEM asking every Aussie male to swear not to commit violence against women
Imagine if we could get every man in Australia to swear an oath declaring they simply won’t stand for violence against women anymore. That’s the challenge of the new UNIFEM – White Ribbon Foundation campaign.
To begin the mass movement this year, former Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Simone Bartley and ECD Mike Newman have teamed to create Australia’s first annual National Swear Day on November 25. They’re asking all Aussie blokes to swear online at www.myoath.com.au. The oath is a simple pledge not to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women.
Says Bartley: “This needs to become a mainstream social priority because 1 in 3 women suffer violence in their lifetime (we’ve seen many high profile incidences this year alone) and every week more than one woman in Australia is killed by her partner in our ‘lucky’ country.
Says Newman: “Swearing is something Australians do naturally. This is avery inclusive and slightly irreverent approach to what is an otherwisedifficult issue. The idea targets all 10million Australian men andwe’ve recruited some prominent Australians from all walks of life tokick things off. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was happy to say ‘I Swear’ when he launched National
Swear Day at the annual White Tie Dinner and agreed to become a lead figure for the campaign.
“He’s been joined by the likes of Keith Urban, Gerry Harvey, Rove,Hazem El Masri, Dicko, Joe Hockey, Peter Garrett, Lt Gen Ken Gillespie(Head of Army), Adam Goodes, Alan Fels, Billy Birmingham, Shannon Noll,Kochie, Michael Long, Hamish and Andy, Wil Anderson, Lars Rasmussen(Google’s premier geek) and many, many more of Australia’s best.”
Over 30 individual press, magazine and radio ads have been created,along with TV and YouTube films that will spread via a social mediacampaign. All personalities are tweeting – even Rudd has done soalready several times. Key on air personalities around the country(both TV and Radio) will reach millions more by ‘swearing on air’ tomorrow -November 25.
Pop idol Paulini is releasing her new single, Scarless, in tandem withthe campaign. And in a world first …. the ‘I Swear’ campaign will bethe first ever Google WAVE campaign, led by co-inventor of the newsocial networking tool, Lars Rasmussen himself.
Says Andrew O’Keefe, chairman, White Ribbon Foundation: “So many menfrom so many backgrounds have told us that they love this campaign.From the PM to the Council garbos. The genius of the My Oath campaignis that it very simply mainstreams a difficult topic. And in that way,it sums up the message to all Australian men: that part of being agreat bloke is being a great mate to women too.”
Says Bartley: “I have been involved with UNIFEM and White Ribbon Dayfor several years now and this is the campaign I had always hoped tocreate. Mike and I set out to find a way to engage all Australian mento help stop violence against women and the idea of Australians havingtheir own National Swear Day just seems like a great way to do that.
“This idea is so powerful it made the job of recruiting the prominentpersonalities to inspire Aussie men and the industry talent we neededto bring the many facets of the campaign together seem easy…. well,not that easy.”
Adds Newman: “There are many important causes, but they can come acrossas being a little too ‘worthy’ in their ads – to be really succesful,ideas need to get into the vernacular and people have to be comfortableto spread the word themselves. Swearing is very Australian. It makesthe campaign approachable.”
Strategy, Idea and Campaign Co-ordination: Simone Bartley and Michael Newman
Public Relations: CPR Communications
Media placement: Zenithoptimedia
Digital and Web build: Deepend
Film and video: Like Productions
Art Direction and Design: Design by Design
Studio: One Eyed Dog Design
Social Media: Google Grants and Google WAVE
Postscript: Simone Bartley texted CB this afternoon: “Today’s PR is about the campaign launch for National Swear Day. It is not an agency launch at all. Though, judging by the response, maybe it should be”.
23 Comments
Much as I agree withe the sentiment of the campaign, I must say I’m amused to see a collage of Aussie blokes with the headline ‘I swear.’
Fucking right they do.
A worthy cause indeed.
But surely the strategy is flawed from the start?
Very few bashers are premeditated bashers. Even repeat bashers don’t think of themselves as such.
The vast majority of bashers say that they would never dream of hitting a woman. And that such behaviour is reprehensible. They’d even stop it if they saw someone else doing it.
And I’m sure they will be happy to sign up to the ‘I Swear’ campaign.
Then the booze and insanity kicks in and whatever good intentions there were, go.
This initiative seems wishy-washy. It ignore the ugly truths of human behaviour.
I wish it all the best, but doubt some passion- or booze-possessed basher will lower his fist because he signed on to ‘I swear’.
The whole notion is sexist. We should be declaring we won’t stand for violence against ANYONE.
I couldn’t agree more Doddsy, only the other day a prominent sportsman was in court with girlfriend in tow trying to overturn his glassing conviction with her making a statement saying, she initiated the fight which resulted with a glass in her face.
Maybe this might work better if you got all these bad sportsmen of Australia to sign it rather than all these crystal clean celebrities that would probably end up copping a beating from a woman rather than deliver one.
i wish i could change the past because not only was i hurting my wife but i affected my kids as well they went through hell .
it took an old person talking about his wife telling me how much he loved her and he would never lay a hand on her . made realy think wat I had done wat a fukn asshole I was going home I apolgised to her and still do wat a( coward )
another example of advertising preaching to the converted.
Doddsy and Joe,
I really respect your views.
However, I think there is a large but hidden target audience of men this campaign will connect with.
There are many men who believe that to shove, push or even slap a woman is NOT an act of domestic violence.
It is these men who may think twice about it in future and hopefully restrain themselves or find another way to express their anger and frustration.
I am greatly offended that the moderator has censored my comment of last night. Sure it could be misinterpreted as a bit of an attack on Mr Dodds, but his comment seems to be providing an excuse or reason for violent behaviour against women. As I said last night, I’m know to imbibe beyond what is sensible, but I’ve never raised a fist to anyone, male or female. This is about making violence against women unacceptable, full stop. It should be applauded rather than criticised. By the way, it was one of the subjects of question time in the House of Reps today, so well done.
I agree with 9.22. I think Steve’s comments reveal the fact that way too many Australians default to “It was the booze”. As if there was some sort of sanctuary in that. You booze you lose… simple. If you’re pissed and you hurt someone it should be considered like drink driving i.e worse than if you did it sober. There’s something so fundamentally wrong with the drinking culture in this country that breeds this sort of thuggery. Perhaps that’s what Steve was getting at.
Without reading what you wrote, you may have misinterpreted my post. I didn’t say booze or whatever is an excuse. There are no excuses.
But this sort of pledge is simply not going to work on someone is pissed, insane or otherwise irrational.
I think we all applaud the desire behind the campaign, but some are questioning the potential effectiveness.
This is a politically motivated PR stunt and a feeble idea. It insinuates that all men from all walks of life are at risk of losing their temper and hitting a woman. Another attack on the male gender. Another load of PC fascism being jammed down our throats by K-Rudd and his lefty cohorts.
The majority of men would never hit a woman. The pathetic few that have or will, are not going to be deterred by a bunch of smiling politicians.
i like it.
even if it is preaching to the converted a little bit, i think the idea of getting ‘non-abusive’ people together in mass to make a statement like that is pretty powerful. the campaign may not stop abusive people directly, but what kind of campaign would? it has a good chance getting others speaking up and stepping in – a far better approach in my mind.
as for the ‘sexist’ comment – last time i checked women didn’t have quite the same problem with violence against their partners.
mind you, what i’d really like to see is a greenpeace-style hounding of the male offenders of this world. if the courts won’t punish them, i think a flaming dog poo on his front door step would be well deserved.
c’mon 10:35, a “fascist lefty”? I thought little johnny’s army had been disbanded (or self destructed……how incredibly enjoyable) If you think it’s PC to take a stand against domestic violence you’re just a knucklehead.
Agreed, 3:13. And such flippant bandying of the word “fascist” only debases our language and rips the guts out of 10:35’s whole argument. (Buy a fucking dictionary and read some history, chief!)
All symbolism and nothing else. Will have the same effect on violence against women as Earth Hour has had against global warming – zero.
Anything is better than nothing.
You’re so unbelievably indoctrinated by policy you have mistaken my chastising of this piffling campaign as advocating violence against women. Are you a thicko, or are you just waiting in the wings ready to pounce on anyone that disagrees with this particular piece of politically motivated policy?
This type of presumption is exactly the type of zealotry inerrant in fascism and typical of a society that has lost its ability to see through a politically motivated stunt.
You forgot to mention smaller government, lower taxes & denying climate change…..
This is for you 11:42.
If you think legislating an ETS scheme before Copenhagen is a good idea you’d be a very silly boy.
I believe climate change is real. I also believe action is needed, but I don’t believe the world cares a cracker what Australia does on this matter and what we end up doing will make about one fifth of stuff all difference to ‘climate change’ anyway.
What I do know is this – when its introduced we will get the greatest tax impost on Australians and Australian businesses in ours, or anybody else’s lifetime. [ It will make the GST look like child’s play].
Its now accepted that much of the Govt’s ‘legislation modelling’ is flawed. Revised carbon pricing [now accepted fact] has the experts [pro and con the scheme] agreeing that electricity costs for our largest employers will rise by 50%!
Any government that tries to ram that through Parliament just before Copenhagen is committing Australians to an intolerable burden – because jobs will just leave by the 1000’s.
HOWEVER, if we wait until after Copenhagen and the rest of the world comes to a consensus then I believe Australia must do its bit.
So, you see 11:42, not all people who oppose the Federal Govt’s ETS scheme are ‘denyers’; far from it, many of us support a scheme – we just want to wait and make sure its a scheme every country agrees to and abides by, rather than one that has the potential to f#*^! the country if we’re the only ones doing it..
And whilst I’m on a roll, if we really wanted to make a difference about clean energy when are we going to have a serious discussion about nuclear energy?
[Look at it this way. Your agency says things are tough and they might have to reduce salaries – do you raise your hand and say “reduce mine by 22%!” before anyone else, your colleagues, the business, has discussed what percentage reduction they’re thinking of or would be prepared to agree to? No, I didn’t think so; but that’s exactly what Kevin Rudd has done.
Thanks for the diminutive opening, I hope you’re feeling better now. In the meantime a creative blog seems a strange place to have this discussion. Your arguments are all very sound in the vacuum of information in which you exist so good luck to you. I’m sure the planet will be patient as it waits for you to decide how you can best profit from a rapidly deteriorating environment.
Perhaps 12:08 would like to explain why Australia is better off introducing an ETS before the rest of the world has agreed on carbon reduction targets.
Forget akll this, what about the CLIMATE-GATE scandal that is sweeping the world…
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/24/john-lott-climate-change-emails-copenhagen/
Perfect Skeptic. I doubt if 12:08 will read it but the article but if he does maybe he could add his comments about the article to the answer he’s yet to give to 1:36. Come on 12:08 where are you?!