Women Should

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There are loads of stereotypes based on this phrase: the phrase shared by both women and men through social media referring to the so-called female behavior manners accepted in Azerbaijani society. Thereby, these kinds of people create not only verbal but also the real limits that negatively impact the lives of millions of women in our country. To draw attention to this case, Azercell, the leader of the local mobile market, has created "A woman should be…" campaign by involving successful female athletes with the support of its partner - the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan.

Initially, one of the reasons we thought we should launch this campaign was the comment under Shahana Nazarova's - World and European champion among juniors - video on the National Olympic Committee's Facebook page.

Some stereotypes about how a woman should be still prevail in the popular consciousness in Azerbaijan. As a social experiment, we decided to air #WomenShouldBe hashtag with help of opinion leaders sharing their positive views on why women are free to choose how to live. Shockingly, representatives of some society segments even objected the hashtag. 1News.az - one of the most high-rated websites in Azerbaijan - also joined the hyping hashtag conducting the street interview. During the survey some people spoke disparagingly about women...

In contradiction to these disrespectful opinions about women's place in society, on International Women's Day, we presented our main video starring famous female athletes showing how strong women can be despite all the stereotypes in all the senses of this word.

For decades people put women into the box of gender stereotypes. Our purpose was to bring the opposite message, which stated that women should not be whoever they want them to be. Only she decides what to do with her life.

#WomenShouldBe campaign created massive public debate. TV commercial was shown on all the local channels, while the main key visuals were placed on many billboards of the city. It reached 3.8 million people! It also won two awards during RedJolbors 2020 - Central Asian Communications Festival.