In the latest move to foster diversity and banish demons most people didn’t know they had, Unilever, makers of Dove soap, has announced that the word normal will no longer appear on its line of beauty products.
The cancellation was made after the company conducted a survey spanning nine countries. Among the findings were that 70% of all respondents — 80% between the ages of 18 and 35 — view the word normal in a negative light.
Elimination of the n-word (the other n-word) is one step in a Positive Beauty campaign Unilever is waging, according to a news release. Another is telling it like it is:
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In addition to removing the word ‘normal’, Unilever will not digitally alter a person’s body shape, size, proportion or skin colour in its brand advertising, and will increase the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups who are under-represented.
The implication is that the company did in the past digitally alter models’ “body shape, size, proportion” and so on. But in an era where a popular women’s magazine celebrates the elusive “health benefits of obesity” and a gay father of mixed-race children is deemed “too white” to serve on the board of the school they attend, photoshopping is clearly the last thing in the world a “woke” player wants to get mixed up in.
The problem that now arises for Unilever is what term to use to designate normal in its shampoos, as opposed to say dry and oily? I suppose they could use the ever-popular cis-, but that prefix has become something of a dirty word among liberals. Besides, according to the Healthline, having oily hair is perfectly “normal.”
