Actor and body-positivity activist Jameela Jamil recently called Avon out for “shaming women” with marketing materials telling customers that dimples are not “cute” on their thighs.
“The Good Place” star tweeted a page from a company brochure advertising a product that claims to combat cellulite. The ad features a photo of a woman smiling with the copy, “dimples are cute on your face (not on your thighs.)”
Jamil, who has spoken out against body-shaming messages in the past, urged Avon to stop encouraging its customers to “fix” their bodies.
“Stop shaming women about age, gravity and cellulite,” Jamil tweeted at Avon’s UK company. ”They’re inevitable, completely normal things. To make us fear them and try to ‘fix’ them, is to literally set us up for failure.”
Jamil followed up her initial tweet with two more, urging the company to take ownership of its marketing materials and denounce its message. While Jamil tweeted at Avon’s UK operation, the company told HuffPost that the ad appeared in a brochure for North American customers.
Avon’s official Twitter account for its USA operation responded to Jamil, saying the ad “was intended to be light-hearted and fun.”
“...but we realise we missed the mark,” Avon USA added, saying it planned to remove the messaging from its marketing materials.
Avon followed up its messages to Jamil by posting an apology on its Twitter page.
“We hear you and apologise,” the company stated. “We love our community of women.”
“At Avon, we want to celebrate women and their power,” Avon told HuffPost. “We are working diligently to remove this messaging from our marketing.”
Jamil has been calling out companies and celebrities ― including Khloe Kardashian and Cardi B ― for sharing messages and promoting products she finds damaging to women. In an essay for BBC, Jamil called for airbrushing and photoshopping to become illegal.
“It is anti-feminist. It is ageist. It is fatphobic. It looks weird. It looks wrong. It’s robbing you of your time, money, comfort, integrity and self-worth,” Jamil wrote of the practice.
Earlier this month, the star announced she was turning her body positivity-focused Instagram account called I Weigh into a company that will work to enact policy changes on how people talk about other people’s bodies.
“Fat-phobia is real, it is pervasive and prevalent and is damaging the mental health of millions,” she wrote.