A few weeks ago, Sara Alcid, a Washington, D.C. resident was at the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in DC where she discovered that BareMinerals by Bare Escentuals enlisted a group of fraternity brothers to hold up inappropriate and sexist signs saying things like, “You Look Beautiful All Sweaty,” “Hello Gorgeous.”
Sara launched a successful Change.org petition in coordination with Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and Stop Street Harassment. A call with the company led them to apologize and agree not to use that type of messaging again.
The interaction could have stopped there, but when Alison Reid and Stephanie Lin from the company’s marketing team made plans to be in New York City (from San Francisco) this week for the next leg of the BareMinerals tour, they included a quick stop to Washington, D.C. to meet with Sara, Renee from CASS and myself.
That meeting took place today.
Alison and Stephanie were gracious and great listeners as we each talked about the work we do to stop street harassment. They talked about the mission and vision of the company and how Bare Escentuals aims to have meaningful connections with their customers and helping them feel confident in their lives. They emphasize personal connections with their customers and even invite customers who are visiting or live in San Francisco to stop by the office for coffee. They do not use airbrushing in their ads and really focus on women’s empowerment. Thus, they had no intention of making women feel uncomfortable or sexualized by the signs and so they were quick to address our concerns. They thanked us for the opportunity to learn more about the issue of street harassment and how it impacts people’s lives, and I gave them a copy of the Stop Street Harassment book so they could continue to learn more about the issue.
It was really refreshing to see a company go above and beyond to fix offensive messaging, take the time to listen carefully and thoughtful to our concerns, and strive to serve their customers better. Thank you, Alison and Stephanie and the whole Bare Escentuals team! You set a high bar for other companies to follow 🙂
