When it comes to harassment and assault of women from men, the main cause has often been disbelief in what women describe as an annoying and sometimes even traumatising experience. It is often the case that even men that women trust doubt the frequency and severity of reported harassment that women may experience.
In an effort to make men pay attention and believe the frequency of harassment that women often are subjected to, advertising agency Ogilvy created a smart piece of clothing that is able to record the times that a woman is touched.
The dresses record contact and pressure through sensors that are sewn into them. The sensors then send any impact recorded via wifi to a computer that keeps track of the events while turning the data into a heat map showing the location and time of contact.
In an experiment, three women wore the dresses to a club in Brazil and the results showed that they were touched against their will 157 times in less than four hours. This means that each of the women was touched once every five minutes on average.
In recent years, technological developments in cheaper, lighter and more powerful batteries have created an enthusiasm for 'smart clothing' of this type.
Still, very few kinds of this type of clothing has been popular enough to generate mass production. Smart clothing assisting people with disabilities, such as trousers that help getting up the stairs have a higher demand.
What the idea behind the video campaign, 'Dress for Respect', aimed for, was to make an impact without the requirement of mass consumption. This was achieved through a video campaign in collaboration with drinks company, Schweppes, who gave the video great publicity.
It is hoped that the campaign will have an impact in changing people's minds and men's attitudes when it comes to the harassment of women. Importantly, it is hoped that people will finally start recognising a problem which, although many did not previously understand, remains very real.
[h/t: IFL Science]
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