What do you want? That’s the question women were asked twenty years ago as part of a campaign called What Women Want. It was supported by Anita Roddick founder of the Body Shop as a way of giving British women a voice at the United Nations World Conference on Women in September 1995. The idea was simple: to invite women to complete a postcard answering the simple question ‘What do you want?‘
Twenty years on, there is still a desperate need to understand the answer to this question so we are repeating the survey. The What Women Want campaign reboot is WWW2.0, and it is inviting women to engage in and create what could be the world’s most powerful conversation to make change happen. Our goal is as it was before: to enable women to say what matters most to them and use their collective voices to effect the change they say they want – for themselves, their families and communities and for society as a whole.
The response in 1995 was overwhelming. Replies came from all of the UK and from all parts of society with more than 10,000 women taking part, making it the biggest ever survey of British women.
We hope you will participate in this exciting conversation with us and thousands of others to find out what women want in 2016 – 20 years on from the original survey. Are the concerns and challenges and goals different now? Help us find out and please tell us what you want.
We ask you to take part in one or all three of the simple ways below:
- To answer the question ‘What do you Want?’ go to thisiswhatwomenwant.org
- Take a picture of yourself with the answer to the question on our downloadable postcard and post it on social media using the #whatwomenwant20
- Join in the conversation on social media on September 5th and get as many people to answer the question in your personal and digital networks as you can. The more answers the better. If there is someone in particular you admire and are interested to know their response, then tweet them the link to the question and ask them to respond.
The 5th September is the day Parliament returns after the summer break. What better time to tell politicians ‘what women want’ than ahead of their conference season. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Theresa May to tell us what she wants? Tweet her the link @theresa_may
Last time, high profile women like Judi Dench and Sinead O’Conner took part in the survey. We’d like to ask if you could add your voice to theirs and be part of this re-run of this historic campaign. If this is something you would like to be part of the campaign and perhaps even volunteer some time to, please feel free to reply to this email.
To find out more about the campaign please visit thisiswhatwomenwant.org
You can also follow the campaign’s progress on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram:
