A round-table discussion, “Beauty stereotypes: a variety of sides of one problem” held within the framework of the Campaign For Real Beauty took place in Baltchug hotel on May 30, 2006.

Apart from the major media among the participants of the round-table discussion were Russian experts and newsmakers: psychologist Grazhina Budinaite, politician Irina Hakamada, fashion historian Olga Wanstein, director of Moscow House of Photography Olga Sviblova, plastic surgeon Vladimir Tapia-Fernandez, film director and ad maker Tina Barkalaya. The event was hosted by TV anchor Larisa Krivtsova, the author of City of Women project.

The reference point was the outcome of the research, All The Truth About Beauty, implemented by the international brand of Dove in Russia and 12 more countries of the world. Among women of age from 18 to 64 years only 2% consider themselves beautiful. The first comments were given by a representative of Dove that does not use models in its advertising, but real women. “The All The Truth About Beauty research shows that women call upon to changing perception of beauty. Dove was one of the first to consider women’s opinion. It resulted in launching the Campaign For Real Beauty. We want every woman, regardless of the age and exterior peculiarities, to feel beautiful. Dove stands exactly for this and calls on the media and the general public to join our movement for real beauty”, said Yulia Chamane, a senior brand manager of Dove.

According to the research 72% of Russian women feel worse on the whole when they are dissatisfied with their looks.

The most vulnerable group to influence are teenage girls (14-25 years) that are the most favorable audience for uncritical perception of the imposed beauty standards.

According to the research by Dove more than a half of the women in Russia (57%) believe that the media and advertising set an unrealistic beauty standard that is simply unattainable for the majority of the women.

One forth of Russian women are ready to resort to plastic surgery to look attractive and conform to the beauty standards adopted by the society.

At the same time there are two thirds of Russian women thinking that sex appeal is what a person looks and the notion of beauty includes much more personality features.

According to the research by Dove 9 women out of 10 believe that the society expects rising of their sex appeal from them. 9 women out of 10 agree that a woman can be beautiful in any age.

According to the research by All The Truth About Beauty, three fourths of Russian women expressed themselves explicitly in favour of representation of feminine beauty in the mass media as composed of more than just sex appeal. They want the mass media to represent women with varied attributes of sex appeal, including the ones in terms of the age, stature and constitution.