Here is a social issue that spreads across the world especially down here in Africa
SK-II, a skincare company owned by Procter and Gamble and headquartered in Japan, is using a video called ‘Marriage Market Takeover’ to remove stigma from unmarried women who have exceeded the age of 25 in China. The Chinese even have a title for such women – ‘sheng nu’ which means ‘leftover woman’. As part of corporate responsibility, companies may sometimes take up an issue and create awareness about it in an attempt to redirect social consciousness.
SK-II is attempting to #ChangeDestiny with this video and wants women to desist from allowing social pressures get to them, the company wants to empower the women who fall into this category and remind them that they are beautiful regardless of the fact that society sees them as ‘leftovers’. However, this societal stigma is prevalent on the African continent, where women who are single past a certain age, are looked down on by their relatives even if she is academically brilliant and professionally successful or financially independent. It is always about ‘getting married before your beauty fades away’.
In the heat of pressuring young women into marriages of convenience, family members forget her gifts and talents and achievements, as if being a wife surpasses all those qualities. As one of the sheng-nu in the video suggests, ‘an unmarried woman is seen as incomplete’.
At age 31, Ghanaian born, Abigail ran her own business and lived in her own apartment but she could not get a moment’s rest from her family because in their eyes, she had failed as a woman. “What else is a woman here for if not for getting married and having kids before the age of 30”? her mother would often say to her hearing.