‘Shut up Sexism’ is the latest campaign from LUX as part of its mission to help 50 million women rise above everyday sexist judgments and express their beauty and femininity unapologetically by 2025.

Most major AI virtual home assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa have female names and voices by default. These female-gendered bots are programmed to respond submissively even when faced with users’ sexist and abusive insults like “Shut up bit*h”.

Triggered by a recent UNESCO study which found that this gendered approach to AI assistants not only demonstrates 'gender biases coded into technology products’ but also perpetuates the larger issue of women stereotyped as ‘servile, existing only to someone else’s bidding’; and ‘models acceptance of sexual harassment and verbal abuse in real life.’

LUX has decided to shine a light on this issue and empower people to join us in stopping sexism starting from their own homes. Lux wanted to give virtual assistants a bold voice to speak up against sexist verbal abuse. We felt that the best way for them to respond would be with a sassy clapback.

And who would be better at coming up with witty clapbacks to sexist insults than women – the ones who face it every day? We researched the most common sexist verbal abuse used on virtual assistants. Then we put out a call to women from all walks of life to give us their best responses to these sexist insults.

We curated the hundreds of clapbacks we received and uploaded them onto our 'Shut Up Sexism' website as routines that can be easily installed in all virtual assistants. Users can even customise them with their own clapbacks. By making these routines readily available to anyone, we were able to reach any household around the world to curb casual sexism.

By leveraging the popular celebrity Yasmine Sabri (reach 18.6 m followers), influencer partnerships and LUX’s owned social channels, 'Shut Up Sexism’ has successfully caught the attention of media already.

The brand initiative has been picked up by more than 150+ news postings in Week 1 and with a PR value of US$145k. The media reach has a coverage of 5807M monthly. The website has had high number of hits – 275% higher than before.