As part of the Designing for Behavior and Impact course, students were asked to design a sustained intervention that goes beyond information consumption, reposting and digital petitions of a topic of their interest. With this brief in mind, the intervention #againstSexism came into fruition. 

#againstSexism is an intervention pop-up that subtly confronts a male user when he is sending or posting a sexist comment on social media. The intent of the concept is to amplify women's empowerment by reducing sexist behavior on social media. This behavioral outcome will be achieved by making men think twice about their behaviors on these platforms.

Inspiration for intervention came from the violent femicides (intentional murder of women because of their gender) Costa Rica has been experiencing in the last couple of years and the rise of the Me Too movement. At first, the focus was around how the male population tends to be inexpressive on social media when a femicide happens but this quickly shifted when research showed that neither men nor women thought it was appropriate for men to ‘take a stance’ against this issue on social media.

4 behavioral hypotheses were made:

1. Men don’t know much about the topic and are reluctant to take a stance.


2. Men are anxious of how they will be perceived by their male peers.


3. Men might fall into sexist behavior even though they don’t consider themselves sexist.


4. Even if a man is sexist, he will not allow being recognized as such.

From the research phase, a couple of findings molded the design decision:

• Men felt reluctant to take a stance against femicides on social media as they felt they were stealing the women’s spotlight. ‘It’s their battle, it’s their time to speak.”


• Women thought men shouldn’t post about femicides as “they don’t know what it is to feel insecure every time you leave your house”. 


• Both men and women agreed that the answer was in education but could not acknowledge a specific initiative that was helping.


• Men are reluctant to empower women as they feel anxious in how they will be perceived by their male peers.


• Some men fail to identify why the comment they made might be sexist.

Driven from research findings, the following behavioral strategies were used:

• The intervention moment will happen at the moment the man displays sexist behavior (either by posting or commenting) causing the man to ‘think twice’. - Intention-Action gap strategy


• Confronting a man on his sexist behavior will make him question his identity (sexist vs. not sexist) - Identity strategy (personalizing the experience).


• Educating men on why the comment they are posting/comment is considered sexist (men might fail to recognize what is sexist behavior) is a reflection point for their identity. - Identity strategy.