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STARTED wearing red lipstick when I was a teenager as a means of rebellion. “She looks like a whore” was something I’d heard (in one variation or the other), usually from an older woman I was related to, whenever we saw a woman who dared walk the streets with vermillion adorning her lips.

This is nothing new: people will always find something to slut-shame a woman with, be it her allegedly too-short skirt or her scandalously low-cut top or her red lipstick.

These days I’m more of a wearer of pinkish nudes and very deep reds, but I still treat bright red lipstick as a sort of armour: it’s my go-to for those days when I’m feeling a little mousy and need to channel the most kick-ass version of myself. (PSA: red lipstick can zhoozh up any outfit. You can walk out of the house in a white tee and blue jeans and sneakers, your hair not at its best, but throw on red lipstick and you go from drab to almost chic.)

Red lipstick has been having its moment in the spotlight for decades: Elizabeth Taylor wore red lipstick almost as much as she wore diamonds. Think of ’90s Madonna with her platinum-blonde locks and bright red lips. And then there’s Gwen Stefani, who probably sleeps in red lipstick. Pop culture’s ultimate confident cool girl, Rihanna, even has a song called Red Lipstick.

And now a global initiative is encouraging you to rock your red for social justice.

The #RedMyLips campaign aims to reclaim the meaning of red lipstick and use it to spread awareness of a good cause. Founded in the US in 2011, #RedMyLips is spearheaded locally by Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng (also known as Dr T), a Sunday Times columnist and member of the Sexual Reproductive Rights and Justice Coalition.

The campaign invites people to rock red lipstick as a message against sexual violence and slut-shaming and as a show of solidarity with survivors of sexual abuse (regardless of gender). The global campaign runs throughout April as it is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

And while the campaign isn’t a means to push consumerism, I will say that the fashion and beauty pundits are right: there is a shade of red for every complexion, every mood and every occasion.

So what better way to rock your red than for a good cause? — Pearl Boshomane

Visit www.redmylips.org. On social media, use the hashtags #redmylips2017 and #ok2share. Follow @drtlaleng and @redmylipsorg on Twitter.