As I’m sure most of you saw while watching the Super Bowl (or, if you’re like me, you watch it for the commercials) the #LikeAGirl commercial made quite the debut. There were plenty of outcries of support via social media, but there was also a lot of hatred. But why?
(Here’s the link to the commercial in case you missed it)
“Like a girl” is a saying we are all too familiar with. Whether it be said on the field, in schools, the work place or even in the big leagues like the White House, we’ve all heard this term shot out at others like a dirty word, an insult that packs a punch. Why is it, though, that this saying is so offensive? What does it mean to “run like girl” or “fight like a girl” or really anything “like a girl” for that matter? Why is the female gender being used to put others down, and why, when it is used for this purpose, does it succeed in doing so? Who was it that deemed the female sex so inferior? Why is our running, fighting, working, and just existing so demeaning to society?
For example, we’ve all seen the movie “The Sandlot.” It’s a classic childhood favorite, especially for the current college age generation. I myself love this movie, and just rewatched it for the first time in years over Christmas break. Now, as a child, it didn’t hit me quite as much as it did when watching as an adult, but something was so off-putting to me this last time around. In the scene where our lovable sandlot kids are playing a game against their suburban rivals, a lot of insults were being thrown around. Nothing too harmful, just kids throwing shade the way kids do with the typical “your momma” jokes and the like. But what got to me was, at the end of their little neighborhood altercation, the insult that seemed to take all the boys aback was, of course “you play ball LIKE A GIRL.”
(Here’s the scene if you need a refresher)
As soon as the words are said, all the boys are speechless and act as if there couldn’t ever be a worse thing said to another human being. Then the movie carries on, and it’s as if it never happened. But you know what? It did happen. What do you think happens when a little girl sees this movie and hears something like her gender used as an insult of the worst degree? It does exactly what society has been doing for years; it tears her down. It makes her feel like she is less because she was born a female. Why? WHY do we do this to one another?
I know it seems like such a small thing in the long run, but it’s not. It’s time being a girl stopped being an insult. We hear every day how ‘feminists’ need to stop ‘whining’ because we’re already considered ‘equal’ in society. That women haven’t been oppressed for years, and we’re just beating a dead horse with a stick. But if this is so, then why are women still paid only 75 cents to every man’s dollar for the same work? Why are we still teaching women how to “avoid being raped” rather than teaching our men not to rape in the first place? Why do we still use the excuse “boys will be boys” when men get in fist fights, but when a woman stands up for herself she’s a “bitch?” Why are we still allowing “like a girl” to be lodged at one another like a bullet? Why, if we’re equal, are men twice as likely to be hired for a job, even if the women competing are more qualified? Why? Because, being a woman in this society is still considered less, and it’s time we stand up. That’s why commercials like the #LikeAGirl campaign are so important.
No, you don’t ‘need’ something like a commercial, or the label of feminism, to stand up against oppression, but SOME. PEOPLE. DO. It’s not your job as a woman to do any of this, it’s OUR job as a SOCIETY. Man, woman, child, gay, straight, trans, black, white, purple, it doesn’t matter. We are all people, and it’s time we remember that. It starts with the little things. It starts with our kids, out in the sandlot, in school, at home. “Like a girl” is not an insult. It’s time we stop acting like it.