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As women, we are often labeled with unfair stereotypes that demean our gender and cause us to feel poorly about ourselves. Well, the company Always wants to change that and is doing its part to “rewrite the rules.” The company came out with an ad titled “#LikeAGirl” in which young women and girls are featured acting out activities in a way they believe the female gender does.
The difference between the opinions of what it means to do things like a girl differed greatly among age groups.
When the young women were asked what it means to “run like a girl,” they demonstrated the action by flailing their arms in the air and acting as though coordination was foreign to them. The same thing happened when they were asked to “fight like a girl,” and “throw like a girl.” The young women barely swung their arms as they demonstrated fighting, and made poor attempts to throw a ball when asked.
When the young girls were asked to “run ike a girl,” they did so by running intensely and one girl even said, “it means run as fast as you can.” They threw hard punches when asked how to “fight like a girl,”and demonstrated throwing a ball in such a way that it looked like they could play in the major leagues.
This shows us that what we believe it is to be “like a girl” is conditioned in us sometime during puberty, and the repercussions can be devastating. Who wants to believe that their gifts and talents are subpar? What we believe about ourselves translates into the way we perform. Therefore, we may not be living to our full potential.
Whether we want to help our daughters feel good about themselves, improve our own self-esteem, or help stop the perpetuation of ignorant attempts to sum up the characteristics of women, we can do so by being part of the solution. Help instill confidence in our nation’s daughters by constantly reminding them that to behave “like a girl” is a great honor and it can mean being a winner. Remember, girls seem to be their most vulnerable between the ages of 10 and 12, so it’s up to us to set them up with the proper inner dialogue so that the outside world can’t break them.
The same goes for ourselves. We need to constantly remind ourselves that we are enough and understand that negative stereotypes towards women are just that, stereotypes, and not reality.
If interested in helping to end stereotypes among women through Always, visit their website at Always.com