Watch this. Take a breath and then keep reading.
Two things you need to know about me before we proceed: One, I used to work in advertising and two, until I was 12 years old it was seriously hard to tell if I was a boy or a girl because I was a raging tom-boy. (Sidenote - I hate that term and I hope since the 80s it's been laid to rest. How about just "athlete" who just so happens to be female.)
Lets start with the first - as an ad I don't know if this is really building brand awareness and going to help sell tampons or what. But I also don't care because that's not my point here. I hardly can remember what the ad is about at the end because I have been so moved that I had to immediately sit down and write a blog post. But is it generating that all important, buzz, yes. Is it building awareness of being a woman and what we are and what we're capable of? I think so.
Second and why I am writing in the first place is because what this ad shows us that has nothing to do with tampons but everything to do with girls and women. It asks, "Why can't 'Run Like a Girl' also mean win the race". Well hhmm, I have been asking myself this for 30 years. Except not so much for running but for throwing and hitting and in general just being a damn good athlete.
I played baseball from the age of 5. When I was in third grade and 9 years old I tried out for Little League. I made a team in my small town in Massachusetts. Almost immediately after word got out at school boys who didn't make a team started saying "the only reason you made the league is because every team needed a girl". I went from being on such a high from a great little accomplishment to crying on the walk home from the bus. At Opening Day, I looked at all the other teams lined up at the field and I counted the girls. 6 teams: and only 3 girls, total accross all the teams. I was 9 years old - and I yes, I remember how many teams, how many girls, what those girls' names were and what the name of the boys who said I didn't deserve to be there were. Girls are impressionable. What you say to them matters, so say something smart, and confident building, and tell them they're awesome when they deserve to be told they're awesome. I, and those two other girls, were awesome. We stood there not because we were a quota but because we deserved to be there. Thank god I knew that internally, because I don't think anyone actually said it outloud.
Four years later I was 12 and still playing Little League for my fourth and final year. In the spring of sixth grade two things happened that I remembered vividly.
First, I played catcher and made a kick-ass play at the plate to tag out a boy who was trying to run home. I caught the ball, squared myself and braced for impact. The boy slide into home knocking all 85 pounds of me about five feet back. But before I took flight, I tagged him, and when I landed I raised my girl-glove and showed that I still had the ball. Out at home.
Second, I hit a grand slam home-run. It was my one and only home-run I ever hit; It was perfect to me and we won the game.
Both of these things should have been my accomplishments, right? Right. Yet instead, they turned into someone else's failures instead of my success. Again, in school the next days after each incident I walked in head high expecting to be the story of the day. I wasn't. In the case of the play at home - it wasn't about me and my athletic prowess but rather the fact that boy who tried to make it home "ran in to a girl" and "still got out". In the case of the grand-slam - it wasn't about me and the fact that I hit a Little League regulation home-run straight over the center field fence while the pressure was on and three people were on base. No. It was about the boy pitcher who must have "lobbed a ball" over the plate and "pitched a grand-slam home-run...to a girl." In both cases, it wasn't about me. Not even in the least. The boys were humiliated, taunted, teased and ridiculed (even into our tenth high school reunion a few years ago, seriously). It never occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe, I played a mean-ass catcher and hit the shit out of that ball. I was furious. Girls are impressionable. What you say to them matters, so say something smart, and confident building, and tell them they're awesome when they deserve to be told they're awesome.
I played Little League with "the boys" for four years. I even made the all-star team in the end. And yet, I can't tell you how many times I heard fathers say to their sons "c'mon, you should be able to get her out, she's a girl". I heard, "Not bad for a girl". I heard, "Is that catcher... a girl [insert snort and snicker here]? I heard "She's fast for a girl". I heard "Hey that girl can throw it down to second almost like like a boy". Never did I hear "That number 6 is a good ball player." Period, stop, end of sentence. It was always made gender specific. I hated it.
So here we are to my point: This commercial, for Always, opens your eyes to the fact that "like a girl" is still derogatory. It is still offensive. Just look at the way the actors portray run/throw like a girl! It's not their fault specifically - it's what they think they are being asked to do. Yet still sad that they have this preconceived notion of what "like a girl" is...in 2014!
The bright light in the tunnel but that also made me cry? The girls, age 10, that show us (remind me) what it is really like to run/throw/punch like a girl. Why are we still having to prove ourselves as girls and women? Where do we lose this sense of awesome self? Teach your girls to run like a girl. Teach your girls to hit and throw and jab and play like a girl. I think we, as moms and as a society are doing ok at this... But here is the tricky part and clearly what we are missing; Tell them never to stop. It has been 26 years since I made the Little League. In 26 years we haven't changed. This makes me sad and angry. We must raise our daughters to be awesome and then tell them to keep going. It's not enough to give the confidence and then leave them be. We must be there and show them that being athletic, awesome, strong, fast, smart and amazing like a girl is a lifetime trait.
And PS - tell your sons to say "good job". Take that fricken chip off their shoulders and let them play amoungst the girls. I think we tend to segregate the boys and girls so early now that we are showing the boys that they must be better or different. Yes, they will most likely get bigger and stronger. But not today, not at 5 years old, not even at 10. So let them play with the girls - hey let them even get schooled by a girl and then make them said "good game" period, full stop.
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@runliferunlove
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