During a week’s-end meeting just before the 4th of July holiday, I realized something . . .
. . . everyone present was a woman.
Now I think we have a pretty diverse team here at NICABM, but in that moment, all of the guys were out of the office.
And as I looked around, it reinforced something that I have always believed in and really, known – girls are every bit as capable, creative, and valuable as their male counterparts.
So I thought it was fitting that, this week, I came across a video with exactly this sentiment. It’s from a company setting out to change the stereotype that doing things “like a girl” means anything other than doing them with strength and success.
I hope you like it as much as I do, and I hope it’ll remind you that the next time someone tells you that you do something “like a girl,” maybe you should take it as a compliment.
A lot of what we set out to do here at NICABM is empower people to change their lives, whether it be through mindfulness, brain science, or trauma therapy.
And I think this video is another way to change lives by getting people to question cultural stereotypes – things that, in the past, we might have taken as a given.
I find it heartening that these folks put time and resources into creating a video that can encourage young women and girls to live up to their full potential. And maybe help do away with these stereotypes once and for all.
So now I want to hear from you – what comes to your mind when you hear the phrase “like a girl?” Tell us about it in the comment section below.
I would just like to say, and remind all of us, that we are all different and unique regardless of our sexual reproductive organs. Our DNA proves it! Even though we may display similar social behaviors being socially driven beings it does not take away the fact that I am just as special as he is whether I’m doing something “like a girl” or woman. Using stereotypes of any kind and forgetting that each of us has something to contribute to humanity on a microscopic or macroscopic scale is truly saddening for me. To be told that someone, male or female, portrays themselves or displays actions “like a girl” is so broad in scope because I would have to ask the dumb question (which we all know there is no such thing), and “which girl is that?” (sic) How about we go back to the basics of allowing everyone redeem their uniqueness and shine their light on the world to make it a better place, not a place of categorization and lump sums!
Hens don’t crow and cockerels don’t lay eggs
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Nice Video Dale Coles. I have always been proud to be a girl and would complement the person who said I run like a girl . I can see there may be girls that do not feel as I do it could be their parents or Teachers did not encourage them in this area to believe more in them self. Great Video.
It causes me anger, frustration and distress so that I need to take a breath and then point out to the person who uses derogatory comparisons to females how unfair and discriminating that kind of thinking is and that they are promoting the defamatory objectification of girls and women in general.
Many times the culprit is a WOMAN!
I can’t just let it go.
When I was younger and someone said to me I did something “like a girl” I decided to do the best I could to show them how good a girl could be. Maybe that was one way girls of my generation nudged the women’s movement along.
I show up to get the work done — like a girl!
I am constructive — like a girl!
I am fun — like a girl!
I give 100% — like a girl!
I’m creative — like a girl!
I enjoy what life has to offer — like a girl!
I work with college age young women, many struggle with confidence for many reasons. This is a great reminder for all women AND men to CHEER on “Girls”
This is amazing! Simple yet impactful. I had tears in my eyes. Even though I grew up being empowered by the women in my family I still have run-ins with people who think of females as less than capable. I also sadly run into both young girls and adults women who have told me that they have never seen an African American female with a DR. in front of their name. It’s sad and upsetting to know that this day in age we still do not empower our girls to believe in themselves as more than a comparison to their male counterparts. Even worse is that young girls do not realize the potential they possess and instead grow up working hard to please others and live up to the expectations of others rather than dreaming big for themselves. There should be more community events and activities that promote the power and value of good self-esteem, confidence and self-worth. Girls should also be given the chance to see and meet great women who defy the odds, the stereotypes and stigmas and the “rules.”
This video actually makes me cry because these are the stereotypes that I have fought against my entire life; stereotypes and ‘insults’ that have deeply affected who I am and the confidence (or lack of) that I have carried because being who I am was never quite right. I have been rededicating my purpose in life to empowering girls and women…so glad others, with a bigger voice than mine are getting the message out. Girls/women are powerful, valuable people; we shouldn’t have to fight for equal rights, opportunity, value and respect and it won’t be until every little girls can find a voice like this that real change will happen. Thank you for posting this!
Enlightenment abounds
It is not an insult for me to be told I do something like a girl, because I am a girl. When I was a child, I wanted to do things like a boy, because I was the only girl in my family of four children. I wanted to fit in with my brothers. That being said, I still try to do things like a boy, but I am a girl, and not ashamed of it, anymore.
This choked me right up. I spent alot of my youth trying to live up to a masculine ideal that I thought would protect me and make me strong and invulnerable. As I get older I realise more and more that my real strength resides in who I really am, which is a woman who has the strengths and gifts of the feminine–vulnerability, creativity, compassion, cooperation, nurturance. I don’t have to be competitive and aggressive–to run and fight and play “like a boy”–to feel strong. I no longer see that as true strength, tho those things might be a component of a whole strong person.
Thank you Always for making this video, and recognizing the importance and value of such “small” things.
At the same time, I do agree with the commenters who question the use of what is essentially an advertisement, since advertising and consumerism are a very large part of the problem in our culture the first place. But it is where the money is, and somehow someone in a decision-making position did see this issue as important. It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes such a route is the only way to effectively get a message out. Kind of a conundrum.
This is a wonderful revelation to GIRLS of today that will definitely effect their future.
Growing up in the error of “STEROTYPES” I can definitely see both views “FROM EXPERIENCE”!
Instead of trying to “emulate” and “be like a boy” by running, shooting and fighting why not have a video showing how men and women can use their left brain to manage conflict.
I have no desire to empower women to be like men. Both sexes have unique characteristics and need to work together.
I live in Brazil and this message came in the right moment. After 37 years working in corporations I retired and I am starting an executive coaching business focused in women and to my life as a writer.
Thank you for the message: I want to work as a volunteer in the empowerment of young girls.
As adults we need to recognize, are we living our life as we were ment to? Or, are we living our life the way someone else tells us to, or rather implies we should? Open your eyes and be yourself as much as humanly possible. Now, take everything you learn from that, even as you learn it, and teach your children to just be who they are and love who they are, embrace who you are. We will all be much happier and joyful, not to mention more successful in our lives. Be who you were intended to be )*( live life as intended )*( PEACE..LOVE..JOY.. To the success of learning how to wake-up and really truly live life as God and The Universe designed it
Awesome video! Favorite section was seeing young ladies show their abilities in a given sport. To many girls and young women are overlooked due to lack of nurturing natural abilities, simply because of gender. This is a male induced program that needs deleted. Women have long been known for Strength as well as endurance and leadership skills that are naturally within us, to only later as children to deprogrammed. It’s time to call it like we truly see it, and nurture our true self as girls and women.
Yes! Girls of any age need to be reminded of who we are and that we are valuable just for being who we are.
Beautiful, brought tears , “like a girl”.
16ae03512bOnly a smiling visiotr here to share the love (:, btw outstanding design and style. The price one pays for pursuing a profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. by James Arthur Baldwin. 185
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For me, “like a girl” is describing someone like my daughter: Strong-minded, open, caring, intelligent and resolute.
For me, “like a girl” is describing someone like my mother: Inquisitive, questioning, steady and generous.
And yes! “girls are every bit as capable, creative, and valuable as their male counterparts.”
Now, how about we learn to truly know each other and heed the lessons Dr. Brené Brown laid out for all of us in her incredible TED talk “Listening to Shame’?
Why should it be SO difficult to do just that?
How come and what does it tell me that “always” in this video is written in the same character as the brand name of a market-leading sanitary napkin?? Wearing “Always” sanitary napkins empowers you to live up to your true self??? Which of course is a successful (and eligible) one….
The video is a very interesting illustration of how children are ‘programmed/conditioned as they become more exposed to the effects of family, friends, social/cultural groups,movies, MEDIA, etc.
In fact the influences are downloaded in-utero from ancestral/racial tendencies—in the subconscious.
There are some physiological factors that come into play at puberty, but the main influence of the negative expressions, are from conditioning & beliefs.
Bringing these factors to awareness is step in the right direction, however it begs the question—
HOW CAN WE, AS A COLLECTIVE HUMANITY, DECREASE THE INFLUENCE, THE EXPOSURE OF CHILDREN & ADULTS TO THESE VERY PREVALENT CONDITIONING & PROGRAMMING FACTORS?
We could begin by *QUESTIONING ANY ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING.
*BECOMING AWARE OF ANY TENDENCY TO COMPARE/JUDGE, ourself or others.
*BE IN THE HEART VIRTUES AS SOVEREIGN INTEGRALS. (ref: wingmakers.com)
We can respect, honour, and appreciate our differences, while supporting each other & ourselves to BE & to EXPRESS to the fullest potential each moment.
Yeah! Eve Ensler, yeah. Where do I sign up to help Always.com?
why are we bowing before a piece of marketing, of all things, to illustrate what it means to be a girl !!! Advertising is the manipulation of emotion to get you to buy stuff. I am really surprised we are now posting commercials on NICABM. Like the Dove commercials it’s creative and brilliant piece of advertising but it doesn’t belong here.
I am actually kinda shocked this has been posted. Why can’t we just have discourse in the US about topics without reference to marketing or movies to lend an idea credibility.
I agree completely jackie!
Yeah ….i dont believe the insult and. Never have because i had to survive tough stuff and still do … Go girls !
This has been *such an issue* for me (a boomer), that I’ve begun to see males as socially inferior, LESS capable of relationship, or seeing the big picture or witnessing another, than females are able to do. HIStory is the problem. He does not see so broadly or well.
“Socially inferior”
“LESS capable of relationship”
LESS capable of seeing the big picture (whatever that is)
“He does not see so broadly or well” (Who is “he”?)
How can such prejudices help you?
Like a girl, or woman, means to me–with a nurturing heart, which is courageous enough to be sure of herself and caring of others at the same time–to go for her goals which include making the world a better place because she lives.
I appreciate this meaningful tribute to Girls’ equal capacity: “win the race” of life with self-validation!
When pondering this, I kept thinking, “Yeah, but that’s what most men want and like-girls. And they usually like feminine girls so they should probably think twice about making a degrading comment about how we may do something “like a girl” because that’s what we are and that’s what they want. I’m proud to be a feminine “girl” AND I enjoy golfing, snow skiing, ball games, and deep intellectual conversations. I’m also a very successful businesswoman in a typically male world.
I raised two boys who respect, nurture and honor the women in their lives and they make me proud.
When I hear “like a girl”, I think of strong behavior, a female doing her best at whatever she is doing. I bicycle whenever I have the time and I can usually ride at least ten miles or more. My bicycle seat says “Ride like a girl” on it and I have a biking shirt and biking socks that say the same thing. They all come from a company called Terry, which specializes in bicycle gear for women. I am very proud to “Ride like a girl.”
Though I appreciate the sentiment and the desperate need to reinform cultures around the world about the relevance of feminine power (in all of us), versus the current misogynistic systematic repression and violence against women/the feminine principle, please note that this video is savvy sophisticated marketing by a feminine product company, once again, using the feminine toward the benefit of the masculine profit margin. If truly interested, maybe this might be more inspiring, http://www.unwomen.org/
Unbelievable -I didn’t realize this was produced by a sanitary napkin company! I try to stay away from TV, aside from PBS, and that’s the best advice a mother can give any of her children. Let your children see you reading, listening to music (not on iPhones), and engaging in discussion, is still the best advice. Mass culture tends to dehumanize, manipulate (like this ad), and is very anti intellectual.
For me, the phrase ‘doing it like a girl’ also means doing things from a culturally acceptable norm for a girl/woman in her middle-years whose heritage is Asian.
And if I had let this phrase dominates me, I would not have stretched as much as I feel I have done with my life.
And, more interestingly, if I had not had this internal conflict, imagine how far I could have reached with my potential and innate characteristics.
So, as I reflect on this saying ‘like a girl’, I want to break out of the box I have been keeping myself safely absconded, and begin practicing the lyrics ‘hear me roar’.
That’s right! Today begins the new chapter for this youthful, intelligent, generous, kind-hearted Vietnamese/American woman to live life congruently in the one direction of ‘getting the No’s and going for the YESes’.
Why not!!??!! This is my life, and it is not a dress-rehearsal! There is only one of me, and I intend to be my best according to the values that help shape who I am today!!
Blessings to all of us women and girls!!
I just went through an exercise where I spent time reflecting on what it meant for me to be a woman and after much thought, none of the stereotypes fit who i really was. So when I think “like a girl” to me it is empowerment, individual and being open to what is possible for you.
I love that, what a touching and empowering reminder of our strength and misconceptions. Its good to be a girl!!!
Thank you Ruth for an awesome, fantastic, great video. Let’s hope that the stereotype involved in “like a girl” will eventually vanish, and will come to mean that “like a girl” celebrates the differences between men and women which, in the end, enable the humann species to exist.
Incidentally, I read on the Internet that there is a part of the world, where MEN wiill be required to sit down (yes, sit down) on the toilet seat to do “number 1”, “like a girl”!!! LOL
Ruth, your video brightened up my day. Long live the differences between men and women.
Carol Gilligan’s studies showed that looking back on their lives, women often felt most strong between ages 9-11…right before puberty. At that age, size differential with boys had not yet kicked in and they usually were as strong and doing better than the boys in school. Yet, even if phrases such as “Don’t ______ like a girl” or “You’re acting like a silly girl” or “You’re just a bunch of “pussies” aren’t addressed to girls and women, they’re still part of the world of men. Worst insult yet for a guy is to be called a “girl”. Yes, it was a commercial for a company, but those very same companies have also contributed to the misogynist culture we still live in. So yeah for the progress, (I was one of those half court basketball players in the 60’s)…And now it’s on to working with women who are breaking the stereotypes of aging in America.
As a guy with tons of experience in life and as one who has long reflected on the nature of men and women, I will express the unconventional opinion that in truth history has been mistaken. Not only are men NOT superior to women, but it is women who are superior to men.
Men have egos, machismo swagger, some extra physical strength. The egos and machismo are male delusions. And who cares about some extra strength when it is offset compared to women by less compassion, less intuition, and less sense of community, caring and nurturing skills. And by and large men are far less sensitive to other human beings. Men compete and women cooperate.
In the patriarchal history of humanity that got that way merely because of the dominant strength factor women have been repressed and treated as inferior. Thank God that the future can hopefully redeem the errors of history. It will take time.
Wow, Henry, your clarity refreshes and inspires me, thank you!
What an amazing experiment! I loved the difference between how pre-pubescent and post-pubescent girls responded to the directions to “run like a girl.”
So soul-stirring!
Thanks for this.
Susan
Great that some additional media is focusing on this issue. I’ve worked with girls for my entire career, am a girl, raised a girl; and am proud of my strengths and intelligence and those of the girls whose lives I’ve touched. I was a child of the 50’s and 60″s so I know how degrading it could be in those days to be a girl. Hooray for anyone and everyone who will stand with us and change those images of girls to what we truly are…awesome!!
Great video, shame it was followed by a sales and marketing link to another website though …
I had the same response re: marketing message at the end.
That’s a genuinely imsvpesire answer.
Please delete this duplicate mistake
Bill
Surprised to watch this, as I think girls and women have come so far in the past decades. 50 yrs. ago, in high school, girl guards playing basketball in gym, were not to run across mid court, believed too much strain on their bodies!. Today, in college, girls/women play rugby, in effect tackle football without any padding. I played varsity baseball in high school, but watching “girls” pitch in softball games today, I would have been intimidated by how hard and fast they pitch, to get up to the plate. Girls/women play hockey and lacrosse, and watching at a distance, it would be easy to mistake them as boys. In my local health club, maybe 2 or 3 girls/woman were brave enough to work out 25 yrs. ago. Now at least half the participants are women. Even obese women are willing to work out in the health club with minimal or no embarrassment. At graduate schools post college, where it was a rarity for women to be accepted, there are now more women then men at Medical,, theological, law schools. The girls interviewed for this video were unsure if it was a put down to be told “you throw like a girl”! There are over 100 women’s funds established in cities in the U.S., created to fund empowerment for girls and women, not as individuals but as groups. I believe one of the most hopeful developments in this country and the world, is the empowerment of women, who in general are focused on caring for and relating to people for the common good rather then competing/defeating others.
We are leaving a legacy for the young women and girls of today. We never would have seen a video
like this when I was their age. I have a 67 year old friend who tried out for the Olympics, but she identified with the guys. And even now, she has little respect for women. It won’t need to be that way for today’s young women.
Thank you Ruth for this poignant video !
To me like a girl , means having courage , being protective , compassionate , but also vulnerable !
I have 6 fabulous granddaughters. I can’t wait to share this video with each one and hear what it is like for them to “be a girl”. They are unique individuals….athletic, dramatic, strong, beautiful, fun-loving, filled with life. I am eager to hear these conversations.
I love this video. You tempted me to read what you have because I do have two young women in my life. In fact our 21 year old daughter sent me this video two weeks ago. It is already in the hands of our next generation. I plan to share it with high school students and educators. Feels good to have strong women. Thanks Ruth