Always 'LikeAGirl' Campaign Aims To Boost Self-Confidence In Pubescent Young Women
If you recall the 1993 movie, The Sandlot, then you know the worst insult for a boy in the film was: “You play ball like a girl.” Always, the Procter and Gamble feminine hygiene brand, has launched the #LikeAGirl campaign to challenge the insult and teach young pubescent girls self-confidence.
Asking simple questions based off what it means to do things “like a girl,” award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield teamed up with Always to create a campaign video, which features girls and boys acting out their understanding of the phrase. Greenfield asked the participants, for example, to “run like a girl.”
The older kids, perhaps due to gender norms, immediately respond to the phrase by acting out the stereotypical hyper-feminine hair flipping and prancing about. “Oh my hair,” one girl says as she pretend-runs. The video demonstrates how their reactions are fueled by the preconceived notion that women are inferior, and in this case, physically weaker than men.
The opposite occurs when the youngest girls are asked the same questions. They respond without any preconceived notions of what it means to act “like a girl.” But soon, the older kids realize they’re reinforcing an insult and take a second chance to act like girls.
Similar recent female empowerment campaigns have included #BanBossy, spearheaded by Sheryl Sandberg, and Dove’s “Real Beauty” ads. At the end of the video, one girl asks, “Why can’t ‘run like a girl’ also mean ‘win the race?’"
Watch the kids in action below: