{"id":7443,"date":"2014-07-07T08:20:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T13:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=7443"},"modified":"2014-08-05T21:32:47","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T02:32:47","slug":"thinking-like-a-girl-about-that-always-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2014\/07\/07\/thinking-like-a-girl-about-that-always-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Like a Girl about That &#8220;Always&#8221; Video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By now you\u2019ve likely seen the Always #LikeAGirl video that went viral, evoking tears of recognition as well as feminist critique about the uneasy equation of empowerment and tampon ads. And if you haven\u2019t yet, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/XjJQBjWYDTs\">click here<\/a> or watch below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XjJQBjWYDTs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Empowerment cheese, <a href=\"http:\/\/jezebel.com\/always-ad-about-like-a-girl-taunt-will-make-you-cry-lik-1598187426\">says Jezebel<\/a>. An emotional ploy for tampon sales,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2014\/06\/30\/yes-always-s-like-a-girl-campaign-is-great-but-it-s-also-deceptive.html\">writes Daily Beast<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"%20http:\/\/www.shape.com\/blogs\/shape-your-life\/what-professional-female-athletes-think-always-girl-ad\">also Shape<\/a>, who asked professional female athletes to respond. Outdated, responded ultra-runner Ellie Greenwood. &#8220;I agree that we should be way beyond this kind of thing. I can think of so many strong female sports models\u2026I think that we should be at the stage in sports\u2014and also in people&#8217;s perceptions of sports\u2014that there is no reason why women can&#8217;t do 99 percent of what men do, and having some conversation about it is a little out of date.\u201d Yes, yes, and great.<\/p>\n<p>And still, here\u2019s the thing: I\u2019ve watched this video myself four times. It <em>is <\/em>manipulative, I agree, given that there\u2019s no clear action on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.always.com\/en-us\/likeagirl.aspx\">Always\u2019 website <\/a>steering us to how we might protect pubescent girls from the confidence plunge (other than using a winged panty liner, surprise, or sending out a tweet to<span class=\"dont_stop_there\"> prove how awesome doing things #LikeAGirl really is<\/span>). It <em>is<\/em> consumer capitalism masquerading as feminism. Yep.<\/p>\n<p>But what I\u2019m interested in, as both a scholar of narrative and a communications professional, is why I, along with so many others, am so darn moved by the message in the video. Let\u2019s forget that it\u2019s Procter &amp; Gamble, just for a tiny sec.<\/p>\n<p>The video\u2019s message is powerful because award-winning filmmaker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laurengreenfield.com\/\">Lauren Greenfield<\/a>, the video\u2019s director, is <em>good<\/em>. Her documentary creds include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-a&amp;hs=wRg&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;channel=sb&amp;q=the+queen+of+versailles&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAGOovnz8BQMDgzEHnxCnfq6-QUqKqYGhEheImWWREl9YpSWRnWylX5CaX5CTCqSKivPzrHLzyzJTi_8l_TybLL85MrL--rts3t6YygjvVgBXTsCfUAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=HBC6U72KNouKyATo6oLQDg&amp;ved=0CNYBEJsTKAIwGg\">The Queen of Versailles<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-a&amp;hs=wRg&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;channel=sb&amp;q=thin+movie&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAGOovnz8BQMDgzEHnxCnfq6-QUqKqYGhEheIaVQQb5xRpSWRnWylX5CaX5CTCqSKivPzrHLzyzJTiy1jMlqY5ht4cCUoxIRopfB-PPv6LwC_0QFYUAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=HBC6U72KNouKyATo6oLQDg&amp;ved=0CNcBEJsTKAMwGg\">Thin<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-a&amp;hs=wRg&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;channel=sb&amp;q=kids+money&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAGOovnz8BQMDgzEHnxCnfq6-QUqKqYGhEheIaRZfbmRmrCWRnWylX5CaX5CTCqSKivPzrHLzyzJTi2c-711jYfBwimvP3DPH3T4XSYQzPAIAB-3I31AAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=HBC6U72KNouKyATo6oLQDg&amp;ved=0CNgBEJsTKAQwGg\">Kids + money<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-a&amp;hs=wRg&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;channel=sb&amp;q=beauty+culture+film&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAGOovnz8BQMDgzEHnxCnfq6-QUqKqYGhEheImW2WF59hqCWRnWylX5CaX5CTCqSKivPzrHLzyzJTize5xs76IxG49ezaJVvef6qXmqTh6QsATCGE2lAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=HBC6U72KNouKyATo6oLQDg&amp;ved=0CNkBEJsTKAUwGg\">Beauty CULTure<\/a>. Her photojournalistic book, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Girl-Culture-Lauren-Greenfield\/dp\/0811837904\">Girl Culture<\/a><\/em>, is by all accounts an intelligent exploration of American girlhood, endorsed in an introduction by no less than historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg.<\/p>\n<p>So Greenfield is good, and the thinking behind the project is smart. The ad provokes us grown women to think back to a time before we were aware of gender difference, before \u201clike a girl\u201d meant something derogatory. For many of us, that\u2019s hard to do. But if you think back, I bet you can find it. Give it a try. It&#8217;s a highly worthy pursuit.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, I&#8217;ll go. My own recollection of that moment when I first realized \u201clike a girl\u201d could mean something negative was the day I asked my high school history teacher, who happened to be the boys\u2019 baseball coach and clearly favored the jocks, why no one in the class was bringing up issues of morality when discussing the reasons the U.S. nuked Hiroshima. \u201cMorality? That\u2019s such a girl response,\u201d said someone in the room. Cue snickering from all the boys in the room. Next, cue confidence plunge.<\/p>\n<p>Well, almost. Lucky for me, my English teacher that year, Ms. Medwin, was a big ole feminist, and the world she opened for me saved me from despair. Under her guidance, I wrote my first real term paper&#8211;on Emily Dickinson and Adrienne Rich, women who refused to go under. \u201cWhen a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her,\u201d wrote Rich.<\/p>\n<p>Rich also wrote this: \u201cThe connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.\u201d To that end, I\u2019d love to see the kind of messaging in the Always video applied to a massive campaign, say, to <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2014\/07\/04\/hobby-lobby-and-independence-day-wheres-full-equality-under-the-law\/\">restore the rights of the women of Hobby Lobby to access contraception through health care<\/a>. Or to find <em>all<\/em> the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/africa\/kidnapped-nigerian-girls-escape-from-boko-haram-abductors--reports-9588251.html\">remaining kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.<\/a> Or to any number of wrongs that need righting, right away.<\/p>\n<p>Because at the end of the day and after all the virality, it\u2019s still a tampon ad, and there\u2019s nowhere much for our roused sentiment\u2014the connecting between and among women we experience here as viewers\u2014to go.<\/p>\n<p>And so, a video with a powerful message becomes a lost opportunity. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/xx_factor\/2014\/06\/26\/_like_a_girl_by_lauren_greenfield_a_nice_ad_for_tampons.html\">Amanda Hess at<\/a> <em>Slate<\/em> sums it up when she notes, \u201cit\u2019s a little sad that all of this enthusiasm for women\u2019s stories are leading us directly to a box of maximum protection wings, while female filmmakers and characters are still so underrepresented at the box office.\u201d <em>We\u2019re wasting our best filmmakers on tampon ads,<\/em> the headline screams.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking like a girl over here, I say it\u2019s high time empowerment causes, and not just empowerment products, had a PSA as powerful as this tampon ad. Causes for the betterment of women and girls\u2019 lives deserve our most creative thinking, our savviest makers and marketers of all sorts.<\/p>\n<p>When the cause for gender equity truly goes viral, when it becomes actionable and not just aspirational, then maybe, just maybe, \u201crun like a girl\u201d will mean, as one of the women in the video implores, \u201cwin the race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not hugely optimistic, but I have to stay hopeful. Because my greatest hope is that by the time my little girl, now four years old, hits puberty, this conversation will <em>actually<\/em> be out of date.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0I invite you to follow me on Twitter <a href=\"&lt;a%20href=&quot;https:\/\/twitter.com\/deborahgirlwpen&quot;&gt;@girlwpen&lt;\/a&gt;\">@deborahgirlwpen<\/a>, join my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GirlwPenConsulting\">Facebook community<\/a>, and subscribe to my <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/qnRJL\">quarterly newsletter<\/a> to keep posted on workshops, coaching offerings, and talks.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By now you\u2019ve likely seen the Always #LikeAGirl video that went viral, evoking tears of recognition as well as feminist critique about the uneasy equation of empowerment and tampon ads. And if you haven\u2019t yet, click here or watch below. Empowerment cheese, says Jezebel. An emotional ploy for tampon sales,\u00a0writes Daily Beast and\u00a0also Shape, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21107,1],"tags":[27711,27710,15,245,55,21395,27714,27713,13,27712,21719,27715],"class_list":["post-7443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mama-w-pen","category-uncategorized","tag-likeagirl","tag-always","tag-culture","tag-feminism","tag-gender","tag-girls","tag-girls-confidence","tag-girls-self-esteem","tag-inequality","tag-lauren-greenfield","tag-puberty","tag-tampon-ads"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7443"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7557,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7443\/revisions\/7557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}