{"id":63128,"date":"2014-07-30T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=63128"},"modified":"2017-09-17T16:48:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:48:42","slug":"girls-deserve-better-than-girls-on-the-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/07\/30\/girls-deserve-better-than-girls-on-the-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls on the Run: When Efforts to “Empower” Girls Go Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every spring, my daughter receives an invitation to participate in a local Girls on the Run<\/a> (GOTR) program. Every spring, I hesitate saying, \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Girls on the Run (GOTR) is a non-profit organization with about 200 councils across the U.S. and Canada. Over 10 to 12 weeks, councils help organize teams of girls in 3rd<\/sup> through 8th<\/sup> grades to train for and complete a 5K run.<\/p>\n

Volunteer coaches lead their team through the program\u2019s pre-packaged curriculum, consisting of lessons that \u201cencourage positive emotional, social, mental and physical development.\u201d Among other things they discuss self-esteem, confidence, team work, healthy relationships, and \u201cchallenges girls face.\u201d Boys are not allowed to participate in the program. The 5K is described by GOTR as the ending \u201cmoment in time that beautifully reflects the very essence of the program goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The starting line has the atmosphere of a party. Music is played over loud speakers, pumping teen pop (with lyrics laden with sexual innuendo and \u201ccrushes\u201d on boys) and oldies that carry an affirmative \u201cyou can do it\u201d message like Gaynor\u2019s, \u201cI Will Survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vendors (local businesses and organizations) bring tables to engage the girls and their parents in products\/services they have available. This is not the only form of capitalistic opportunism affiliated with GOTR. The international organization\u2019s official sponsors include Lego Friends<\/a> \u2013 a line of Legos that emphasize single-sexed socialization (not building!) and Secret\u2019s<\/a> campaign \u201cMean Stinks\u201d (featuring another pop glam star, Demi Lovato) that emphasizes painting fingernails blue, among other frivolous things, to address girl-on-girl bullying.<\/p>\n

The run is an odd scene. Though boys have been banned from participation, older male relatives, friends, and teachers are encouraged to run with girls as their sponsors. It has become a unique trademark of GOTR that these men, and many of the women and girls, dress \u201chyper-feminine<\/a>\u201d (e.g., in skirts, tutus, big bows, bold patterned knee-high socks, tiaras, etc.), apply make-up or face pain<\/a>t, and spray color their hair. The idea is to \u201cgirl it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve become increasingly uncomfortable with this event for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n

First, encouraging girls to \u201cgirl it up\u201d\u2014or I prefer, \u201cglam it up,\u201d so that we don\u2019t appropriate these behaviors just for girls\u2014can be fun, an opportunity to step out and beyond what is practiced in everyday life. But there\u2019s no corresponding encouragement to \u201cbutch it up\u201d if they desire, or do some combination of both.\u00a0 In the end, then, this simply serves to reproduce gender stereotypes and the old-fashioned and false notion that gender is binary.<\/p>\n

Second, by bombarding girls with “positive” messages about themselves meant to counteract negative ones, the program implicitly gives credence to the idea that girls aren\u2019t considered equal to boys. What messages are girls really getting when special programs are aimed at trying to make them feel good about themselves as girls?<\/p>\n

Although I have always given in to my daughter’s requests, at some point I am going to say “no.” Instead of reinforcing the box she’s put into, and decorating it with a pretty bow, we’ll have to start unpacking mainstream girl culture together.<\/p>\n

Scott Richardson is an assistant professor of educational foundations and affiliate of women\u2019s studies at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. You can follow him on <\/em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every spring, my daughter receives an invitation to participate in a local Girls on the Run (GOTR) program. Every spring, I hesitate saying, \u201cyes.\u201d Girls on the Run (GOTR) is a non-profit organization with about 200 councils across the U.S. and Canada. Over 10 to 12 weeks, councils help organize teams of girls in 3rd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":63129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2099,2096,2095,8092,108],"class_list":["post-63128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-childrenyouth","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-sports","tag-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/12.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63128"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71662,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63128\/revisions\/71662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}