The “Like a Girl” Ideal

From: Marlee

At a very early age boys and girls are taught to close off themselves from one another and to look focus on their differences and not their similarities (Rudman 2015). This true in the way we speak. The saying “like a girl” can be used after just about any verb. You can “run like a girl”, throw “like a girl”, act “like a girl”, and even walk “like a girl”. The sky is the limit when it comes to degrading young girls. We make it a point to treat aggression and strength as manly traits, and weakness and passive behavior as feminine traits. We give no room for anything else. You either act like a girl, or you are one. The idea that girls are somehow less capable then boys to boy things and vice-versa is not true. This can be proven through girls like my sister.

Girls at a young age are discouraged to play sports. They are taught to nurture or put into activities such as dance or pageants that focus purely on their beauty. My photo is of my younger sister Emma. She eleven and one of strongest girls I know. Emma plays soccer and follows soccer like it’s her religion. She’s carried her team to County Championships and helped them win at those championships and helped them win their division. Emma has played on a soccer team with all boys, and when the coach would yell “You boys are playing like girls” he would quickly retract his statement and make it a point to apologize to Emma and compliment her on skills in comparison to the boys.

In my picture I made emphasis on the gaze of Emma is starring right at the camera. This is done to connect with the viewer. It touches the viewer directly. It makes the viewer feel almost as if they have a fault in this issue. Her gaze represents how girls look to society for their worth. The phrase “like a girl” is used in mass media and has become a norm to describe one’s actions across America. When girls see this in their media and hear these words coming from those, they love the most, they start to lose faith in their own capabilities. After some boys in out neighborhood bullied my little sister about her skills in her young soccer career, she came inside crying and feeling defeated and asked our mother “What is so wrong about being girl?” No one should feel shame about who they are or who they are destined to come.

Another emphasis I made in my photo is my background. I made the background and empty space to represent the capabilities of girls. IF as a society we promoted the same things for girls that we did for women, both women and men wouldn’t feel so limited in their spheres. The reason why I kept the space so empty is to represent the non-conformity of Emma. She doesn’t conform to the standards that she is somehow less than because she is a girl. She keeps her spheres open for anything that comes her way, no matter if people think its masculine or feminine

The last piece I emphasized in the photo was the lines. The line of the net symbolizes webbing. These lines as webbing, represent the “webbing” that make up girls’ lives. Everything we teach children at a young age shaped who they are. From their morals to their politics, the “webbing” in their childhood is essential to every person’s life. Without proper webbing a child could be left with a broken set of moral. Webbing makes people decide who they want to become. IF girls webbing encourages them to take subordinate rolls, and make them feel lesser than, than girls will choose a life for themselves that embodies this.

In Conclusion, the “Like a Girl” Ideal not only destroys young girls’ self-confidence, limits their scopes, and makes the feel unequal to a boy, but destroys their hope for a future where the amount to same as a boy.

Works Cited

Rudman, Laurie A., et al. "The Two Cultures of Childhood." The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, 59-63.