playonwords:
What’s ‘DU’?
A few options came up on a Google search.
Kevin Kehressays
@2: Wut?
You think it’s “unprincipled” for the manufacturer of feminine hygiene products to sponsor messages that empower girls?
How…exactly…’splain it to me. Exactly and precisely how is it “unprincipled”? What – they might sell more tampons because women have a higher opinion of them as a company? Again — this is “unprincipled” how?
I think you and I have a very different idea of what “principled” means. And what it means to be “unprincipled”.
Not everything every corporation does is evil.
Francisco Bacopasays
A good start. Once they start including USA Eagles women’s rugby trading cards in every package I will believe them.
Yes, good message. The one place I never heard ‘like a girl’ was in swim/dive team. We rocked, and everyone knew it.
Rich Woods @ 2:
The funding is, well, probably not so principled.
Why? It shouldn’t be a mystery that some young women will require menstrual products. The message may or may not influence which products a young woman buys, however, that doesn’t take away from the message at all, which might just wake a few people up.* It’s not as though you see athletic teams doing a spot like this, making a statement as to the importance of seeing young women as people, people who are as every bit as capable as those young men.
*Like the boy in the ad: “yeah, it’s insulting girls, but not my sister!” Perhaps he’ll think a bit more now.
raefn @ 9, those are women, not girls. I appreciate the sentiment and examples, however, this whole business of girl = woman has to stop.
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamblesays
About the only thing that would lead me to think that the funding wasn’t principled was that it comes from the same people who bring you laundry detergents and the commercials where nearly everyone doing the laundry is a woman. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of 2012 when we got the first hint of relaxation of the sexist stereotype.
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamblesays
Not to mention all the commercials for P&G products like Mr. Clean where the woman needs a help from a man in order to get her kitchen floors spotless…
I was pretty sure I saw a campaign (maybe featuring women athletes?) within the past couple of years trying to turn “throw like a girl” into a positive compliment, but I can’t find anything about it. I’m in Ontario and it may have been local (GTA, Ontario, or Canadian) I’m not sure.
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamblesays
Still, They are making amends, and this is good. More of this please.
As an aside, during my googling, I came up with lots of sexism (as might be expected), including multiple descriptions of a Volkswagen commercial from last year in which a dad who doesn’t know how to throw teaching his son how to throw a ball. The commercial itself said nothing about the quality of the throwing, sexist or otherwise, but apparently everyone talking about the commercial or searching for it has dad and boy “throwing like a girl.” Sexism hurts.
Still, They are making amends, and this is good. More of this please.
Yes, change is good. I’d like to see more like this too.
cksays
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble wrote:
Not to mention all the commercials for P&G products like Mr. Clean where the woman needs a help from a man in order to get her kitchen floors spotless…
I regret those times I have described my throwing ability by saying, “I throw like a girl”. I offer my apologies.
To put a positive spin on the marketing, while marketeers are as a class venal and two-faced, and will change moral heading faster than a weathercock in a tornado, take heart from the fact that these marketeers think they can make money by associating their client’s product with a positive feminist message. The danger is when they think they can elide the positive message into something simplistic in the manner of South Park‘s underpants gnomes. “Feminism! Therefore Always!”
First thought I had with ‘runs like a girl’ was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNmuyxlZ9Kk
This is pretty much what the little girl in the red dress said in response to the question, “What does it mean to you when I say, ‘run like a girl’? – “It means run as fast as you can.” Great response.
JPSsays
Occasionally Jon Stewart on the Daily Show uses “like a girl” as a put-down. I cringe.
plainenglishsays
@17. Inaji et al, yes indeed…. Even if we have to consider the corporate goal as suspect at times, the content of this series of images seems world-building to me and not simply ‘grab’….. more, please…
Back in the early 90s in Science News I read about a study where they tested that ‘throw like a girl’ thing. They took a bunch of kids and had them throw. And it turned out, even correcting for strength, on average boys threw further and more accurately than girls.
Except for some girls who went for throwing sports like baseball. They threw as well as the boys. So they brought the kids back, and had them throw with their non-dominant hands. And then everyone ‘threw like girls’. It’s just unpracticed throwing.
So girls can throw, but in our society few of them ever learn. I was in college then so I actually looked up the original paper. But I’ve lost the reference. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
Ray @#23
It’s all learned behaviors, you’re completely right.
I remember fondly when I was 30, and participated in a kendo tournament; wound up seeding in the first round against a 12-year-old girl from Tokyo who was visiting and dropped in for the competition because she happened to have her gear with her…
She hammered me into the floor like I was a thumbtack. “Like a girl.” It was awesome.
Oh yeah, “girl” as an insult.
I think the spot effectively demonstrated how much young women have internalized those stereotypes themselves.
One of my best friends sadly uses “act like a girl”, too.
Her standard phrase when she wants to object to something (!) is “I don’t want to sound like a girl, but (could you please shut the window, I’m cold)” or “maybe I act like a girl, but…”
So she pts down her won needs as being actually something she should not have and she puts down girls as a whole.
I told her not to use that phrase in my household where her own godsdamn goddaughter and her sister live. She sticks to my rules but she does not understand it.
The “fun” thing about using “you throw like a girl” as an insult is that it’s a double sexist doozy. In an alternate universe Earth where there’s no sexism, “you throw like a girl” is a perfectly prejudice-free insult that basically means “you throw like a child,” though in context it would be gender-matched with “you throw like a boy” used for men.
Here on the real Earth, “you throw like a girl” is a sexist insult because first women are infantilized so that the term “girl” is used to mean “woman” and then are declared inherently inferior so that being compared to one is insulting.
@ Marcus #24: There is nothing like being bested by a woman in “a mans game”. The women that break out of the gender stereotypes are usually amazing persons in every respect, although one has to wonder how much it has cost them.
Occasionally Jon Stewart on the Daily Show uses “like a girl” as a put-down. I cringe.
Yeah, taken as a single line, out of context; it is cringe-worthy, but whenever I have seen him say it, he always giggles to indicate it is a sexist comment, and done just for the satire. But, I know, I am too much a fan of Daily Show and allow him so much.
.
“throw like a girl”, takes me back to the quip, in “A League of Their Own”, when the pitcher, is told by one of her teammates, “oh, just ‘throw like a girl’, that you are ;-)” [emoticon was her facial expression]. The irony of the quip was a highlight of the movie.
My college roommate was in a martial arts tournament and the Aikido competition came around. There was this big, tall, strong guy and this scrappy little young woman. My roommate described the awesomeness when the man rushed the woman and she flipped him basically over her head.
mareapsays
I am envious of that golf swing.
pinkeysays
Good video, nice message. I’m proud that in the (rock) climbing community, it’s a compliment to climb “like a girl”. No insult whatsoever.
For exmaple: (copied from the internet)
“Females are almost always better climbers than men – they’re just a much smaller percentage of the climbing community.
Take it as a given that technique is a far better weapon against gravity than brute strength. Women (under most circumstances have a lower center of mass than men, and are more flexible. They also, yes, tend to weigh less. The only advantage men have in climbing is typically greater upper-body strength, and that really only comes into play on power routes with heavy overhang.
Being told you “climb like a girl” is a compliment.
Unfortunately, I know of no other community where this is the case…
barbazsays
PZ, you blog like a girl!
The funding is, well, probably not so principled.
So capitalism is now a bad thing?
I mean, I think it’s just natural that a company with a very specific customer group (yes, I just called half-the-population “very specific”) takes an interest in problems of that group that go beyond the products that they sell. I don’t think it’s less principled than companies who have their names printed on jerseys of popular sport teams.
“Climb like a girl!” I like it, it’s got a nice ring to it.
Nessays
There’s one from Verizon in a similar vein that I’ve been meaning to post in the lounge, but always forget about.
Esteleth, [an error occurred while processing this directive]says
I’m reminded of an episode of Rugrats that had the following one-off gag:
Two of the characters are a pair of twins (Phil and Lil) who are – as they are toddlers – are more or less identical-looking when they’re diapered, except that Lil wears a barrette in her hair.
The gag features Phil taking Lil’s barrette and putting it in his hair. He then starts fussing. Their mother comes over, picks him up, and comments to another adult, “Girls this age are always so fussy. But look at Phil! He never cries.”
Objective evidence indicates that there’s no real difference in the behavior of young children. But caregivers tend to report that girls are, well, girly and boys are boyish.
Reposted on DU. Thanks for this
The mesage is good. The funding is, well, probably not so principled.
Gah, “message”!
playonwords:
What’s ‘DU’?
A few options came up on a Google search.
@2: Wut?
You think it’s “unprincipled” for the manufacturer of feminine hygiene products to sponsor messages that empower girls?
How…exactly…’splain it to me. Exactly and precisely how is it “unprincipled”? What – they might sell more tampons because women have a higher opinion of them as a company? Again — this is “unprincipled” how?
I think you and I have a very different idea of what “principled” means. And what it means to be “unprincipled”.
Not everything every corporation does is evil.
A good start. Once they start including USA Eagles women’s rugby trading cards in every package I will believe them.
Girls are cool. Even cooler if they have a bow tie. And a girl with a bow tie AND a fez? Yowsa!
Yes, good message. The one place I never heard ‘like a girl’ was in swim/dive team. We rocked, and everyone knew it.
Rich Woods @ 2:
Why? It shouldn’t be a mystery that some young women will require menstrual products. The message may or may not influence which products a young woman buys, however, that doesn’t take away from the message at all, which might just wake a few people up.* It’s not as though you see athletic teams doing a spot like this, making a statement as to the importance of seeing young women as people, people who are as every bit as capable as those young men.
*Like the boy in the ad: “yeah, it’s insulting girls, but not my sister!” Perhaps he’ll think a bit more now.
How about Fly Like a Girl? http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/night-witches-the-female-fighter-pilots-of-world-war-ii/277779/
or Compute Like a Girl? http://topsecretrosies.com/
How about: play Doctor Who like a (or as) girl?
raefn @ 9, those are women, not girls. I appreciate the sentiment and examples, however, this whole business of girl = woman has to stop.
About the only thing that would lead me to think that the funding wasn’t principled was that it comes from the same people who bring you laundry detergents and the commercials where nearly everyone doing the laundry is a woman. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of 2012 when we got the first hint of relaxation of the sexist stereotype.
Not to mention all the commercials for P&G products like Mr. Clean where the woman needs a help from a man in order to get her kitchen floors spotless…
I was pretty sure I saw a campaign (maybe featuring women athletes?) within the past couple of years trying to turn “throw like a girl” into a positive compliment, but I can’t find anything about it. I’m in Ontario and it may have been local (GTA, Ontario, or Canadian) I’m not sure.
Still, They are making amends, and this is good. More of this please.
As an aside, during my googling, I came up with lots of sexism (as might be expected), including multiple descriptions of a Volkswagen commercial from last year in which a dad who doesn’t know how to throw teaching his son how to throw a ball. The commercial itself said nothing about the quality of the throwing, sexist or otherwise, but apparently everyone talking about the commercial or searching for it has dad and boy “throwing like a girl.” Sexism hurts.
Throwaway:
Yes, change is good. I’d like to see more like this too.
throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble wrote:
Even those are a-changing.
I regret those times I have described my throwing ability by saying, “I throw like a girl”. I offer my apologies.
To put a positive spin on the marketing, while marketeers are as a class venal and two-faced, and will change moral heading faster than a weathercock in a tornado, take heart from the fact that these marketeers think they can make money by associating their client’s product with a positive feminist message. The danger is when they think they can elide the positive message into something simplistic in the manner of South Park‘s underpants gnomes. “Feminism! Therefore Always!”
First thought I had with ‘runs like a girl’ was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNmuyxlZ9Kk
This is pretty much what the little girl in the red dress said in response to the question, “What does it mean to you when I say, ‘run like a girl’? – “It means run as fast as you can.” Great response.
Occasionally Jon Stewart on the Daily Show uses “like a girl” as a put-down. I cringe.
@17. Inaji et al, yes indeed…. Even if we have to consider the corporate goal as suspect at times, the content of this series of images seems world-building to me and not simply ‘grab’….. more, please…
Back in the early 90s in Science News I read about a study where they tested that ‘throw like a girl’ thing. They took a bunch of kids and had them throw. And it turned out, even correcting for strength, on average boys threw further and more accurately than girls.
Except for some girls who went for throwing sports like baseball. They threw as well as the boys. So they brought the kids back, and had them throw with their non-dominant hands. And then everyone ‘threw like girls’. It’s just unpracticed throwing.
So girls can throw, but in our society few of them ever learn. I was in college then so I actually looked up the original paper. But I’ve lost the reference. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
Ray @#23
It’s all learned behaviors, you’re completely right.
I remember fondly when I was 30, and participated in a kendo tournament; wound up seeding in the first round against a 12-year-old girl from Tokyo who was visiting and dropped in for the competition because she happened to have her gear with her…
She hammered me into the floor like I was a thumbtack. “Like a girl.” It was awesome.
How to throw like a girl – throwing a 16lb weight 78 meters:
Marcus @25:
Wouldn’t that be throwing like a woman?
@tony – I understand what you’re saying, and that’s normally how I’d say it. I used the “girl” reference only because of the context.
I try to avoid gendered language entirely, fwiw.
Oh yeah, “girl” as an insult.
I think the spot effectively demonstrated how much young women have internalized those stereotypes themselves.
One of my best friends sadly uses “act like a girl”, too.
Her standard phrase when she wants to object to something (!) is “I don’t want to sound like a girl, but (could you please shut the window, I’m cold)” or “maybe I act like a girl, but…”
So she pts down her won needs as being actually something she should not have and she puts down girls as a whole.
I told her not to use that phrase in my household where her own godsdamn goddaughter and her sister live. She sticks to my rules but she does not understand it.
That reminds me of an Oglaf (safe for work, for a change) cartoon:
http://oglaf.com/amazonlinguistics/
The “fun” thing about using “you throw like a girl” as an insult is that it’s a double sexist doozy. In an alternate universe Earth where there’s no sexism, “you throw like a girl” is a perfectly prejudice-free insult that basically means “you throw like a child,” though in context it would be gender-matched with “you throw like a boy” used for men.
Here on the real Earth, “you throw like a girl” is a sexist insult because first women are infantilized so that the term “girl” is used to mean “woman” and then are declared inherently inferior so that being compared to one is insulting.
@ Marcus #24: There is nothing like being bested by a woman in “a mans game”. The women that break out of the gender stereotypes are usually amazing persons in every respect, although one has to wonder how much it has cost them.
@ Tony #4 Democratic Underground
re
Yeah, taken as a single line, out of context; it is cringe-worthy, but whenever I have seen him say it, he always giggles to indicate it is a sexist comment, and done just for the satire. But, I know, I am too much a fan of Daily Show and allow him so much.
.
“throw like a girl”, takes me back to the quip, in “A League of Their Own”, when the pitcher, is told by one of her teammates, “oh, just ‘throw like a girl’, that you are ;-)” [emoticon was her facial expression]. The irony of the quip was a highlight of the movie.
@Marcus Ranum (24)
My college roommate was in a martial arts tournament and the Aikido competition came around. There was this big, tall, strong guy and this scrappy little young woman. My roommate described the awesomeness when the man rushed the woman and she flipped him basically over her head.
I am envious of that golf swing.
Good video, nice message. I’m proud that in the (rock) climbing community, it’s a compliment to climb “like a girl”. No insult whatsoever.
For exmaple: (copied from the internet)
Unfortunately, I know of no other community where this is the case…
PZ, you blog like a girl!
So capitalism is now a bad thing?
I mean, I think it’s just natural that a company with a very specific customer group (yes, I just called half-the-population “very specific”) takes an interest in problems of that group that go beyond the products that they sell. I don’t think it’s less principled than companies who have their names printed on jerseys of popular sport teams.
“Climb like a girl!” I like it, it’s got a nice ring to it.
There’s one from Verizon in a similar vein that I’ve been meaning to post in the lounge, but always forget about.
I’m reminded of an episode of Rugrats that had the following one-off gag:
Two of the characters are a pair of twins (Phil and Lil) who are – as they are toddlers – are more or less identical-looking when they’re diapered, except that Lil wears a barrette in her hair.
The gag features Phil taking Lil’s barrette and putting it in his hair. He then starts fussing. Their mother comes over, picks him up, and comments to another adult, “Girls this age are always so fussy. But look at Phil! He never cries.”
Objective evidence indicates that there’s no real difference in the behavior of young children. But caregivers tend to report that girls are, well, girly and boys are boyish.
For those still confused:
THIS is running like a girl.
http://youtu.be/DLLSKmpMKe4
THIS is throwing like a girl
http://youtu.be/z2UyU_p1o_Q
THIS is fighting like a girl
http://youtu.be/Xpy6qjkEb-4
Any questions?