Theoretical Analysis Of 'Like A Girl'

The National Football League super bowl is a huge event every year. Although the core point of this event is the actual football game being played, a great deal of focus is centered towards the commercials shown during the games. While watching the super bowl this year, one of the commercials truly stood out to me. The company Always put on a commercial called “Like a Girl” that was about how the saying “like a girl” should not be used as an insult. They demonstrated this saying being used negatively by having young boys perform simple tasks like throwing and running “like a girl”. They then showed young girls doing the same activities “like a girl”. The difference between what it meant to the boys to perform these activities like a girl, and what it meant to the girls was a vast difference. This commercial demonstrated the sexism that still exists today. After the commercial was aired, there was a lot of controversy about whether these kinds of advertisements promoting gender equality were merely for profit or committed to really making a change for girls. Although companies are making profit from these advertisements, the message being portrayed has a lot of potential to make a transformation in the way girls are viewed and

In particular, young girls and women still continue to struggle with this issue. Numerous companies are taking a stand against this matter. In the article “Marketers Go Soft on Feminism” the authors Natalie Zmuda and Ann-Christine Diaz state, “Ads from industry stalwarts--Always, Verizon and Pantene, to name a few--are celebrating girls and women as smart and capable, racking up millions of online views and sparking important conversations in the process. Marketers are challenging cultural norms and notions about how we talk about--and to—women”. Showing the stories of real women and young girls gets a powerful message across to the