What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice. Obviously. That's why they dissolve in water and never ever cause any trouble. Or maybe they're made of flailing, uncoordinated limbs and muscles barely strong enough to hold them together. That seems to be the strange idea we're embodying when we say that somebody "throws [or runs/hits/kicks] 'like a girl'". Always have picked up on this in their new ad, which went viral at the beginning of the week. Adults and boys who are asked to do things 'like a girl' embody the stereotype, but the girls themselves haven't got the message - they go all-out, as hard as they can. We can't quite silence any cynicism - after all what Always really want is for you to buy their sanitary products [don't. Just get a mooncup. And stop calling them sanitary products, there's nothing unsanitary about periods]. But there's no denying it's a good film, and it got us musing on what it means to do something like a girl...
1. If 'girl' is used to demean and belittle, then 'schoolgirl' can be even worse, seemingly almost always following words such as 'silly' or 'hysterical'. Or how about 'activist'? Malala Yousafzai is the first name to spring to mind - shot for advocating for the education of girls and young women. Tal al-Molouhi is another teenage schoolgirl blogger, in Syria, in jail for her writing. Jyoti Yadav set up a campaign calling for widows to be respected in her home of Rajasthan. And those are just a tiny sample of girls who, across the world, are challenging people, ideas and systems to stand up for what they believe in. Squeamish Louise
2. Girls are more organised, more likely to follow instructions, more efficient, can concentrate on a task for long and multi-tasking than boys. That said boys* make much better dens and are better at jumping in puddles so I reckon that balances out. Gareth
* Based on the exhaustive and definitive sample group of me vs my sisters as children.
3. My instinct is to say that I menstruate like a girl. I also have a mature sense of humour like a girl, and I'm sarcastic like a girl. Can't we just stop making achievements or activities gender-specific? Because everything we do, we do like humans. F1Kate
4. This is probably the hardest Friday 5 theme I've been given, I am struggling to come up what doing something like a girl does mean. I get quite worked up over anything that people try to make specific to a gender, like man flu. I've been guilty of using the term 'like a girl' to be self-deprecating in my late teens. By my early 20s I was trying to encourage my friends to say 'you're the person' rather than 'you're the man' because I thought it would be funny but it never caught on. Because I publicised it like a girl perhaps. Squeamish Kate
5. I pack up museum objects like a girl. I open giant exhibition cases, lying on floors, climbing up ladders and I then as carefully as possible move things such as fragile flags or huge heavy weapons and pack them into carefully prepared boxes to be moved and stored. Squeamish Nicola
2. Girls are more organised, more likely to follow instructions, more efficient, can concentrate on a task for long and multi-tasking than boys. That said boys* make much better dens and are better at jumping in puddles so I reckon that balances out. Gareth
* Based on the exhaustive and definitive sample group of me vs my sisters as children.
3. My instinct is to say that I menstruate like a girl. I also have a mature sense of humour like a girl, and I'm sarcastic like a girl. Can't we just stop making achievements or activities gender-specific? Because everything we do, we do like humans. F1Kate
4. This is probably the hardest Friday 5 theme I've been given, I am struggling to come up what doing something like a girl does mean. I get quite worked up over anything that people try to make specific to a gender, like man flu. I've been guilty of using the term 'like a girl' to be self-deprecating in my late teens. By my early 20s I was trying to encourage my friends to say 'you're the person' rather than 'you're the man' because I thought it would be funny but it never caught on. Because I publicised it like a girl perhaps. Squeamish Kate
5. I pack up museum objects like a girl. I open giant exhibition cases, lying on floors, climbing up ladders and I then as carefully as possible move things such as fragile flags or huge heavy weapons and pack them into carefully prepared boxes to be moved and stored. Squeamish Nicola
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