Fighting the Good Fight with a Hashtag

There’s nothing like giving birth to two perfect tiny humans to make you see the world through new eyes. My children both happen to be female. In a different era, this simple fact would limit the lives they could live, would shape their possibilities like a girdle, would surround them like a picket fence. But in 2016, in America, my girls can define what it means to be female for themselves. This is a fact so beautiful and astounding that it brings tears to my eyes when I think of it.

You wanna be an engineer? Go for it. You wanna be in politics? Hell yes. You want to travel the world, and never have children? Absolutely. You wanna shave your head, or get tattoos, or wear men’s shoes? Sure thing. You wanna have a kick-ass family, and teach your kids how to bake? Anything you want, my loves. 

The hashtag #LikeAGirl caught fire in 2015, with, I imagine, people like me who find the idea of equating being a girl with weakness as ridiculous and outdated. Such language is just another fence, another girdle, but one people find acceptable as long as they tag a quick “just kidding” on the end of their statement.

I used the hashtag frequently in 2015 in my social media accounts. I tagged it onto posts about my girls building and shooting off rockets with their dad, and on photos of them camping, building with Legos or blocks, or wrestling like puppies on the living room rug.

The hashtag was born not from a grassroots feminist movement, but was created by Always, the feminine care company. In fact, they launched the campaign in grand style—to an audience usually assumed to be big, burly and macho and male—at the 2015 Super Bowl. The commercial titled "Always #Like a Girl" captured America's attention.

The “Always #Like a Girl” campaign effectively communicates the message that today, the phrase “like a girl” means strength and confidence.

The audience of this ad is not the average audience of a feminine protection commercial. Yes, ultimately, it’s women who will purchase the product, but the message of the campaign is aimed at anyone who thinks that to do something “like a girl” means to do it poorly, and without strength or confidence. The fact that this ad debuted at the Super Bowl insured that it reached millions of people, many of them male.

One choice the director of this ad made was to allow it to feel raw, and unscripted. 

When the ad opens, the eye of the camera focuses on what might be the scene of an audition. We see the producer, sitting in the shadows, we see several cameramen, focused on the task at hand. It feels like we, the audience, are behind the scene and seeing things we are usually not privy to. This choice makes the ad feel honest, and not like a product pitch dreamed up in the offices of Mad Men.

As the action unfolds, it is similarly loose and informal, which continues to contribute to the ethos of the ad. We first see a young woman in her late teens or early 20s standing nervously before the producer, in front of a screen. The producer then gives her some instructions: "Okay, so, I am just going to give you some actions to do, and you just do whatever comes to mind." This scene plays out again and again with a string of young women, a young boy, and a young man.

This ad effectively employs pathos as the action unfolds. As the audience watches the auditioning people are directed to "run like a girl" "fight like a girl" and "throw like a girl" The first five people we see respond by running with legs flailing, arms tucked at their side, or wrists limp. They also respond by imitating a person who has no strength, confidence or skill. 

When they bring actual girls out, and the audience sees their bright eyes, and strong arms, their honest and determined gazes, the creators of the ad create a powerful contrast between the listless actions just performed and the reality of what it means to be a girl.

It is at this point in the ad where I feel emotions well up inside me, every time I watch it. When tiny, and undeniably fierce Dakota, age 10, stands before the audience in her shorts and running shoes, I think of my own girls, and their friends, and how I want to protect them from any message that tells them they are weak, just because they are female.

When the producer in the shadows asks these girls what it means to  "run like a girl" "fight like a girl" and "throw like a girl", they perform each action with strength and confidence. The music swells, and evokes feelings of inspiration. When a small girl in a dress, of maybe six years of age, is asked, "What does it mean to run like a girl?" She responds, "I think it means to run as fast as you can." The message "girl" does not mean "weak" is effectively driven home to the audience with the words and actions of each one of these girls.

Now words appear on a simple gray background: "When did doing something "like a girl" become an insult?" 

The ad effectively uses simple clean text periodically throughout the ad. The words fill the screen for three to five seconds at key moments in the ad, and serve as a subtle guide for the audience. The words on the screen help the message unfold for the audience, as some may "get it" right away, but some, given the prevalence of the negative connotation of "like a girl," may need more time and assistance. 

The emotional appeals continue to pile up as the producer then questions the people who first appeared, and portrayed girlhood as a weakness. We see the women become emotional as they think about how they have internalized this message in their youth, and as they think about how damaging it can be to young girls as they enter puberty, a difficult time of self-definition. Through these interviews, the message of the ad is made crystal clear. The ad closes with images of women running with strength, power, and confidence.

The ad closes with the words "Let's make #LIKEAGIRL mean amazing things."

Ivy, wielding a cross bow #LIKEAGIRL

The next day, the internet was flooded with articles about this ground-breaking ad. Jillian Berman with the Huffington Post wrote, "An ad for pads stole the show during the Super Bowl." She went on, "The Super Bowl ad won kudos all over the Internet for changing the conversation about what it means to run, throw and do pretty much any activity 'like a girl.'"

The hashtag then took off, helping this campaign to leap from the television, and into the lives of real girls, and the mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles and grandparents who love them. The Always company surely hoped that this ad would positively impact their sales, but they also made real progress in redefining the phrase "Like a Girl" in the American vernacular.