From Here to There: February 2015

Raise your hand if you watched the 2015 Super Bowl. Now, Raise your hand if you just watched it for the commercials. Me, too! Okay, so raise your hand if you saw Always' "Like a Girl" ad. If not, you can check it out here (I posted the entire video, not just the 1 minute long commercial), and if you don't have time to watch, all you really need to know is that Always put together a brilliant ad/social experiment featuring older boys and girls and pre-pubescent girls. The facilitators asked the older people to do something "like a girl." The participants were shown mimicking "girls" fighting, which looked like this....

and mimicking "girls" running which looked like this.

Funny? Sort of. Until the facilitators asked the younger girls, all around ages 7-10, to show what they thought it meant to do something "like a girl." And can you believe it, these sweet, strong, young girls, who remind me of my little sister and cousins so much it made my heart swell, tried their hardest at whatever they were asked to do. They fought like little boxers. They ran like small Olympians. Why, why would we ever not fight like a female Muhammed Ali? Why would we ever not run like Lolo Jones?

You play ball like a girl!!!

The worst part about all of this is that some men are actually mad that this ad was a success. They've created a Twitter account under the name "Meninist," and have tweeted with much snark and sarcasm about how they feel left out by the #LikeAGirl campaign. They even went as far as making #LikeABoy trending on the popular social media site. Thankfully, Buzzfeed was there to help us out by documenting the mysogynistic havok that these crybabies had wreaked. If you click the link, you'll find screenshots of tweets from men that were offended by the #LikeAGirl ad. Which, quite frankly, is ridiculous. As the Buzzfeed thread kindly points out, the phrase "like a boy" has not ever, once in the history of the world, been used as an insult towards a male.

P.S., meninist is not a word.......

Since the beginning of time (sort of) women were often walked over. Women have been shot down and silenced. Women have been deprived the right to vote. Women have been denied equal pay, and in the beginning of this era, women were even denied the right to work--a working woman was looked down on and seen as something of a last resort. Some women are even under the impression that all of this is just fine and dandy and sadly, some women believe that their purpose in life is to be put down and disregarded. The women that believe this might not necessarily word it that way; instead, they might say something along the lines of "Well, women were created from the rib of the man....we're supposed to be silent and mild, and we're supposed to help the greater sex with what they need, when they need it.." and they will probably feed you some Scripture (taken out of context, of course) to show you why it's okay for women to be pushed down and shoved around.

I have a wake-up call for these women...

Yes. God created women to be a help-meet for men. Because literally, Lord knows men would be lost without us. But God also created women to be powerful. He has used women incredibly throughout the course of history. And, haven't you ever read Proverbs 31? Just in case you haven't, it can conveniently be found here. To sum it up though, the "Proverbs 31 Woman" is strong, a hard worker, a provider, a philanthropist, humble, yet intelligent, kind and is considered by most to be the picture of a Godly woman. God intended for women to be strong, hard-working, intelligent and kind.

I'm not a burn-your-bra, man-hating, liberal feminist. I'm just not. The idea that women are better than men and the idea that men are better than women is just absurd. I could go into more depth about everyone on the Internet's idea of good feminism, bad feminism, meninism, sexists....the list goes on and on, but I don't want to get into it and frankly, I don't care that much (seriously, just don't even try to scrape the surface of feminism on the Internet because it is terrifying). Honestly? If you really wanna know what I think about all of this, here it is: I want to get a job and recieve the same pay as my coworkers; I want my sweet, sensitive, smart, spunky little sister to stay that way her whole entire life. I want my sassy, athletic, adorable little cousins to stay that way too. I don't want them to grow up thinking that doing something "like a girl" is a bad thing. I want them to grow up to be exactly who they want to be, because they should be allowed to do that. My wish for them, and every other girl in the world is that they grow up to be strong, smart, and kind.