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Christiana Potts
Professor Sipin
English 110
24 October 2014
Separation of the Sexes: To Be a Girl
For generations standards have been set for both men and woman, creating a harsh
expectation for both genders. Always, a feminine hygiene company, launched a campaign to
spread the awareness for adolescent girls and point out the gender gap happening in todays
society. Lauren Greenfields advertisement for this campaign, #LikeAGirl depicts both boys
and girls of various ages saying what it means to do activities like a girl to raise the awareness of
how being a girl is not a negative insult and hoping to break the current gender stereotypes set
for young adolescent girls that does cause a bad image in the sports area.
The first thought that comes to mind when thinking about the word girl is feminine,
tender, and the weaker sex. Greenfield uses her video to depict girls to not be pictured as that
gender stereotype. Through the social media outlet YouTube, used by millions of people, her
video is shown. This opens the audience eyes to the subject of negative insults based on gender.
To start the video off, Greenfield brings in boys and girls ranging from the ages of 13-17, who
have experienced the gender stereotyping and tells them to do sports activities like a girl would.
All of the examples given are negative examples and show all of the girls as weaker. The main
question of this video to the audience is why is the phrase like a girl negative? Similarly,
Michelle Wolkomirs research on this question is answered in the poker room. Wolkomir states
poker is not a gendered game, but mostly male oriented,
While the men and women in this study shared a common basic understanding of the
goal of poker, which, as one man put it, is getting people to do what you want them to

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do, their strategic approach to achieving this goal varied dramatically and in predictably
gendered ways. Men conceptualized good poker play in hyper-masculine terms of
aggression, dominance, and control (Wolkomir 412).
The reason like a girl is supposed to be negative is because it is to intimidate and cripple the
opponent in the game of poker, or also known as the masculine competitive strategy. This still
puts woman as being weaker and being a girl as a bad thing. Wolkomir also researches women
playing poker and found a similarity to the mens remarks and womens. Both genders both
compare each other to girls in order to weaken the opponent. Creating this gender stereotype for
women being fragile does not help stop the spread or younger adolescents looking up to the
adults as examples.
Near the end of the video, girls from the age range of 5-13 were asked to do the same
activities as the older kids. All showed positive examples of being a girl and doing sports. This is
linked to children before puberty or middle school not understanding the gender norms or
stereotypes set in society. Judith E. Blakemores research on children from the ages 3-11 prove
this by proving his hypotheses, Consistent with the hypotheses and the previous research, both
knowledge of the norms and flexibility about the possibility of violating them generally
increased with age(Blakemore 417). Blakemores hypotheses was that younger children would
not be able to identify the gender norms such as girls playing with boys toys or vice versa,
while the older children would. Each girl in the video had not experienced the discrimination
of the phrase like a girl yet which is why the girls were not put down to performed the tasks
like they would any other day. Another example to show adolescent girls not following gender
stereotypes or norms is Lyn Mikel Brown and Mark B. Tappan research on fights happening at
schools. The first girl used 14 year old Brandy, stated Girls can fight just as bad as boys, but
they fight better, because they dont get the little wussy punches (Brown, Tappan 50).

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Brandy remarks that a girl punches harder and better than boy and compares. Brandy being 14 is
still close to the age where gender norms or stereotypes are not implemented which gives the
reason why she does not follow the like a girl phrase. Brown and Tappan also discuss the
gender identity being associated with fighting like a girl or boy.
To understand and make sense of these examples as gendered struggles, we employ an
explicitly sociocultural approach to identity. From this perspective, identities are
fundamentally forms of self-understanding: people tell others who they are, but even
more important, they tell themselves and then try to act as though they are who they say
they are (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998, p. 3).(Brown, Tappan 51).

Expectations have been set for both men and women, contributing to the gender roles set in
todays society. Cultural tools made the ideologies of both men and women, creating the
gender stereotypes.
The reason Always used sports activities is because of the negative response women get
when doing sports. Before the 1900s, sports was a predominantly male area where women were
not seen playing. Now that the sports genre has expanded to all genders, some stereotype is seen
in the sports world such as:
Women and their athletic performances are ignored, marginalized and/or sexualized in
media representations. Not only are women athletes given less space and visibility in
media outlets, but they are also presented in ways that emphasize stereotypical gender
differences (Wolkomir 408).

The overall appearance of women turns sports into something sexual based. The way a woman
has to pose for sports catalogs, or the uniforms in sports shows women are different from men
and should be treated differently because of gender. The treatment of girls and boys in sports
creates the gap between the genders or separation of the sexes. An example of a girl breaking the
pattern of is 11 year old Samantha Sam Gordon who plays football. Gordon has successfully
gotten more goals then the boys on her team and made it on the famed Wheaties box. Gordon

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breaks the gender stereotype by going into a sport dominated by males and winning every time to
prove girls can do anything.
Lauren Greenfield successfully spread her message that being a girl is nothing to be
ashamed about especially when it comes to sports. Using a media outlet like YouTube and
twitter helped spread Greenfields message and reach over a million people. Every girl can
connect to the message she sends about gender stereotyping and its negative affect on pre-teen
girls struggling on growing up.

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Work Cited
Blakemore, Judith E. Owen. "Children's Beliefs About Violating Gender Norms: Boys Shouldn't
Look Like Girls, And Girls Shouldn't Act Like Boys." Sex Roles 48.9/10 (2003): 411419. Education Source. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Brown, Lyn Mikel, and Mark B. Tappan. "Fighting Like A Girl Fighting Like A Guy: Gender
Identity, Ideology, And Girls At Early Adolescence." New Directions For Child &
Adolescent Development 2008.120 (2008): 47-59. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18
Oct. 2014.
Wolkomir, Michelle. "'You Fold Like A Little Girl:' (Hetero)Gender Framing And Competitive
Strategies Of Men And Women In No Limit Texas Hold Em Poker Games."
Qualitative Sociology 35.4 (2012): 407-426. Business Source Complete. Web. 18 Oct.
2014.
Zaldivar, Gabe. "9-Year-Old Girl Lands Wheaties Box." Bleacher Report. ABC News Report,
21 Nov. 212. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.