I hate the phrase “for a girl” and whatever garbage was said before it. And more importantly, I hate how it is generally meant to be some type of compliment. Being told, “You’re pretty smart for a girl,” or, “That wasn’t too bad for a girl,” is somehow supposed to make me feel good about myself, but in reality, all I hear is that because I am a girl, I am supposed to be less successful than a man.
I cannot help but laugh when people try to use “like a girl” as an insult because in my mind, that is an amazing compliment. Oh, I throw like a girl you say? Well Jennie Fitch can throw a softball like no other, so thanks! I run like a girl? I’ll just assume you’re comparing me to Flo-Jo, the fastest woman of all time. How did being like a girl become an insult? There are just as many successful and record setting women as there are men. If you want to see an amazing example and work done by Always, click here.
This simple and commonly said phrase "for a girl" is just an extension and acceptation of the rape infested culture in which we live. I am not saying that if someone makes a semi-sexist comment that he will become a rapist, but what I am saying is that he is making the belittling of women more common and unfortunately, leading to the mentality that it is OK to take advantage of women because they are simple just women.
We still live in a time where men get paid more than women for the same work. On average, a full-time working woman earns just 77 cents per dollar a man earns. Along with being grossly under paid for the same work, many different job fields including engineering, construction, doctors and athletics prefer men. I wonder if I will ever live to see the day where there will be a national women’s sports league that gets the same amount of attention as any of the male sports leagues that exists today?
We teach girls to make sure they protect themselves from being a victim. We are told never to go places alone, especially not at night. They teach us how to hold our car keys like weapons and where the best places to hit a possible attacker are. We are constantly taught that there is something wrong that we are doing and that we have to be prepared to defend ourselves for the consequences.
The United States always claims to have the great reputation of being the world leader in the world especially in human rights issues. How can we take the high road when women are still paid less, rapists are getting light not serious sentences and women are highly under represented in law making bodies with only about 17 percetn in both the House of Representatives and the Senate? This means that women are highly under represented even though women make up about 50 percent of the population.
We need these issues of gender inequality to be taken seriously and we have to start with the mentality that society has towards women, and then work our way up and make some serious legislative changes.
