Persepolis Personal Writing- Doing Things Like a Girl

What if someone said you did something “like a girl?” Would you be offended? Would you feel as if the person making the comment was degrading you somehow? For the longest time, my answer to this question would probably have been no. I never really thought about how that phrase degraded me because, for whatever reason, I felt as though it did not relate to me.

This phrase “like a girl” can be so condescending and creates such a vivid image in our mind of some super girly girl doing something stupid. I thought this way for the longest time and since the media and TV do the same, it is automatic for people to think this way, I had accepted it and just thought nothing of it, as any people probably do, but this obvious sexism is actually a serious problem. You run like a girl, you cry like a girl, you throw like a girl — these are all comments meant to degrade people.

We hear people everyday say things like “you run like a girl” in an attempt to insult someone. The fact that it is a subconscious phrase used so often means we have a greater problem than we think. When people are using insults without stopping to consider what it actually means, and just accept it is a normal, comfortable and acceptable saying, we see that sexism and inequality is not just a myth.

This phrase has put a veil over me and all girls and given boys a way of putting us down just because we are the opposite sex. It is so easy for a boy to just say “Oh well you’re a girl” and immediately have everyone think that she is lesser somehow, although this is just wrong.