THE LATEST #LikeAGirl video called ‘Keep Playing’ has already gathered over 2.5 million views on YouTube within 48 hours of upload.
The video, made by Always and tying in with the approaching Olympic Games, tackles why over half of girls give up sport during puberty, features girls talking about their experience as athletes, and probes the idea of what it means to act ‘like a girl’.
One girl who is seen weightlifting in the video, says that “I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say ‘Aren’t you afraid of becoming really massive?’”, while another girl says that she is told by boys “…I can’t play rugby because I’m a girl.”
In 2014 Always released their first video on this subject, where they looked into the meaning of the common phrase ‘Like A Girl’, and why it’s used in such a negative light. The video was made by documentary maker Nanette Burstein, who asked men, women, and boys to act ‘like a girl’, and sparked a debate on the words we use and how we use them when discussing gender.
Burnstein, who also filmed ‘Keep Playing’, said in an interview that one girl’s mother didn’t want her daughter to play soccer because she thought she was going to get hurt – and soccer ‘wasn’t ladylike enough’: “So it wasn’t boys who made fun of her, that happened too, but her own parents absolutely forbid her to play,” says Burnstein.
The ‘Keep Playing’ video is equally well-received as the original ‘Like A Girl’ video, and has gathered support and praise from athletes of all levels and genders:
The hope is that this video will encourage parents to support their daughters who express an interest in sport from an early age, as well as help young girls realise that there’s nothing wrong with playing like a girl.
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