As a geek dad of a daughter, this female superhero t-shirt is the kind of item I'm always on the lookout for. It's not ideal - it's pink, it's sparkly, it has characters posing instead of doing superhero things, and they're ridiculously skinny. But to me those things are not as bad as the slogan "Girls Rule!". Because "Girls" don't rule at all.
It's a phrase synonymous with "Girl Power", which probably has its origins in the Riot Grrrl feminist punk movement of the 90s. While the progressive message of "Grrrl Power" was diluted when transformed into the safe and snappy commercial slogan "Girl Power" for 90s pop phenomenon the Spice Girls, at least that version introduced many children to the notion of girl empowerment. However, the band also popularised the far more problematic "Girls Rule!".
The girls who were fans of the band in the 90s are now women in their twenties and thirties. What kind of world have they grown up in? Is it one where "Girls Rule"? The gender pay gap remains entrenched, and in the UK is even widening. Only 30% of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates in the UK are women, and just 17% of all professors in STEM are female. Both houses of UK parliament have only 23% women.
Globally, while there are high profile women in leadership roles at a corporate level, boards and executive committees remain 83%-96% male. The recent IMF report Fair Play: More Equal Laws Boost Female Labor Force Participation found that 90% of countries have at least one important gender based legal restriction. The UNDP states that "Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development."
A slogan like "Girls Rule" seems little more than a lie in this context. It implies that women leaders are respected, listened to, and rewarded for their hard work, talent, and intelligence - when that is clearly not the case. Perhaps the slogan "Girls Rule!" was created as a way of hiding the sad reality of gender inequality.
The empowering messages we convey to our children are important, but they can easily backfire. As American comedian Sarah Silverman wryly observed, "Don't tell girls they can be anything they want when they grow up. Because it would have never occurred to them that they couldn't."
This week new research on marketing to girls, found that when "... girls hit the age of 13 they start to feel less confident and more worried about the world around them." The reasons are unclear, but this would also be the time they experience the dawning revelation that the reality of being a woman, on the wrong side of the gender bias divide, isn't quite how they imagined it would be when they were little girls.
Advertisers obviously know the power of a good slogan, and a source for a new girl empowerment one has come from an unlikely place. Always (makers of 'feminine hygiene products') found through their market research the same issue of girls suffering a significant drop in self-confidence around the time they hit puberty.
The company tried to address these feelings for an ad campaign, and a new slogan entered the girl empowerment lexicon - #LikeAGirl. They deftly took the former playground insult, and transformed it into plaudit. When you run like a girl, throw like a girl, fight like a girl - you are not doing it badly, you're doing it incredibly. At least that's the shift in meaning hoped for.
The fantasy of "Girls Rule!" seems tepid next to the optimistic reality of doing amazing things 'like a girl'. All I need now is to get THAT on a kid's female superhero t-shirt.
I'm not going to pretend to my daughter that she's growing up in a world where "Girls Rule". She will have many challenges to face in life, and lying to her about them won't help her deal with them.
But, despite it being pink, posing, sparkly, and skinny, I've bought Asda's "Girls Rule!" t-shirt for her. Three awesome female superheroes on a kid's sized top in the UK? Sold. I also want Asda to know that female superheroes sell too.
And my daughter can't read. Yet.
What do you think about the slogan "Girls Rule"? Helpful, harmful or neither?
This post originally appeared on Man vs. Pink. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
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