THIS GIRL CAN:
Simone Fullager,2015
American philosopher Iris Marion Young said, “throwing like a girl” is a common insult that excludes women from feeling strong, capable and respected.
Yes, there are older women depicted in the video, but how would they feel about being called “girl”? Many women will not engage with the campaign’s key message about valuing active engagement because of this kind of language
The text that goes along with these images is infused with popular post-feminist appeals to individual empowerment – “I jiggle, therefore I am”. This “can-do girl” is happy “sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox” and embracing being “hot and not bothered”. It seems these bodies, jiggly or otherwise, are just another form of objectification in a popular culture already saturated with sexualisedimages.
Research has shown that physical activity in the pursuit of desirability is something women eagerly “work on” under the auspices of the male gaze.
Suggesting women strive to keep up appearances and maintain a feminine image where as if this was an advert targeted at men it wouldn’t focus on sweating etc because it is acceptable and sometimes celebrated when men are sweaty and muddy.
Sport England created This Girl Can in response to the revelation that there are two million fewer women than men aged 14-40 participating in sport and 75% wish they were more active. If that’s the case, why should the campaign engage men if women are the target audience?
(“The Conversation”, 2017)
In the This Girl Can advertisement, simulated hypersexuality is posited as essential to agency and action. This turns a laudably intended campaign of empowerment into one of sexual subjectification and self-surveillance.
So, although we should rejoice at the portrayal of “normal” bodies in this and other campaigns, the same objectification of women is at play. Even when showing women’s bodies in action, rather than focusing on the traits of health, agility and co-ordination, the campaign ad frames the female body as an object.
The exposure of bodies is central to the campaign’s intended message of body confidence and erasing fears of judgement. But, far from what many headlines would have you believe, this campaign is not revolutionary in its construction of women.
Being “confident”, “carefree” and “unconcerned about one’s appearance” are now central aspects of femininity – even as they exist alongside injunctions to meet impossibly high standards of beauty.
So, although we should rejoice at the portrayal of “normal” bodies in this and other campaigns, the same objectification of women is at play. Even when showing women’s bodies in action, rather than focusing on the traits of health, agility and co-ordination, the campaign ad frames the female body as an object.
The focus is on women’s buttocks, faces, hips and chests, the sexualised movements of twerking, “wobbling”, hip shaking and heavy breathing, and taglines such as “Hot, and not bothered” and “Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox”.
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