Personal Narrative: You Run Like A Girl

Language has the power to marginalize people

Humans are creatures seeking to gain power in every possible way and so forth even in their use of language. In today’s society a common strategy to gain authority and power is to dehumanize, denigrate and to make a person or group feel less cofident. The pronouns ”girl”, ”woman”, ”female” etc are frequently used and referred to in a condescending way, for example to claim that someone is a bad runner: ”you run like a girl” or a bad driver ”you drive like a woman”. The use of female pronouns to critize someone makes these words diminishing, marginalizing and in some occasions offensive.

Languages are one of the most powerful forces in the world and can be used for good or for bad. When the phrase ”like a girl” is used, it is, in nine out of ten times, used to disempower, critize and debase. Within the patriarchal structures I daily hear girls get referred to as animals such as broads, chicks and filly. When using the phrase ”like a girl” in a sentence such as ”run like a girl” the word girl is not associated with being a strong, fast and successful runner. It is associated with ”a pregnant cow or horse” or ”a soft, cuddly, entertaining, pretty, diminutive, domesticated and dumb animal”. A pregnant cow is clumsy and never a race winner, viewed in this perspective to ”run like a girl” is to ”run like a loser”. To lose is marginalizing. …show more content…
To compare a human to an animal is to dehumanize, diminish and take away pride. Moreover, the animals women get compared to are characterized by weakness, uselessness and are never as powerful as men, which makes them, the women compared to the animals, ”easy targets” for men. To be an easy target is to be easily defeated, to be defeated is to get