Like a Girl

The Always video, #likeagirl, has gone viral, having almost 20 million hits to this day. The video challenges the insult and stereotype that is spoken in the phrase “like a girl”. There are many things about this video that are beautiful, sad, true and tear-provoking. Click here to watch the full video. Then come back and read the rest of the blog.

What I want to highlight comes at about 1:06, a young boy when asked “So do you think you just insulted your sister?” He quickly replies with “No! I mean, yeah, I insulted girls, but not my sister.” He was quick to defend the person he knew, the person he loved. He quickly clarified that he wasn’t talking about someone he cares about and shares life with, his family.

We defend those we know, we stand up for those we love, we don’t group them in categories or let generalizations lead our thinking of who they are. Yet we so often do this with others. We categorize, minimize and in some case de-humanize groups of people. We do this according to gender, to age, to race, to color of skin and to religious preferences.

It takes ONE person to break a stereotype. ONE person in our lives can re-humanize a group of people we have de-humanized. ONE person to shatter our thinking and begin to reform it.

And here’s what I am grateful for – a God who became human. A God who chose to take on human flesh, to live like us, to be like us in every way except that he was perfect, without sin. He became like us and even though we cannot become exactly like those we stereotype we can recognize that which we already share – our humanity.

Who has broken your stereotypes lately? What have you learned? How has this new view changed how you love others?