Girls in America - Run Like a Girl

How do teenage girls reconcile their physicality, emotionality and vitality with societal pressures to be coiffed, quiet and compliant? RUN LIKE A GIRL listens closely to rugby players, synchronized swimmers and double-dutch jumpers, exploring how sports can help girls cultivate resistance to any force that stunts spiritual growth or thwarts self-confidence.

Team sports give girls a place to be strong and powerful and can be a positive outlet for letting off steam. Jen, a 16 year-old rugby player and former bulimic, describes how she turned her aggression inward until she found the muddy rugby field. "With bulimia, you can eat all this stuff, you throw it all down, you throw it back up and - there, it's gone. You don't have to feel anything; it's just gone. And with rugby, it's a way to get out your aggressions in a positive way. You're not really hurting anyone, and you're not hurting yourself. You get kind of bruised up, but you're not really hurting yourself that badly."

Competitive athletics also offer girls a chance at success, an opportunity to imagine a different world than that which surrounds them. Tammy, a 15 year-old double-dutch jumper reflects on the high pregnancy rate among neighborhood girls her age. "They get pregnant at any age, because they don't know how they're feeling about themselves. They don't have high self-esteem. With double-dutch, you can handle yourself in the ropes. You can be what you want to be."

Sometimes even the most devoted athletes use their bodies as a battlefield for outside pressures, once again turning their frustration inward. Sanne, a 16 year-old synchronized swimmer, discusses how, in reaction to her imperfections, she used to mutilate her own body. "When I heard my [swimming] scores, I'd get angry-so angry that...I'd scratch myself, I'd scratch my arms and legs. That was just punishment for myself. It was easier to deal with physical pain than the emotional pain. Coaches would tell me, 'put your pants on; we don't want anyone seeing that.'" But for the most part the girls in RUN LIKE A GIRL are struggling to buck the conventions that keep them down-and holding their own. Says rugby player Jennifer Brown, "I want a boyfriend. I don't know if I want one that badly. I don't want one bad enough to wear dresses every day and wear a whole lot of make-up."

The girls express their frustration with the unfair expectation that girls must always appear happy and never express anger or dissatisfaction - a requirement of certain girls sports as well. "If you're not smiling, they take off points for that - huge amounts of points. And if you're like, 'I can't take this team, I don't like this no more.' they take off points for that too. Everything. So you gotta be all happy," says Tamara Thomas of double-dutch jumping. Likewise, rugby player Jen Brown declares "Life's wonderful and great and blah, blah, blah. I don't know why people expect teenagers, teenage girls especially, to be like that. 'Cause so many of us aren't. And it's just one of those insane expectations that people have of girls. You know, you're supposed to sit there and smile and not talk and be stupid."

Watching synchronized swimmers blend grace and strength, and endure the scorn of other athletes who do not understand the enormous stamina and fortitude required, one sees how this strenuous, artistic sport is a vivid metaphor for what happens to many girls in adolescence. On the surface of the water the swimmers must show only their pretty smiling personae. But hidden beneath the water is the furious, kicking struggle.