A new marketing campaign by Always is the latest to stress the importance of a woman’s appearance. Natalie Haynes looks at whether this is a positive strategy – or exploitative Do you feel empowered when you wake up each morning? It’s a question that advertisers seem to want us to answer with a resounding yes, while Julie Andrews sings “The Hills Are Alive” on our internal soundtrack. Or external one; they’re only neighbours and you can always apologise later. Products marketed at women have been playing the empowerment card for some years now. We’ve had Jennifer Aniston telling us we’re worth it; “real women” in bras and pants, telling us that women of different sizes and ethnicities are beautiful; and an advert for M&S which (unless I have dreamt this) featured a naked woman running up a hill, bellowing, “I’m normal”, in flagrant disregard of normal hill-walking conventions. Now, Always has entered the fray, with a campaign to reclaim the phrase “like a girl”. The video – which went viral over the weekend – shows people asked to run, throw and fight like a girl. They perform each action in a hopeless, flouncy way. Perhaps the most dispiriting moment comes when a boy is asked if – by behaving as though “like a girl” means “incompetent” – he’s just insulted his sister.

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