Response To The Great Gatsby

“That’s so gay!”
It’s a phrase that's being thrown around far too often, and what's worse is that it is being used mostly as an insult. A couple of days ago, I was sitting on the bus trying to read The Great Gatsby. I tried very hard to focus on my book, but I was distracted by a group of 7th grade boys who were casually discussing another boy in their grade. “He comes to school wearing a bow-tie and does cartwheels every five seconds,” one boy remarked mockingly. “Yeah, he does gymnastics outside of school. He’s obviously gay,” another boy added, barely looking up from his phone.
I was absolutely infuriated by this comment. How dare he assume that the boy is gay just because he does gymnastics or because he doesn’t dress ‘manly’ enough? I almost opened my mouth to say something, but stopped because I thought that that may not have been the best way to handle the situation.
I started to think about what that conversation would have been like if they had replaced the boy with a girl. I then came to the realization that very few people would call a girl a lesbian if she dressed masculinely or played sports. They would most probably call her tomboy. And even if someone did insult a girl for acting “manly”, most people would come rushing to her aid and say that a girl can act however she wants to act and do anything …show more content…
The purpose of the video is to challenge people to use the phrase as a compliment. It is meant to empower women and to show them that they too can be strong and that they can be greatat fighting and sports; things that are traditionally meant for boys. Being female, I connect to this video on a very personal level and wholeheartedly agree that using “like a girl” as an insult is degrading to women and extremely damaging to their self-esteem. But, in the back of my mind I wonder where is the campaign for boys who are told to “be a

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