Is this the powerful sporting ad that Australia needs?

Could playing sport ‘like a girl’ become a positive thing?

If you’ve ever been told that you ‘throw like a girl,’ ‘run like a girl’ or ‘play like a girl’, you would’ve taken it as an insult. Because the term, ‘like a girl’ meant that you were bad at sport, uncoordinated and weak.

Now, finally in 2015 the meaning of the phrase is changing, thanks to a new ad on Fox Sports promoting the ANZ netball Championships. It’s an ad that promotes women in sport as equally tough as men.

The ad celebrates female sports stars – their endurance, determination and sheer athleticism. The video is captioned with this strong message:

“They run like girls, they throw like girls and they could snap you in half like a girl as well. I love the athletisicm of these women and wanted to revel in their power and physicality. If I can debunk the ‘like a girl’ myth while I’m at it, bonus.”

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The video shows netball greats, Laura Geitz, Geva Mentor, Bianca Chatfield, Kim Ravaillion, Kim Green, Ash Brazil and Sharni Layton playing A-Grade netball. The final image is of Diamond’s player, Sharni Layton with a bloodshot eye that says, “play like a girl.”

But is the ad a win for women in sport? The video has had mixed responses from some leading women in Australian women’s sport. Retired Australian netball player, Liz Ellis and sports reporter, Sam Squiers have spoken about their differing opinions.

Read more: The three word phrase we all need to stop telling our girls.

Squiers talks about the image of the bloodshot eye and says on her Sportette blog, “The image shown, the look on her face, the music used instantly reminds me of a domestic violence campaign.”

“I’m constantly campaigning for women’s sports and am the first to say the athletes are tough and their game far from slow or weak….Yet straight away I have a problem when I see this image. It doesn’t sell women’s sports as tough at all,” she writes.

Squiers admits that she can see what the promoters were trying to do, but believes that they didn’t quite get there.

“Images of blood, bruises, black eyes and beatings have flooded many men’s sports’ advertisements for years. But the same model of promotion doesn’t necessarily transfer over to the women’s game,” she writes on Sportette.

Her takeaway is that the video promotes violence, not toughness.

But Australian netball legend, Liz Ellis, disagrees.

As Ellis wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“The ad doesn’t show any netballers violently pushing, shoving or brawling. There are no punches thrown, no late knees to the kidney and no one grabbing an opponent’s shirtfront with malicious intent.”

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Argues it’s not a negative image – it is showing what actually happens in a clean game of women’s sport.

“A bruised and bloodshot left eye [was] the result of a clash in training a couple of days before the ad was shot,” Ellis explains in the SMH article.

“Sharni was offered makeup to cover the bruising when the ad was made. She declined on the premise that there was no reason to do so, as the bruising was the result of a clash in training and that is simply how she looks,” Ellis wrote.

As any women who has been an athlete or played a team sport knows, there’s a good chance you will get injured – and you deal with the pain because you are tough.

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Ellis makes one final powerful point:

“To draw a line between this image and a domestic violence campaign is unfair to both, and suggests sadly that we live in an age when the assumption can be made that when a woman is bruised she is a victim.”

This campaign says is that when a woman is bruised after a sporting match it is because she is tough, fierce, fiery, determined and strong. She plays ‘like a girl’ because she gives her all on the sporting field – and, like in any enterprise where you give everything, sometimes you end up bruised.

We can look at this image and think: wow, she’s tough, she’s determined and she’s someone I want my children to look up to.

What do you think about the ad?

And in other sporting news this week…

– Queensland netballer, Verity Simmons will be sidelined for up to eight weeks because she sustained a fracture on her left wrist during a round 2 game. The Firebirds Wing Attack is staying optimistic and is happy that she doesn’t require any surgery. Simmons was initially told the injury would be the end to her season, so now eight weeks doesn’t seem too bad. We hope she gets better soon.

– The Matildas have won their fourth game in the soccer Cyprus Cup, beating the Czech Republic 6 – 2. The huge win shows just how strong our Australian women’s soccer team is. This is the women’s third win out of four games so far. It has put the Matildas in fifth place for the tournament. Keep up the good work.

– There are allegations that members of the British Army shouted sexist abuse at Australian female soccer players during a game against England in the Cyprus Cup last week. The Football Association have said they’re willing to investigate the incident. England beat the Australian Matildas 3-0 in Nicosia on Friday. Allegedly, English supporters who attended the game have said that the troops mostly targeted Servet Uzunlar in addition to the Aussie subs when they removed their tracksuits to take the field. It’s disgusting behaviour, and shows that sexism in sport still exists.