Nike, “Do You Wish You Were A Boy?”

Did you ever wish you were a boy? Did you? Did you for one moment or one breath or one heartbeat beating over all the years of your life, wish, even a little, that you could spend it as a boy? Honest. Really. Even if you got over it. Did you ever wish that you could be a boy just so you could do boy things and not heart them called boy things, did you want to climb trees and skin knees and be third base and not hear the boys say, Sure, play, but that means you have to be third base. Oh ha ha ha. But did you ever wish you were a boy just because there were boys, and there were girls and they were them, and, well, we weren’t them, and we knew there must be a difference because everybody kept telling us there was. But what was it? You never knew. Like you knew that you were a girl (you run like a girl you throw like a girl you girl you) and that was great, that was swell, but you couldn’t help wondering what it would be like if you… and been.. a boy. And if you could have been a boy, what difference would it have made? Would it have made you faster, cuter, cleaner? And if you were a boy, this incredibly bouncing boy, what boy would you have been? All the time knowing now two boys are alike any more than all girls are. So you wake up. And you learn we all have differences (Yes!) You learn we all have similarities (Right!) You learn to stop lumping everybody in the world into two separate categories, or three, or four, or any at all (Finally!) And you learn to stop beating yourself over the head for things that weren’t wrong in the first place. And one day when you’re out in the world running, feet flying dogs barking smiles grinning, you’ll hear those immortal words calling, calling inside your head Oh you run like a girl and you will say shout scream whisper call back Yes. What exactly did you think I was? Just do it.