Nike’s Better For It Campaign: Not Mad, Just Disappointed.

I hang on Nike’s every swoosh. I have done so since I walked into the equipment room at Syracuse University on my first day as a student athlete and was given my equivalent of Christmas in beautifully designed spandex and cotton. But Nike’s new women-centered campaign, Better For it, isn’t filling me with the same kind of joy. In fact, as my mum would say, “I’m not mad. Just disappointed.”

I’ll start with a compliment.

Better For It is vanilla. That’s about as excited as I can get about a campaign that positions girls who go to the gym as unmotivated, vain wimps.

Girls kick ass: In life, in their careers, at brunch, four beers in on a Friday, and, hell, in the gym. Better For It makes girls look like overly-cautious, neurotic, self-conscious little dweebs who sit completely still on gym benches and hug weight plates to their chests like they would a teddy bear after waking up from a nightmare.

I don’t go to spin class. But if I did, I wouldn’t sit in the middle just so I could get inspired by the skinny line of model asses in the front row. Do we really need to trot out the ‘exercise reduces stress’ mantra before a girl drops to the floor and groans like she’s faking an orgasm when she finally lets go of a 10 second-long plank? And I doubt if I was crossing the finishing line of a marathon that the voice inside my head saying, “I did it. Let’s go again,” would sound like a cute little robot that lacks the ability to feel emotion, never mind sweat.

Maybe I’m well off the mark and Better For It is creative genius. Maybe W+K focused on a key insight grounded in good research that proves the majority of women who work out are gutless little droids who physically and mentally thrive in the gym only when another woman’s bony butt fills their line of sight.

I refuse to believe it. Nike’s cherished female athletes for too long to undermine our fundamental human-ness like this. Nike needs to take a look at Reebok’s latest advertising which celebrates us as women, rather than pandering to our apparently endless, girly insecurities.

I probably work out harder, and better, than most girls my age. But I refuse to believe that my commitment to bettering myself physically, working my body like a machine, and sweating because I want to, not because I have to, is unique.

I don’t need Nike giving me a gentle, uninspiring pat on the back for walking through the door of a gym.

Please. Give me, as a girl, some credit.