This Girl Can TV Advert – Phenomenal Women
Sport England has released a new advert to celebrate real “phenomenal women” that exercise and help others to
overcome their fear of judgement and become more active.
The 90-second spot, titled This Girl Can: Phenomenal Women, features a wide variety of women, including over 40s,
expectant and new mothers, doing all kind of sports, from kickboxing and football, to roller derby and zumba. The soundtrack music is blended with Maya Angelou’s 1978 poem “Phenomenal Woman”.
“Many people wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion-model size. When I start
to tell them, they think I’m telling lies. But I say I’m a woman phenomenally. It’s in the reach of my arms, the span of my hips, the stride of my step, the curl of my lips, it’s the fire in my eyes, the flash of my teeth, the swing in my waist, the joy in my feet. Because I’m a woman phenomenally. Phenomenal woman. It ought to make you proud. That’s my mother and my grandmothers. And my great-grandmothers. And your great and my great-great and your.. and all you women. And me”.
Sport England chief executive Jennie Price said that the aim of this ad is to “close the gender gap further, to normalise women exercising still, at all ages, at all levels of ability, and to really help the sector think not just how it represents women but the experiences that it gives them.”
