The Media Power of Girl Power

When someone says that word “feminism” to me, it brings to mind many things: independence, gender and racial equality, bell hooks, freedom to work, college education for women, my mother, hope, women helping women, Jessica Valenti, sexuality, and many more things…

To a lot of people, however, who don’t consider themselves feminist, “feminism” is just another f-word. Profane, unnecessary, and outdated.

But how has this word and this movement come to mean so little, especially to the people that it’s trying to protect? This is a question I face daily simply because the people around me aren’t in Women’s Studies or hardly care about things relating to feminism. I don’t push issues on anyone, but it becomes frustrating because I doubt- scratch that- I know that they don’t know much about the inequalities that feminism still needs to overcome. They may know what it has accomplished and what it meant, but its 2011 and feminism has yet to take a backseat.

While pondering this, I came across an article that had an excerpt from Susan J. Douglas’ book Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done that explained every question I had about why feminism is ignored by so many. (I have yet to get to Douglas’ book but judging by this excerpt, it is definitely next on my list.) This article caught me right off the bat, when a Spice Girl was quoted as saying, “Feminism has become a dirty word. Girl Power is just a ’90s way of saying it”. Well geez, if even Scary Spice won’t say the word feminism, what girl will?!

The Spice girls were part of the huge movement of bringing women’s independence and power to the media, allowing women to strut their stuff and not be ashamed or judged. As a little girl in the 90s and future feminist, I loved everything the Spice Girls did, said, and sang. I even rocked a horrendous lime green hoodie with their catchphrase “Girl Power” for an embarrassing amount of time. But even so, moving marketable feminism into the media seemed like a good idea. Now looking at how women are portrayed and how women accept that image, it’s no wonder how feminism has lost its meaning to the public.

Sure, the media brought powerful women to the forefront of a bunch of shows and advertisements. And I love seeing powerful and spunky women take control, but exactly how true of a representation is that? According to Douglas, the top five jobs in 2007 for women were secretaries in first place, followed by registered nurses, elementary and middle school teachers, cashiers and retail salespersons. Any real power position was a lot further down the line. So while the representations of women in media are great, it’s showing the public that women have achieved such positions and that nothing else needs to be accomplished. Although women have fought to reach higher positions and platforms than in the past, women are still vastly outnumbered by men in corporate positions. The idea of “girl power” doesn’t work as well in real life as it does on T.V.

Along with the idea that women hold higher positions, media also misrepresents the power in which women hold. More and more “male” programs show scantily-clad women and women flaunting their sexuality. Critics, however, say that women still have the upper-hand and more power than ever…because they get to choose whether or not they are on these mediums or represented like this. The idea of enlightened sexism, the idea that equality has been achieved and that the goal of women is to be lusted over and be envied, propels these kinds of media. The truth is that its sexism, no matter how “enlightened” it can be made out to be. And of course, don’t forget about the main power that women have nowadays: purchasing power! The power to buy anything your heart desires, from make-up to new shoes. Now, I love shoes more than anything else but I never realized that women’s fight for equality resulted in me having equal power while buying shoes.

So with all that media pushes towards us and all that society teaches us about where a woman’s power really lies, it makes sense that women today disregard the word “feminism”. To them, feminism has done its job: put women on T.V. (in bikinis) and allowed women to make purchases. Media has thwarted the effort that 3^rd wave feminists have put forward and the only way to get it back is to be informed. I’m sharing what feminism means to me with everyone I come across and hopefully, we can start to bring back the true meaning of feminism.