Seventeen protest, however, reached a far greater number of people through the power of the Internet,
undoubtedly raising the consciousness of thousands, most of whom never set foot in New York.
Pop Culture and Feminist Style
Popular culture in all its various forms—music, television, film—has been an integral part of the
assertion of this post-1990 feminism and its particular aesthetic sensibility. The riot grrrl movement—a
feminist offshoot of the do-it-yourself punk music scene—that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s
has been credited as an early example of this new feminist style. Bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile
played songs that addressed rape, sexual harassment, and eating disorders with lyrics that mixed raw
anger with emotional vulnerability. Riot grrrl performances also captured attention. In what became one
of her signature moves onstage, Bikini Kill lead singer Kathleen Hanna would take off her shirt to reveal
the word “slut” written on her stomach, “confronting audiences with what they might want to see (a
topless woman) and what they might think of such a woman, all in one fell semiotic swoop.”^52 Other
genres of music also began to produce self-identified feminist performers, with rap and hip-hop leading
the way; artists like Queen Latifah, Salt-n-Pepa, and TLC used their lyrics and performances to assert
agency and claim a voice within a male-dominated genre. These performers and many others—including
mainstream pop musicians of the 2000s like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga—sang songs of female
empowerment that reached a mass audience. Unlike the women’s rock bands of the late 1960s and early
1970s, discussed in chapter 2, this new generation of musical artists often presented their feminist
messages while wearing hyperfeminine clothing, rejecting the earlier era’s androgyny in favor of the
sexually provocative feminist style pioneered by Madonna in the mid-1980s.
Feminist characters became slightly more common on the small and large screen during the 1990s and
2000s, although both television and film continued to focus on male-driven narratives aimed at male
viewers, in which female characters were frequently sidelined. On daytime television Oprah Winfrey was
queen, becoming one of the most recognized women in the United States and an outspoken advocate for
feminist issues—although Oprah seemed to deliberately avoid using the word “feminist” so as not to
alienate her audience. During the prime-time slot, women characters took on new jobs as cops and judges,
but they still seemed stuck in the same roles that they had been in since television was invented: as wives
and mothers. Even the highly successful ABC television series Modern Family (2009– )—touted for its
progressive portrayal of a gay male couple raising a child—was hardly modern when it came to its
women characters, none of whom had jobs outside the home. Behind the scenes, women fared far worse:
a 2012 study found that although women account for half of all moviegoers in the United States, they
represent only 7 percent of film directors, 13 percent of writers, and 20 percent of producers.^53 And
while girls and women were involved in athletics more than ever before—thanks in great part to the
changes brought by Title IX in 1972—women’s sports could barely be found on television, particularly
during the all-male, prime-time evening slot reserved for football.
The HBO series Sex and the City (1998–2004) thus provided a unique female-centered universe in its
portrayal of four strong working–women characters who defined themselves as each other’s family and
who regularly discussed topics such as sexual agency and female orgasms, abortion, how to balance
motherhood with a career, whether to get married, and economic success. The characters also discussed
feminism itself and the choices it had made possible for women, reflecting the values of the many women
who worked on the series as writers and directors. The series came to define a new generation of women,
just as The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77) had three decades earlier. Yet Sex and the City—along