Tina Fey. Bust magazine, Spring 2004.
All of these different examples of “girlie” culture point to one of the ongoing challenges of post-1990
feminism: namely, how to (re)claim aspects of traditional female sexuality and femininity in a culture in
which the sexual objectification of women is omnipresent and in which any expression of female sexual
agency becomes co-opted by the dominant culture. The riot grrrl movement’s political, feminist assertion
of “grrrl power,” for example, was easily transformed into the Spice Girls’ watered-down “girl power,”
used to sell bland Top 40 songs and T-shirts rather than incite a revolution. Embracing high heels,
lipstick, and the term “girl” as markers of a new feminist style may have made sense at feminist gatherings
where these signifiers were used to indicate a generational shift within feminism, yet within the larger
culture high heels and lipstick still signified a commitment to traditional femininity that no ironic wink
could undermine. Some argued that what matters is a woman’s agency; as long as it is the woman herself
who is choosing to present herself in a hyperfeminine or sexualized manner, then what’s the problem?
Others disagreed, saying that women’s reclamation of traditional feminine culture under the banner of
feminism is a sign of how far we still have to go to truly escape from the rigid confines of gender and to
move beyond a limited view of empowerment.
Ideology
The most defining feature of this generation of feminists is its inability to be defined by any single
political goal, ideological perspective, or way of being feminist. Some have criticized post-1990
feminism for its resistance to identifying a shared set of political goals, yet others have argued that this
very lack of cohesion is a sign of its strength—the fact that it is now truly “everywhere,” engaged with a
wide spectrum of political projects and theories. While the forms of feminist activism after 1990
dispersed across a wide range of projects, the feminist ideologies that emerged were grounded in three
core principles: 1) that feminism must be polyvocal and acknowledge multiple perspectives; 2) that
feminism must be intersectional and acknowledge that gender justice is inextricably tied to other social
justice movements; and 3) that feminism must be nondogmatic and acknowledge the complexities and
contradictions of lived experience.