For those who grew up in the late nineties, the term “girl power” conjures up images of butt kicking ladies, girl groups in platform shoes and sparkly outfits and a proclamation of no scrubs.
During the height of their popularity in the late nineties, the Spice Girls were the spokeswomen for girl power, telling girls it was okay to be comfortable with who they are, advocating for the importance of female friendship and warning potential mates that “if you really bug me then I’ll say goodbye.
So what is girl power?
Apparently in 2001, the term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary and defined as “power exercised by girls; specifically a self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness, and individualism.” The Washington Post has a different perspective, explaining that girl power was “predicated on giggles, best friends, sex appeal and, most important, cool clothes.”
As someone who was once a proud owner of a ‘girls kick butt’ sweater, I can identify with the desire of a young girl to assert her place in the world. However the type of girl power that was aggressively promoted to young girls somehow missed the mark. For one, a point many critics have argued, the term was co-opted by the media in an attempt to make a profit, this time period also saw a rise in female heroines on television (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: the Warrior Princess, and Dark Angel to name a few), movies (Mulan and Charlie’s Angels), and music (Spice Girls and TLC) . These very narrow representations of girl power portrayed a specific image of power, the butt kicking girl. Girl power seemed to be about exerting strength – physical strength. Arguably the term could also be around emotional and mental strength as well. These types of strength are not in and of themselves negative things but they are awfully limiting. Power should be about more than just strength, especially since the strength in question so often overlooks certain key powers. Ambition, assertiveness and individualism? What about the power of compassion, cooperation and unity? Powers which for long have shown their ability to affect large scale change. Emphasizing the power of the collective doesn’t mean acquiescing personal power but it means recognizing that there is more to life than pushing yourself to the forefront at all costs.
So maybe girl power filled a need (for those looking to make a profit as well as young girls seeking people to look up to) but I’d like to think we can do better. As the document explains, “As we move beyond the material struggle to exercise power over or against others, and we develop the capacity to draw on these other sources of power accessible to every human being, we activate greater forms of individual and collective agency and create new possibilities for the well-being of women and men.”
HERE’S THE THING: I feel like so much of this “girl power” is defined by women “conquering” men or leaving them in the dust or whatever (except for Mulan. Shout-out to my girl Mulan). I’m all for female empowerment, but I think it needs to be something that isn’t reliant on you leaving your man behind in order to get ahead or any of that business. Even in defining what “girl power” is, I feel like we are putting down men or comparing women to men, and I feel like that isn’t so conducive to growth. I think girl power should be independent of comparison to men and something that is also inclusive of men (another shout-out to Mulan and her awesome little dragon dude). I hope that makes sense.
Earlier in this blog the idea of what human nature really is has come up, and I think it’s one that is important in discussions about power and empowerment. What has always struck me about “girl power” is that it seemed to equate being a ‘powerful’ woman with acting the way [that many in] society thinks men should behave. So equality means that women become men? This is probably a terrible example, but for instance, I remember there was this song that was really popular a few years ago called “Cant Hold Us Down” by Christina Aguilera and Lil Kim, and the whole thing was supposed to be about being a powerful, modern, independent woman. And they had a line about how if men can be promiscuous and get praise for it then why shouldn’t women be allowed to do the same thing? But I always wondered, why can’t the men just be chaste, too? I agree with what Hans said above, as well. Somehow we have to move beyond these conceptions of one gender trumping the other and instead have to learn to advance together. And with a false conception of human nature, what conduces to loftiness versus abasement, well-being versus degradation, neither men nor women will be able to fully progress.
I agree — Power from giggles, sex appeal, and cool clothes? Can appropriating a position of subjugation, ie “owning” the idea that women’s value lies in their status as objects of desire, really fit anyone’s definition of empowerment?
Notably, the notion of empowerment proposed by the document sets itself far apart from many other conceptions of empowerment. It is NOT “power over” or “power against”, as Fem Hans points out. It is about developing greater agency, the ability to accomplish things, in the context of contributing to the well-being of men and women. So, as May suggests, it entails “power with” and it should be valued in terms of “power to do what?” Not power for power’s sake.
This notion of empowerment in the document leaves space for humility on the part of the individual, an idea I’d like to think more about. How does empowerment fit with humility—especially in societies that prize individualism and assertiveness, and particularly in the cases of social groups that have been undervalued and considered inferior?
To work for the empowerment of others requires humility — humility in seeing others as full of capacity, in relinquishing paternalism, and in giving up the thought that I know best how someone else becomes empowered. To live in a neighborhood where I have economic and racial privilege, and many of my neighbors have been historically undervalued, also highlights the need for this kind of humility.
A concrete example: the other day some friends went to visit a family that was interested in a program of spiritual empowerment for their 13-year-old. The other members of the team saw the matriarch of this family as a woman with a great deal of capacity – a great deal of potential to affect change in her family and in her neighborhood. I was humbled to realize the paternalistic attitude I had taken toward her on previous visits. By seeing her capacity and potential, rather than focusing on her current challenges, these friends demonstrated one connection between humility and empowerment.
To seek our own empowerment also requires humility – the humility to recognize that we are small, and that the source of our power is much larger than we are. The humility to learn from those who are walking this path with us.
Lev, thanks for sharing these thoughts around a transcendental quality we all strive for, woman or man. It brings to mind the idea that whenever discussing matters of gender equality there is a interrelation between various spheres of influence : biological aspects, social constructs, and spiritual realities. I recently was reading a book about manhood (a topic i interestingly rarely used to talk about with other men) and it made me realize how much of the exploration of one’s gender-identity is tied to physical/biological aspects, old traditions/social constructs, but not very much of those qualities which are latent within all people such as love, truthfulness, appreciation for beauty, chastity. It is difficult, at times, to imagine gender equality in a possible future society when these qualities are further developed, social structures are reformed, and obsession with sex is reduced. A metaphor often used to describe the need for the equality of men and women is that of two wings of a bird. It is often then emphasized how, if the bird has a stronger left or right wing it will go in circles. There’s a subtle point here, which i believe is captured in the metaphor, and that is: the identity of the wings are not of themselves but of the bird, something larger than them, which is advancing upwards… soaring in the limitless space. So maybe this helps explore the concept of humility and how it is necessary in order to recognize first that we are part of something larger, and second, as we gain more knowledge of the world–e.g. the ways in which social structures promote inequality, the conceptions we have which are prejudices, etc.–we consciously strive to apply it… not only individually, but collectively. That is to say, we are engaged in a dialogue with each other on how to advance the community at all levels (village, region, nation, world).
Other qualities which come to mind which will likely aid us in this process is: justice–the ability to see with one’s own eyes and not the eyes of others–, appreciation for beauty, and underlying these two, truthfulness.
(My wife has asked me to write a post presenting our conversation, because she is busy writing her dissertation.)
Negin and I are discussing the following example related to empowerment and “girl power”, and would really appreciate hearing from other folks:
It began with a book that was just released (written by a man in her academic field) that proposes, essentially, that women are biologically and psychologically predisposed to working in the home and in one-on-one relationships, while men are predisposed by similar forces to excel in the public sphere and in large groups. Negin was incensed by this idea, and it raised in her the strong desire to redouble her efforts in her academic field – proving that such an outmoded idea does not accurately define women’s reality.
As we explored this idea, Negin articulated that she felt it was a structural problem. It wasn’t that men were biologically or psychologically predisposed to excel in the public sphere. They were excelling because they had the free time to throw themselves into work while their wives took care of everything else. This has resulted in an academic system that rewards those who publish feverishly, staying late at the lab to work on their “critically important” research, leading to a structure that encourages ignoring the rest of the world (and often producing research completely irrelevant to social reality).
She feels that there are real powers and real capacities that are exercised in engaging with the community – powers that are exercised in building a new kind of civilization – and powers it is incumbent upon both men and women to develop. But she also feels a responsibility to excel in that old world order, to prove that women are capable there, in response to these stereotypical attitudes.
So she feels this two-ness. “Two warring ideals” — the desire to contribute to a new reality, and the desire to excel in the old reality. What do you think? How does this two-ness relate to real empowerment?
Yes! Although they do not appear related on the surface, this is actually the issue I was getting at with my question about empowerment and humility. I struggled to begin to articulate similar thoughts to my sister in explaining what I meant, but here Negin (via Lev) has put it so well.
Perhaps faced with the same “two warring ideals”, I know that I have no desire to excel in the old reality, simply because it does not build on any of my strengths; I am bad at it. But to the extent to which I personally prefer to work in the background, share my ideas only if I feel they have not been touched on by others, work on projects that others do not see the value of, and may therefore be judged as achieving less, am I reflecting poorly on women or ethnic minorities in the field of academics?
I think there is the possible argument that if you do excellent work in the background, it will eventually be noticed, and you can reflect well on all women in that way. Or, going back to how Negin phrased it, if you work within the framework you deem appropriate to contribute to a new reality, then eventually your excellence in those efforts will demonstrate that women are capable. But what if that does not end up being the case? What if you aren’t able to have many people recognize excellence in your actions according to their standards for whatever reason? Should you realign your efforts somewhat?
My tendency is to think that, in the end, that ‘old world’ framework for thinking about things is wrong, according to the understandings that I am working from. So I consider it a waste of my energy to worry about excelling in it, because even if I am diverting a fraction of my energy into showing those in that framework that they are wrong about women, that is some amount of energy I could be investing in creating something new that moves beyond the limitations of that framework and could be inviting like-minded people to participate in the construction. Maybe we’ll never convince the author that Negin mentions that women aren’t predisposed to making contributions in one-on-one relationships, but isn’t it more valuable to work with those who are interested in redefining what constitutes a contribution and what ultimate goal we are all contributing to?
Yet, I wonder if that perspective is over-simplified. Maybe we should consider ourselves part of a larger movement of social transformation, where some will work to build anew and some will work to change existing structures. I am not sure.
Some of the issues have to do with networking. Statistically, men are more likely to network to get what they want; women “network” to find people they enjoy being around. And in general, education (not the political world that is “academia” for phd students and professors) is a meritocracy, so many of the women who make it to “the top” have not had to play the political games and engage in a different type of networking. In the corporations and academia alike, many women are more inclined to just work hard and hope they get noticed.
There’s a report called the “Sponsor Effect” from the Center for Work-Life Policy that looked at those who had succeeded and basically found it was because someone sponsored them — didn’t just “mentor” them, but actually believed in them and their capacities to recommend them for jobs they themselves weren’t 100% about — and that’s another thing. Men are more likely than women to pursue jobs they’re not fully qualified for; women want to be 100% sure they can do it. They don’t take the same risks.
As for work-life balance — the Center also has a publication on extreme jobs. Will dig up some stats from their Harvard Business Review article and try to post more later . . .
Lev, you asked, how this twoness relates to empowerment. Although i struggle with the blogging format i will attempt to share a series of disconnected but related thoughts
As i talk with more people i find that this sentiment (about “two-ness”) is more widely-shared than i first suspected. There are those who feel it but have trouble putting into words. After talking about it, though, i’ve seen others truly empathize. And i believe even in academia there are more-than-glimmerings of people striving to create professorships that are more integrated into actual community progress, and modifying structures to allow this to happen. It’s probably not smooth, but what is?
We may gain insight into empowerment around this twoness of contributing to developing new structures vs. working under old structures when we reflect on our own poor selves. It seems similar. Here we are, a human in-progress: a collection of ingrained habits, a series of dispositions, a network of prejudices and assumptions on the one hand and an infinitude of latent capacity on the other. it reminds me of a question in some training materials. They ask something like the following: how does being aware of the fact that both our, say, ‘lower’ dispositions and ‘higher’ dispositions are both part of God’s creation help us avoid feelings of guilt every time we make a mistake? Clearly, the decisions we make within social structures have their own dimensions separate from our approach to our selves. I intend no naive conflation of concepts. But perhaps there’s some insight to be gained here.
Hello, all!
As for Negin’s thoughts, I say that she and those like her working in an academic setting have an opportunity to influence the discourse, and that is incredibly valuable. There are many of us who would not have that opportunity – from the perspective of many individuals in these fields, we barely even speak the language, so how can we hope to affect the conversation? Negin and other women who have the capacity and skills to do so can contribute to a dialogue that seems to be set in the old world, but actually may not be. Negin, aren’t you perhaps helping to sketch out the first lines, tentative and rough though they may be, that will bring into view our new reality, a reality with has already been created? Even if you are forming these new structures over the ruins of the old, they are still new – they have been imbued with a fresh spirit!
“Effective social action serves to enrich participation in the discourses of society, just as the insights gained from engaging in certain discourses can help to clarify the concepts that shape social action.” – The Universal House of Justice, Ridvan Message, 2010
To address the original idea of Girl Power, everyone’s already made some great points about this idea and its flaws, one of which, in my mind, is that it relies too heavily on sex appeal.
My main criticism, however, is much more fundamental – why GIRL? Sure, it might sound catchier that woman power, and move away from what was seen as the outmoded feminism of the previous decades, but really, to latch onto “girl” power indicates a fear of the power of actual women. None of us know what to do with that yet – neither men nor women – on a societal level.
Girls are uninitiated – on an archetypal level, anyway – to love, sorrow, true loss, compassion, union, death, creation, cycles – you name it. Woman know this power and have known it for ages – many cultures have recognized this power. I was reading an article on the Aztec in National Geographic, and came upon this -
“It was a 12-ton rectangular monolith made of pinkish andesite stone, broken into four large pieces, bearing the mesmerizingly horrific likeness of the earth goddess Tlaltecuhtli (pronounced tlal-TEK-tli)—the symbol of the Aztec life and death cycle, squatting to give birth while drinking her own blood, devouring her own creation. (There are some images of the monolith here – the best are in the second set of images: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/11/greatest-aztec/garrett-photography).
Folklore is full of characters who symbolize this life-death-life cycle, and it is the domain of women. Women have the power to look despair and death in the face and still find hope. Women know how to “sing over the bones” – to take the essence, the living matter that is left in something, and call it back to life. Women have the power to contain this balance of birth, living, and death, of sickness and health and care, all at once. Women have the power of their bodies and all that that entails – sensuality, fierceness, movement, gentleness, grace… Women have the power to encourage and cheer on their families and loved ones and still know how to find the power to recharge themselves. Women have the power to generate and reveal stories and truths and arts, they are the keepers of science and medicine and food and magic. Women are powerful leaders and always have been – sometimes it simply looks different than the way a man is expected to lead. Women are incredibly versatile – isn’t that a power? They can adapt – they can lead large groups or lead just one, they can find fulfillment in a smaller setting, or yearn for a grander arena of accomplishments. We have the power of rage and the power of contentment. We have the power to connect with the earth and the power to connect with loftiest voices of the heavens.
So why settle for girl power? Even girls and young women shouldn’t settle for girl power – let them recognize what capacities are latent within them. Tell them the stories of transformation and initiation that will usher them into their birthright, the power of womanhood. Let these old powers also be transformed with a new spirit as well, let us all recognize that men do and can share in these same powers, but that they are precious, and that it is an honor for women to have kept watch over them on mankind’s behalf for all these years.
Thanks for this, Carolyn. We know that there is an old-world order — dominant modes of thought, language and action that permeate social spaces (like academia). Your reminder that we can participate in the discourses of society in a meaningful way presents a path forward that avoids a false dichotomy — either I work within the ‘old reality’ as Emily put it, or contribute to new patterns of thought and action. But as both Emily and Ryan’s comments suggest, we can understand academic work as an opportunity to contribute to a ‘larger movement of social transformation,’ and individuals within that social space stand ready to collaborate.
And yes — woman power.
I too appreciated Negin’s comments on “twoness”. I think that because our society so undervalues humility, the standards of measurement themselves are skewed. So, research is always showing that “women drop out” of high-level jobs in higher number than men. In most cases I don’t believe this is due to lack of ambition of even lack of self-confidence (though perhaps both play a role). I think it’s more often due to the practical realities of life. Yes, women bear the children in our world and though many men now do take a leading hand in raising those children, in most cases it is still the women doing so. A woman with children is torn between the hours required by high-powered professions and her desire to surround her kids with the best care and give them the best future. I believe in the end most women quietly and humbly (or, perhaps with some complaining and grumbling!) prioritize their families over public acclaim and overt achievement. So, who’s to say which choice has greater value to society? I’ve never yet seen a study that tries to put some kind of value on the work that women have traditionally done to keep society up and running. So I see the relative absence of women in spheres of worldly greatness as a sign of humility. And to examine the power of women, we should look frankly at what they actually achieve with that humility.
And, just to be clear, I’m not saying that women shouldn’t arise to the highest arenas of endeavor, just that we can’t assume that those who choose not to are somehow failing to contribute in the highest way to our social welfare. For me the most vital question is how to overcome this “twoness” and build a world that allows women and men to both contribute fully to both spheres.
….and let’s not forget “The PowerPuff Girls” cartoons either
My and my little nephews’ favorite 
Truly, a lot of insights are to be gained from the above posts. I am still in the process of assimilating them and formulating something.
At the end of the post introducing the idea of ‘twoness,’ Lev/Negin offered us this definition and question –
“Two warring ideals” — the desire to contribute to a new reality, and the desire to excel in the old reality. What do you think? How does this two-ness relate to real empowerment?
Wow, this stirs up so many ideas and emotions.
Excelling in old reality creates valuable opportunities to contribute to a discourse among people of power, and this discourse can influence structural injustices that affect people of less power. Mmm… but that statement brings us back to the question, what is real power? Are people in academia, politics, and corporate business really more powerful than others, or are they just more successful at wielding certain resources to their material advantage? And if they not really more powerful, what powers do they have that they have not tapped into yet? Following from that question, what is real empowerment?
I think our efforts towards real empowerment may be affected by our motivation and consciousness of the forces acting around us, regardless of whether we are working to excel in old spheres of power or new ones. Many of our efforts to excel in old realities are strongly motivated by the will to acquire the ‘old power’ to get the attention of people who can change those realities from the top, or at least to prove some of their assumptions wrong. And excelling in the old reality has so many negative connotations – like ‘playing the game’ or ‘selling out,’ because reaching that excellence may require the use of old power (or does it?). I think these images reflect some of the real challenges that come with the effort to excel in and influence old world structures… can you be in an environment but not of that environment? Can you hack into a corrupt culture while maintaining your own ideals, win the respect of those people who are apart of it such that they are willing to listen to you, and then introduce ideas and create a space for those people to question their way of doing things? Wow… I wish I could. But would that be possible without having created some of the new reality within myself first? Otherwise, I could be absorbed into the old reality along the way, and just give a new face to the same problems. What’s more exciting to me about this idea of bringing a new reality into the old is that, even the people at the top in the old reality can be ‘empowered’ in a real way. As many post-ers have said, we want men and women to advance together on equal footing, not for women to dominate and leave men in the dust.
So how does this two-ness relate to real empowerment? Maybe it’s one of those false dichotomies… Even if we remove ourselves from the centers of old world power, we will find their influence elsewhere: in the social, political, and economic structures that affect the lives of the communities we work in, and in the psychologies of ourselves and others. If we’re not climbing the old power structures, we’ll be working around them, faced with their reality and challenged to overcome the modes of thinking and being they engender. If we are climbing the old power structures, we’ll be working with people who believe their self-worth to be a measure of their material productivity. Regardless of where we serve, none of us realize our true potentialities.
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