10 years of girl power

The legacy of The Spice Girls.

If Girl Power could be said to be one thing, it is the trick of saying that you believe in something, but then doing something completely opposite. You are concerned about “The Planet”, but continue to buy cheap, disposable fashion items, and fly frequently. You engage in faddy diets, holistic therapies and vitamin supplements — but continue to smoke and binge-drink. You say that men are your friends and equals — but date “bad” men with appalling reputations, or stay in relationships in which your partner is regularly accused of being unfaithful. You believe that friends are the most important thing — friendship never ends! — but continually bicker and fight with each other, and cannot work with each other. You dress sexily “for yourself” — but never quite explain how often you mooch around the house in kabuki make-up, a crotch-skimming dress and silver stack-heeled boots, feeling quietly sensual.

Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs does, perhaps, distil the final result of Girl Power — the sense that the only real social and employment opportunities that it opened up were for young, attractive women to act as their own pimps.