If a No 1 song by a boyband from Oklahoma, inappropriately riling prepubescent girls, doesn’t sound like an obvious feminist anthem, that’s because it wasn’t. What it was, though, was an early indication that attitudes towards gender and sexuality were changing.
The 90s, and the third-wave feminism the decade has come to be remembered for, was a contradictory experience at the time. It was, on the one hand, all about girl power and sex positivity. It was “position of the fortnight” in More magazine – offering teenage girls line drawings that explained sexual positions in technical detail. It was Missy Elliott bossing hip-hop, TLC, Destiny’s Child and the Spice Girls, by whose time I was too cool to idolise women with silly names, but who delivered glossy girl power to my eight-year-old sister.
On the other, it was the ultimate pornification of the female body in black hip-hop culture, in which I was – by the middle of the decade – heavily immersed. White beauty norms became aligned with Kate Moss and other pale, bony models – some embodying profoundly emaciated, heroin chic – and the acceleration of unhealthy body images.
Girls growing up in the 90s had the luxury of taking feminism’s previous achievements for granted. My first experience of the workplace was “take your daughter to work day” in 1995 – a classic 90s invention – designed to encourage higher-quality work experience opportunities for girls.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
