'Girl power' became a household term in the late nineties when the Spice Girls - a wildly popular pop music group from England - claimed girl power as their slogan. Lyn Mikel Brown notes, 'Contradiction is manifest in Riot Grrls’ appearance - baby-doll dresses with lace peter pan collars worn with black boots, shaved heads, and cat’s-eye glasses.' Their activities generally stayed below mainstream society’s radar. Riot Grrrls were aggressive and confrontational, and freely borrowed aspects of mainstream femininity to subvert them through strategic juxtaposition. The Riot Grrrls’ girl power circulated through the do-it-yourself production of cultural forms such as punk rock music and zines and through weekly meetings in which grrrls discussed issues they faced. In the early nineties, girl power emerged as part of the Riot Grrrl movement, a mode of feminist consciousness-raising that encouraged girls and women to eschew mainstream commodities in favour of independently producing their own items. Grafting these concepts onto the idea of the 'girl' suggests that 'feminine' and 'empowered' are not antonyms: Girls can make their own decisions, speak their minds, raise their voices, and be aggressive, while engaging in the production of normative femininity. the mental and physical strength that males typically claim.
the ability to influence others and the surrounding world through independence, intelligence, and agency, and 2. In popular culture sites of girl power, 'power' encompasses two key concepts: 1.
It is most often represented as the idea that girls can do anything they choose - especially on a personal level. Girl power, a playful form of third wave feminism, seeks to reclaim the feminine and mark it as culturally valued.