From girl power to feminism

Through my job as a teaching assistant in a K-6 daycare, I interact with young girls on a regular basis. It is via these interactions that I have become somewhat familiar with what tween consumerist culture is looking like these days (I have heard One Direction and Taylor Swift songs enough times to make even the most devoted fan want to bang their head against the wall–multiple times.) The store/brand of choice for the overwhelming majority of the girls I work with is Justice. Something that stood out to me about this brand are the varying forms of “girl power” messages present in many of the store’s products. In their website you can find a vast array of products, from t-shirts, to headphones, to calculators, with slogans like “Girls Can Change the World”, “Girls Rock” and “Girls Can Do Anything.” Some of the brand’s products also celebrate friendships between girls. There is no denying that these are positive messages, especially when young girls are being fed negative messages very often, such as their perceived “inherent” incompetence in math and science. In a society where girls are constantly put down, I’m all for exposing them to positive messages.

However, is encouraging consumerism and materialism the best way to promote these messages? I think it is important to underline the significance of making them available to girls, but is encouraging them to participate in an oppressive capitalist system from a very early age really empowering? I am aware those running Justice may (possibly) not exactly care for empowering girls nearly as much as they do about profits (remember the “Boys Are Stupid–Throw Rocks at Them” controversy? The man behind it, Todd Goldman, notoriously stated “I’m a guy. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about girl empowerment. Our market is teenage girls. I know what sells”), but there is no denying that if multiple companies (it’s not just Justice) employ girl power (although I wouldn’t describe the Boys are Stupid thing as girl power), as an effective marketing strategy, it must mean that these messages resonate with girls. If girls were not actively accepting these messages, companies would simply not waste time with them. Which leads into my next point.

If girls are so eager and willing to embrace “girl power,” why do many of these girls grow up and reject feminism? I’m not saying that girl power and feminism are necessarily the same, but I would like to argue that girl power can be a precursor to feminism (not saying that girls can’t be feminists, but  that through mass-media, some will likely encounter girl power before they encounter feminism.) Something about the Spice Girls’ (yes, marketing and consumerist-based) Girl Power strongly resonated with my seven-year-old pre-feminist self, before I even knew what things like sexism, oppression, and misogyny were. Although girl power as we know it today, is mostly about shopping, if we extract the main premise, it comes down to spreading positive messages about gender. And although feminism can be very complex and varied, with each feminist often adopting the version that best fits her/him/zir, most of us would agree that one basic idea of the movement is gender equality. Telling girls that they can do anything, and that they can change the world, in spite of societal and political  roadblocks telling them otherwise, is a way of promoting gender equality. However, it is important to note that just the fact that there is a market for products reminding girls of things that they would ideally already know, is indicative of the fact that feminism still has a great deal to accomplish.