Feminism for Sale

You know her, the millennial urban liberated career chick. At least, you've seen her reflections -- in Bridget Jones well-meaning ditzy neurosis, in Sex in the City's mix of hard-edged libidinous glam and jazz-tinged wistfullness, in truckloads of randy female sex columnists and insouciant girl-power zines like Bust and Maxi. In the year 2000, after decades of wrangling with the myth of the ugly, hirsute, ball-busting women's libber, the culture has finally seemed to reconcile beauty and power, fun and feminism.

Like so many other cease-fires in our society, this one was negotiated largely in the marketplace. This new, shopping-and-fucking feminism is so ubiquitous right now in part because it jibes precisely with the message of consumer society, that freedom means more -- hotter sex, better food, ever-multiplying pairs of Manolo Blahniks shoes, drawers full of Betsey Johnson skirts, Kate Spade bags and MAC lipsticks.

It's easy-to-swallow feminism, feminism that encourages you to pamper yourself and get rid of guilt and waltz through life like Audrey Hepburn in "How to Steal a Million." Built on affirmations -- "You go, girl! Work it!" -- it doesn't make you feel bad about your vanity, as 70s feminism sometimes did, or hypocritical if you watch porn or wear glitter eyeshadow and miniskirts. It admits that consumer culture is often pleasurable and rewarding.

"I love clothes, I love the way they make me feel, I love makeup," says Janelle Brown, a senior technology writer at Salon who co-founded the online feminist zine Maxi. "I also don't let anyone step on me. I hold my own. There are things that I do that are stereotypically feminine, and there are things that I do that are completely unstereotypically feminine. I write about fashion and I write about geek stuff. I think that's what all women should be looking to do -- finding a balance between consumerism and feminism and recognizing that it's really hard to reject the basis of America. Fuck, we're based on capitalism. It's very hard to reject everything that that stands for and still live in America, so why not understand what it all means and figure out where your personal place in it is, without having to be one thing or the other?"

Thus Maxi combines articles about sexual harassment and updates on Norplant litigation with odes to hair products. In a piece about Vain, makers of Dirty Boy Dirty Girl hair goo and 2nd Day Shampoo "for marginally clean hair," Maxi editor Rosemary Pepper writes, "A little vanity goes a long way. Why not embrace your products, take a fashion risk, get out and have some fun with your looks? Don't get carried away, of course -- Narcissism is bad; it implies tunnel-vision and you may face evil mythical consequences. But on the other hand, a little vanity is good; it implies an appreciation of one's own image and lends a certain respect to viewers."

Many middle-class girls, no matter how serious or ambitious, can relate to this, which is what makes it so enticing. Go ahead, it seems to say, indulge yourself, treat yourself right. After all, we have a whole culture that tortures women with guilt; the last thing we need is a feminism that condemns our pleasures. "Unlike our feminist foremothers, who claimed that makeup was the opiate of the misses, we're positively prochoice when it comes to matters of feminine display," writes Debbie Stoller in "The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order," a compendium of Bust articles published last year (which, full disclosure, contains a piece by me.) "We're well aware, thank you very much, of the beauty myth that's working to keep women obscene and not heard, but we just don't think that transvestites should have all the fun. We love our lipstick, have a passion for polish, and, basically, adore this armor that we call 'fashion.' To us, it's fun, it's feminine, and, in the particular way we flaunt it, it's *definitely* feminist."