Girly girls go for glamour

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 17, 1998 | by Abby Tegnelia

The term `girl' is back: Baby boomers and gen-Xers now consider the label youthful and sexy. But critics counter that The world suggests self-indulgence and crass commercialism.

The once-shunned "girl" is back in style. Traditional feminists may shudder to hear it, but signs of her comeback are everywhere.

In a recent issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, for example, a glossy Seagrams' Coolers ad features a smiling young female in a sparkling powder-blue outfit posed beneath the slogan, "Get it all, girl!" Although the ad promotes an alcoholic product, the model looks no older than 16; readers are invited to enter a contest with prizes that include a "glam-girl makeover."

But Cosmo and Seagrams are not alone: Vibe magazine's June/July fashion spread titled "Golden Girls" and Elte's Hard Candy lip-gloss ads unashamedly exhort baby-boomer women to aim for twentysomething babeness. Hard Candy's ad shows a girlish pastel-colored straw resting in what looks like a cocktail glass with a wad of pink chewing gum stuck to the side.

Tom Floyd, president of Cantina Apparel, which makes clothes for mountain bikers, named his women's line of clothing "Girls Love Dirt." Adults in their thirties and forties snap up the merchandise because, he says, "it makes them feel young." Danielle Crittenden, editor of the Women's Quarterly, agrees. "The baby boomers are trying to sound like teenagers,' she says.

Meanwhile, real girls seem to be trying to grow up as fast as possible ... too fast for some adults. In February, school officials in Hauppauge, N.Y., banned Seventeen, Teen and YM magazines from its middleschool library because of the raunchy, sexual content of the publications. The Associated Press quoted YM Editor Lesley Jane Seymour as saying her magazine -- whose readers' average age is 16 -- runs stories such as "21 Sexy Alternatives to Sex" and "Are You Sure You're Ready for Sex?" Ironically, the common thread, sex appeal, would have been denounced immediately by the so-called "first-wave" feminists of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But today's "girl" has had a makeover. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky graced the pages of Vanity Fair as a girl-woman who got her man. Time magazine recently ran a cover story about "today's chic young feminist thinkers" pointing to TV's fictional Ally McBeal -- a 28-year-old Boston lawyer known for both her intellect and her revealing clothing -- as a symbol of modern American womanhood.

Ally McBeal projects the idea that women can be sexually attractive at work yet still demand equal treatment from their male colleagues and even best them on the job. She is a star in the courtroom compared with her male partners, who are left confused and chagrined in her wake. According to the theory, neither Ally nor Monica is afraid to flaunt her sexuality to get what she wants.

"Today, the word `girl' is associated with an independent lifestyle," says Marilyn Taskalos, director of account services for Siebel Marketing Group, which handles sales and promotions for Seagrams. Indeed, the new interpretation of "girl" is so hip, Hard Candy President Dineh Mohajer, 25, calls herself a "girly girl."

"Girl talk" has not seduced everyone. Feminist commentator Camille Paglia labeled the phenomenon "the new gilded youth" in a column for the Boston Globe. "Overprotected by peace and prosperity, too many of Lewinsky's generation seem removed from reality. The horrors of history happened to someone else."

Women's Quarterly's Crittenden also is doubtful. "Monica Lewinsky has let her sexual independence exploit her femininity" she says. "She's been reduced to a pathetic girl-prostitute who, unlike real prostitutes, does not get paid." As for the freedom that 1970s feminists fought for, Lewinsky shows that women "have the choice to be concubines."

The fact is, traditional feminism no longer appeals to women of Lewinsky's generation, says Mary Pipher, 50, author of the best-selling Reviving Ophelia. "This younger generation saw how feminism was presented as something serious, dour and not very sexy. They said, `Let's do something more fun.'"

But why re-embrace the term "girl"? "My generation didn't like the word, so it's not surprising that our daughters would reach for it," says Pipher. "The people who defined the word `girl' in a pristine way are probably upset and disappointed to see the word used in ways that don't mean what they originally intended. Any good movement is rapidly co-opted and used to sell products."