Abstract

Girls `n' Spice: All things nice?

This article focuses on the musical group Spice Girls debate on the issue of "girl power" raging in the British and American press. Girls are told that if they aren't sexy, they are nothing, but that their sexuality is dangerous to them and threatening too much of the rest of society. Boys are supposed to want them, but they aren't supposed to want boys back-thirty years after the women's movement began, the term "slut' is alive and well. The loss of self-esteem that all too many teenage girls suffer, when they learn to silence themselves, to censor their real desires and aspirations. So along come five feisty, outspoken, attractive young women making bouncy dance music who assure girls that these contradictions can be finessed, that they can be, simultaneously, attractive to boys yet independent, tough, and strong-and, whammo, platinum records and a new wannabe movement.