“There is a collective force rising up on the earth today, an energy of the reborn feminine … She remembers our function on earth … This is a time of monumental shift, from the male dominance of human consciousness back to a balanced relationship between masculine and feminine. The Goddess archetype doesn’t replace God; she merely keeps him company. She expresses his feminine face.”
Marianne Williamson author of the international bestseller of A Return To Love, wrote the above quote in her book A Woman’s Worth in 1993, ten years before Dan Brown’s 2003 phenomenon Da Vinci Code, with its contentious story-line. This biggest selling novel of all time messed with the biggest story ever told. But let us remind ourselves, Dan Brown insists it is a fictional novel.
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However, much of the worldwide adulation for his book has related directly to its focus on the re-emergence of the ‘Sacred Feminine’ – in response to mankind’s historic subjugation of women. And the timing could not have been riper for women, and the world, of a divine feministic reawakening of womanhood.
Our first wave of infamous feminists to vehemently oppose the long-held belief in women’s second-class citizenship, were the 19th century suffragettes who fought to give women the right to vote.
Our second wave of feminism was during the 1960s-70s with our Women’s Rights Liberationists and the sexual revolution, fighting with political solidarity to demand economic and reproductive rights.
The third wave of feminism was far more clandestine – most women weren’t even consciously aware of it, as they weren’t marching parliament carrying placards: It was the 1990’s era of GIRL POWER.
‘Girl Power’ started to emerge in the late 1980s with the likes of Sigourney Weaver in Alien; the evening soaps (Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest), MTV, Deborah Harry (Blondie), Annie Lennox (Eurhythmics), Oprah, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Roseanne … and teenage girls all over the Western world, dressed as Madonna wannabes with their teased boofy hair, ripped tops, miniskirts, spandex tights and loads of chunky jewelry – oh, and the ghastly girls-can-do-anything television adverts.
“You go, girl!” became the catch phrase of the 1990’s as Hollywood assisted transitioning ‘Girl Power’ into the everyday psyche. The decade is a heady collection including the enormous publicity of a seven-month pregnant Demi Moore appearing nude on the cover of Vanity Fair; Edina and Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous; Rachel, Monica and Phoebe in Friends; Lucy the Warrior Princess Xena; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Demi’s G.I.Jane; Calista’s Ally McBeal; Trinity in Matrix; and Eve Ensler’s provocative stage-show, the Vagina Monologues.
There were also those pop icons to ‘Girl Power’, The Spice Girls (who were voted by Brits as their biggest cultural icon of the nineties). And the list would be incomplete without including the adored Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda of Sex and the City.
‘Girl Power’ giddiness continued into the new millennium with Hollywood repetitively spewing out the super-heroines in rapid succession during 2000-2001: The remake of Charlie’s Angles; Max in Dark Angel; Storm, Rogue and Mystique in X-Men; Angelina in Lara Croft:Tomb Raider; and Jennifer as Sydney Britsow in Alias. Although the female characters were consistently powerful, they often ended up appealing more to the male viewers.
New Zealand 2001 was another momentous time in international history, as the world looked down-under at the stunning line-up of female political, legal, constitutional and commercial leadership. For Kiwis had a female Prime-Minister, female Opposition Leader, female Governor-General; female Attorney-General – and female CEO for their largest telecommunications company.
To call this level of success ‘Girl Power’ insults women’s intelligence.
The world globally is now aglow with female leadership. This is what the academics are defining as the ‘fourth wave’ of feminists, nicknamed the Uterosexuals – strong women who are emancipated, educated, ambitious, feminine, intuitive, articulate and immensely proud of their almighty womanliness … the feminine feminists … women who love being women, and love being womanly.
‘Girl Power’ is finally passé. Uterosexuals are not women trying to succeed in a man’s world – they are women who are succeeding in a unisex world. They do not dislike their metrosexual, heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual men, in fact they enjoy their company, tremendously – uterosexuals just don’t always need their company.
Hollywood has paid notice too. Female characters on TV and film are becoming more real, self-assertive and intellectual – women that other women enjoy to watch, even more-so than men.
Such as the central characters in various CSI series; Susan, Bree, Lynette, Gabrielle and Edie in Desperate Housewives; Meredith, Christina, Izzie and Addison in Grey’s Anatomy; and the zenith of the strong woman role with Geena Davis as the US President in Commander-in-Chief.
Yes the fourth wave of feminism has arrived, with Uterosexual women who are exceptional, intelligent, sophisticated, influential and sexy.
Welcome to this next generation!
