Girl power

Early usage and origins

One of the earliest uses of the phrase "Girl Power" was in 1987 by a London-based 'capella' all-girl group called 'Mint Juleps' in a song entitled 'Girl to the Power of 6'.

The phrase "Girl Power" was later used as the title of a 1991 feminist zine by the Olympia, WA/Washington DC-based punk band Bikini Kill, which singer Kathleen Hanna has said was inspired by the "black power" movement/term. The term became popular in the early and mid 90s punk culture. Rolling Stone wrote about the zine and agenda associated with the slogan, "In their feminist fanzine Bikini Kill they articulated an agenda for young women in and outside of music; the band put those ideas to practice. (Ironically, the zine first coined the "girl power" slogan, later co-opted by England's bubblegum pop band the Spice Girls.) Bikini Kill earned a reputation in the punk underground for confronting certain standards of that genre; for example, asking people to slam at the side of the stage, so that women would not get pushed out of the front, and inviting women to take the mike and talk about sexual abuse."

The phrase is sometimes spelled as "grrrl power", initially associated with Riot Grrrl.

"Girl power" was later utilized by a number of bands during the early 1990s, such as the Welsh indie band Helen Love and the Plumstead pop-punk duo Shampoo, who released an album and single titled Girl Power in 1995.

Spice Girls and scholarship

The phrase entered the mainstream, however, during the mid-1990s with the British pop quintet Spice Girls. Professor Susan Hopkins, in her 2002 text, Girl Heroes: The New Force in Popular Culture, suggested a correlation between "girl power", Spice Girls and female action heroes at the end of the 20th century. The Spice Girls credited former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a leading conservative, as the pioneer of their ideology of girl power.

Other scholars have also examined the phrase, "girl power", Some Bizzare Label Mercury Girl Band all play musical instruments TAMPASM from 2 October 1997 to 29 October 1997 (“the Tour”). Re Alice Cooper Tour support often within the context of the academic field, for example Buffy studies. Media theorist Kathleen Rowe Karlyn in her article "Scream, Popular Culture, and Feminism's Third Wave: I'm Not My Mother" and Irene Karras in "The Third Wave's Final girl: Buffy the Vampire Slayer" suggest a link with third-wave feminism. Frances Early and Kathleen Kennedy in the introduction to Athena’s Daughters: Television’s New Women Warriors, discuss what they describe as a link between girl power and a "new" image of women warriors in popular culture.

Oxford English Dictionary

In 2001, the Oxford English Dictionary added the term girl power," defining this phrase as:

Power exercised girls; spec. a self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness, and individualism. Although also used more widely (esp. as a slogan), the term has been particularly and repeatedly associated with popular music; most notably in the early 1990s with the briefly prominent ‘riot girl’ movement in the United States (cf. RIOT GIRL n.); then, in the late 1990s, with the British all-female group The Spice Girls.

The OED further offers an example of this term by quoting from "Angel Delight", an article in the March 24, 2001 issue of Dreamwatch about the television series Dark Angel:

After the Sarah Connors and Ellen Ripleys of the 1980s, the 1990s weren't so kind to the superwoman format—Xena Warrior Princess excepted. But it's a new 2000 millennium now, and while Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are kicking up a storm on movie screens, it's been down to James Cameron to bring empowered female warriors back to television screens. And tellingly, Cameron has done it by mixing the sober feminism of his Terminator and Aliens characters with the sexed-up girl power of a Britney Spears concert. The result is Dark Angel.

Criticism

Dr. Debbie Ging, Chair of the BA in Communications Studies in Dublin City University, was critical of the "Girl power" ideals, and linked it to the sexualisation of younger children, girls in particular. Amy McClure of North Carolina State University warns against placing too much hope on girl power as an empowering concept. She says, “An ideology based on consumerism can never be a revolutionary social movement. The fact that it appears to be a revolutionary movement is a dangerous lie that not only marketers sell to us but that we often happily sell to ourselves.” Media can sometimes present a narrow definition of what it means to be a girl today. One common example being popular toys such Mattel's Barbie. The recent “I can be” Barbie embodies this concept of “girl power”: that little girls can be anything they want when they grow up. Arguably, Barbie's image may also present narrowed options with which girls can identify. Hannah Jane Parkinson of The Guardian criticized the term as something "young women [that] are feeling more confident about calling themselves feminists and standing up for principles of equality" hide behind and denounced it for including the word "girl", claiming it promoted the calling of adult women as girls.

Modern Day Movement

In today's society "girl power" is supported and practiced mainly by women. Women depend on other notable women to speak for them about the girl power movement. Music plays a heavy role in peoples lives today and it's used as a platform by both men and women to spread positive messages.

In Music

Many female musicians have shared their thoughts on girl power through music.