… and it doesn’t need to have a feminist slogan on it at all!

Let’s rewind to two weeks ago. As part of my day job, i was asked to design a button to support a local urban design scheme. We had a slogan, which had been used in a poster campaign, and so this was the obvious place to start. As i realised that it looked a bit boring, i decided to add some graphics. The purpose of the project is to be inclusive of all types of road and footway users, so i decided to draw little stick figures representing various road users, eg someone in a wheelchair, someone on a bike, someone walking and so on.

I emailed the initial design idea to the three men who had initiated this PR campaign and i was stunned by the responses of two of them. They felt women were being under-represented; in fact, they said i had only included men. Their solution was to add a woman with a child. I was shocked on two levels; firstly, my stick figures were meant to be people, and not men. Secondly, if going along with the idea of including men and women, as opposed to people, why having the woman with a child, and not a man with a child, or a woman on a bike?

As part of my job, i had to answer to those people and give them the design they wanted. However, i wasn’t ready to back down without explaining my thinking.

So i wrote them a rather long email, explaining that the stick figures were genderless and represented people, and not men. I also mentionned that many men are in the streets walking with their children and it would be disrespectful of them to assume the role of the child carer was a woman’s role. Of course, i used reverse psychology. Yes, it would be disrespectful of them, but i was mostly shocked because according to those two men, the only woman represented on this button would have been with a child, as if a woman on her own was nothing if she wasn’t a mother.

I decided to design two options; one showing a woman, with a skirt, and a child, and another option showing a stick figure person with a child.

To my relief, they both backed down and picked the option with the stick figure. I have to say that it felt like a small victory, because if i had been less confident in my work, the button would have gone out with three stick figures doing various things, and one female stick figure in the role of a mother.

This button will only go out locally but, without trying to steal a slogan from a well known supermarket, every little helps. Some young kids might see their parents wearing that button and i’d like those kids, both boys and girls, to see the world in terms of people, and not as a society of men and mothers.

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Today, as i was having lunch in a pub with a few friends, we saw outside a woman pushing a pram, followed a couple of steps behind her by a five or six year old little girl pushing a toy pram. One of my friends (a woman) remarked that it was so nice to see a little girl pushing a pram, as it was something we didn’t see that often these days.

I was shocked but decided not to start up an argument with my friend. I couldn’t believe that my friend, a woman in her early 40s with a good job, could say such a thing. Unlike my friend, i am glad that little girls aren’t encouraged to push around toy prams anymore.

After the lunch, i started thinking about why my friend had said this, and i could think of a few reasons. She grew up with a toy pram and is feeling nostalgic of old fashioned toys, and her own childhood. She is single and childless but would perhaps like to have a family of her own, and therefore, she gets all excited at anything to do with babies (eg the toy pram). Finally, she might have thought that a little girl imitating her mother was a cute thing.

However, i think that giving toy prams to little girls is wrong because it teaches them from an early age that the role of a woman is to be a mother. I believe that being a mother can be one aspect of a woman’s life but this is in no way the only way to be a woman. As well, women who happen to be mothers are also many other things at the same time, eg they might be a scientist, they might be a carer, they might be a writer, or anything else they choose to define themselves as.

If i were to buy a toy to a little girl, i would buy them something like a small guitar or a game of Sudoku, but not a toy pram.

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I clearly remember when i first heard of the Spice Girls.

I was at Uni and i had spent the summer back at home with my mother. Neither of us listened to the radio as she liked 60s music and i was into the riot grrrl and female brit pop scenes.  

I went back to Uni and a girl i knew there had bought the single “wannabe” and played it at a party. She announced it was “the hit of the summer” but i hadn’t heard it before. I thought it sounded silly and we were too old for it (i was 21). As far as i was concerned, the Spice Girls chapter was closed in my mind.

Of course, the girls carried on churning hit single after hit single. A few months later - i still lived in France back then and they never became as popular there as they were in the UK - i became aware of their “girl power” marketing. I remember thinking it should be “women power”, because i thought that using the word “girl” is quite sexist (unless you refer to men as “boys” of course).

Shorlty after, i moved to London. I was working part time and wasted a lot of my time watching MTV. It was the first time i had cable TV and i guess it was all new and exciting to me. “Wannabe” played a lot on it and i found myself humming along to the tune. Was i damned if anybody knew it so i never admitted to anyone, including myself, that i liked the song.

I witnessed many discussions in the riot grrrl circles about the Spice Girls co-opting and watering down feminism. Hell, i even had a chat about this with Kathleen Hanna once.

But you know what? I think the Spice Girls did great things for girls. And i do mean girls, not women. I mean 6 to 12 years old girls. This was probably the first time they heard about any kind of feminist concept and in my book, this can only be a good thing. I think an 8 year old girl can do a lot worse than being a fan of the Spice Girls. In fact, it’s much healthier for her than being a fan of Boyzone.

The Spice Girls belong to the pre-teenage pop culture. As such, i respect what they do. I am glad, even, that they were around. And yes, i sometimes do listen to “wannabe” - it is after all a great pop tune, bar for the disappointing lyrics in the chorus.

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