Sara Stojchevska

Krista Johansson
May 10, 2016

Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism

Work - Rihanna
21st century. Age of female empowerment. Feminists. Expressing female sexuality. Daring to be sexy.

Rihanna in her video Work 1 is boldly demonstrating her sexuality and sensuality, dressed in

very feminine, revealing clothes and dancing provocatively on another male shows how women are getting
comfortable in their own skin and can find empowerment in being feminine.

Rihanna. "Work." Music Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1UzIK-flA.

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Since the 80s and the term power

dressing2 , women have thought that they have

to compete with men and dress more
professionally in order to be taken seriously.
The traits that are viewed as feminine are
considered to be inferior to those that are
masculine. We can even see some examples in
fashion like Chanel coming out with the tweed
suit in the 30s saying that the female suit is a
Coco Chanel and Romy
Schneider in tweed suits.

translation from the powerful male suit.

Le Smoking by YSL, 1966

Also we have YSL coming out with the le

smoking in the 60s blurring the lines between

gender roles. From these fashion staples we can conclude that not only the designers, but the whole
community went along with the idea that women need to aspire to be on the same level as men, which in
my opinion is totally wrong and does not represent feminism at all. We need to bring back the feminine
into feminism. Women are not men and are never going to be. Just like cats are not dogs and vice versa.
Each have intrinsic characteristics that are very important yet very
different and that is totally normal and should be accepted rather
than shamed. A very good depiction of what was talked about is
shown in the most recent video from Jennifer Lopez called Aint
your mama3 inspired by the TV show Mad Men and other
situations that might have occurred in the 50s, 60s.

In the past decades, we can understand from Brewards

book Fashion that the fashionable consumer looked to the avantgarde for visual inspiration rather than the refined commercial

Aint your Mama - Jennifer Lopez

content of the traditional fashion plate4. This is still very important

today where most young people pull inspiration from videos or celebrities they see on the TV and
thankfully famous female figures nowadays are wearing more feminine clothing. They tend to accentuate
their figure-curves-assets with their dress-fashion-style. We are changing the subject formation and in a
2

Power dressing is a fashion style that enables women to establish their authority in a professional and political
environment traditionally dominated by men.
3

Lopez, Jennifer. Ain't Your Mama. Music Video. Sony, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgmx7z49OEk

Breward, Christopher. Fashion . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 212.

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good way since we are aware of what is happening and are going against the tide of delusion. Young
women are understanding that femininity is a secret weapon that we possess and we are owning it.

This topic can also be easily tied to gender binary oppositions and according to Susan Kaiser

binary systems are not natural; rather, they are arbitrary and vary by time and space, history and
culture5. What Kaiser is trying to say is that obvious binary oppositions - for example men and women, is
not a natural system. While we can agree that these oppositions vary by certain factors, we can also argue
that the gist of Kaisers message is to merge everything into one category which is basically denying our
characterizing features of one another that differentiate us and make us unique.

So going back to the video Work, it should serve as a very strong and empowering video to

women because it should make us understand the power that we can have over men and how we can rise
to the top. Although some might argue as it being unfair, we could only say the opposite because it is
natural to feel attraction. It is a human urge and craving and although femininity is not defined by gender,
age, ethnicity or any other binaries, femininity is the attitude one adopts as their outlook on how they view
themselves and how they want to be perceived. Rihanna is opening our eyes and showing us how with her
dance and inviting movement she lures Drake in and puts a spell on him. The expressions on his face are

very obvious and we can see that for ourselves.

Kaiser, Susan B. Fashion and Cultural Studies. London: Berg, 2012, p. 121

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All in all, the 21st century is an age of empowerment and acceptance

of femininity, hence femininity needs to be brought back into feminism since

that is what most of the word is made up of anyway. We have been hiding
from femininity for so long because certain designers and social norms made
by men have shifted us into a wrong direction. We should open our eyes and
look at the music videos, articles and movements that are coming out recently
and celebrate femininity as part of us rather than suppressing it. Bring back
femininity into feminism.

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