Commodified Agents and Empowered Girls: Consuming and Producing Feminism

During the 1990s, popular discourse shifted toward what some might consider “pro-girl” rhetoric. At the same time, in the academy as well as among feminist activists, women began talking about a shift in feminist consciousness. Out of this intellectual and activist form of feminism emerged one of many young feminist movements, Riot Grrrl. While this movement might have pushed for girls to be powerful, this push was very different from the idea of girl power being popularized by media. This article examines the notion of empowerment as it relates to feminist agency. Drawing from theoretical ideas in both political economy and feminism, this article uses commodification as an entry point to examine pro-girl rhetoric as it is articulated in popular and feminist discourses. As this article suggests, commodification demonstrates how not all pro-girl rhetoric offers an opportunity for girls to transcend individual consumption to enact collective change in social relations.