“Strength and courage in a wonderbra”: Femininity, drag, and the spice girls

Maayan Padan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Spice Girls were a unique pop phenomenon, promoting feminist ideology while being dismissed as proponents of postfeminism and positioned as collaborators with the patriarchy. Drawing on music videos the band released during 1997, this article suggests that the band’s queer choices, regarding the spice personas the band adopted, were overlooked. This article explores the spice personas presentation of femme embodiments using drag: subverting notions of femininity as natural and monolithic, and resisting femininity as ubiquitously disempowering. By highlighting the heterosexual bias and anti-sex undertones in postfeminism, this analysis generates a multifaceted reading of popular femme performances as female-to-femme drag.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1324-1338
Number of pages15
JournalSexualities
Volume27
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2024
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author received a scholarship from the department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to conduct this research.

FundersFunder number
department of Politics

    Keywords

    • Spice girls
    • drag
    • femme embodiment
    • femme theory
    • postfeminism

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of '“Strength and courage in a wonderbra”: Femininity, drag, and the spice girls'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this