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

Maayan Padan

doi:10.1177/13634607231152600

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

Maayan Padan

The Academic Pilot Course Program

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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 language	English
Journal	Sexualities
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231152600
State	Accepted/In press - 1 Jan 2023

Keywords

Spice girls
drag
femme embodiment
femme theory
postfeminism

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Gender Studies
Anthropology

Access to Document

10.1177/13634607231152600

Cite this

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

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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