So here's what it was like being part of the girl power movement.
So Girl Power was a slogan
that was originally created by Bikini Kill in 1991.
They're a punk band of women, and it's essentially
to celebrate women's empowerment.
It was sort of a phenomenon when I was growing up
about feeling seen as a girl, as a young girl.
I ended up becoming a part of that in a big way
and learning a lot about feminism and the principles of feminism,
and then ending up going to a women's college.
There’s a lot to unpack there.
So when I was growing up, the most crystallized versions of girl
power that I saw were Powerpuff Girls and the Spice Girls.
As both of their names
sort of encapsulate, there's a female identity in there.
I remember when I was 14, my first album was no doubt,
and I instantly fell in love with Gwen Stefani with
I'm just a girl.
That was my first CD, and it was sort of like feeling
very important to me to be a part of this narrative, and I didn't know why.
So little by little.
Like, as I was getting older and in puberty, I was sort of seeing,
you know, from the time I was twelve, these visions
of emboldened women wearing midriff, you know,
showing tops and these messages of like, I can do
whatever a guy can do or I can be myself, essentially.
And so girl power was used more and more
in the media and stuff like that, and it was never negative.
People never thought of girl power as being something negative.
I don't ever remember people being like, Oof, girl power.
That's horrible.
In fact, it was.
It was just something
that was kind of almost rammed down my throat at a young age.
I feel like.
And I kind of had to either be cool and like,
understand it quickly and kind of want to be it or kind of be
left out.
So I kind of felt like I was either
having to join this girl power movement
or I was going to be left out of something big, right?
Like, you didn't want to deny the idea of being a part of the girl power.
That's not a bad thing. It was all very positive.
What happened was, is you know, I was always cast in things
that were very female focused because the network
I was on had a demographic that was mostly female.
It was overwhelmingly female.
And I think they were seeing that more and more.
And they've always struggled with that.
But to a certain degree, they had to accept it.
I was essentially in the pilot
of Even Stevens. I was like, not as big of a character.
And then when they did the test research,
they realized that
the female demo was important and they didn't have like
a Lizzie McGuire yet.
So they kind of bumped me up to co-star with Shia.
And so that's why it was more like our show as siblings.
And they renamed it and everything,
all about sibling rivalry and so that we could be
more like on the same level.
I was sort of represented as this girl power centric character
in Even Stevens, and then it kind of bled into my casting in general.
Every character that I took
and everybody is always telling me like,
Oh, you know, you shaped my childhood in such a positive way.
And like, I was able to do so much because of this girl power
narrative that I essentially embodied for a lot of tween girls.
And all the while, you know,
we have all these other images of the Spice Girls
and Gwen Stefani and some of it was actually being
taken into a different direction and exploited in a weird way.
Yeah, I mean, you'd like to think that people like the Britney
and in the Paris's were trying to use their bodies
in a way that was almost like empowering.
But I think in the end, they ended up being a little bit
exploited by the people that were around them, right?
Like in general, your brand can get away from you
even if you're a male.
That's kind of what happens with with their images.
I don't know. I've been watching
I've been watching the new Sex and the City show.
I remember growing up and watching that show in my later teens
and really, really connecting to it, and there being like,
Oh, are you a Miranda?
A Carrie a Samantha or Charlotte? With the girl power movement.
There also became this like conversation
directly with femininity and what it meant to be feminine
and sort of stereotype yourself archetypes archetypes in femininity.
Are you, Charlotte?
Are you the prissy, you know, feminine one?
Are you, Miranda?
The more like type a super hardworking, opinionated one?
Are you the Samantha one who was totally sex positive
and that was extremely cutting edge for people?
Or are you this like amalgamation of all of them, which is like Carrie
sort of in her own unique way, her own person.
Growing up that was a part of that girl power
initiative as I was getting older and sort of seeing that.
And it is interesting to watch the new show
because they're all in their fifties and maybe sixties and watching
how they're interacting with the world in the current state of events.
It's kind of fascinating to see
because I myself am sort of engaging with the past,
and I have a lot of things that I've experienced
as a girl growing up in the girl power generation.
And so Kim Possible was obviously a very girl power centric character
and a huge archetype for a lot of girls like tweens growing up.
She was in charge and the guy was the sidekick.
So like, that was a big deal right off the bat.
So she was sort of trailblazing in the sort of superhero world.
So I kind of decided that I was fully invested in this narrative.
That girl power was a part of who I was as a person,
not just as a casting.
I fully went into a woman's college
and in my real life I was like, I am all about women’s
rights and all about what it means to be a feminist.
So when I entered into
this environment of this girl
power world, it was really interesting
about the dynamics of what girl power was when I initially started.
And a lot of the female students that were at the Columbia College
would come over to Barnard and like, be friendly with people from Barnard.
And they'd be like, Wow, it's such a safe space here.
I really like the vibe here.
You know, going to a girls college is very inclusive,
but for females, for women.
In fact, at the school that I went to,
they actually sent a lot of Orthodox women.
It was a very safe environment for them to be among other women,
and there was a sort of a whole community
of other Orthodox young men at the Columbia College.
And so they were able to fraternize in sort of a safe place.
Anyway, I digress.
Feminism was a word that I learned and sort of unpacked for myself
over those years and then by the time I went back to college,
when I was like 26, feminism had changed.
And it was on its way, sort of out.
I think there was like a topic of like postmodern feminism
and like what that meant for feminism
and its inclusion of trans people and like all that stuff.
It became more of an issue because we actually had trans
students in the class, really amazing students,
because they were able to kind of voice their opinions.
And so I think that was like an initial topic.
It was starting to kind of percolate like we're talking
that was almost like nine or ten years ago.
The conversation of what it means to be a feminist has changed
drastically.
I made a comment on Tik Tok the other day
and I said, Oh, you know, I'm so happy to be on feminist Tik Tok.
And wow, that got some hate.
The feminist movement is dead
and like, you know, people have, like, ruined it.
Then there's as many people that I can almost guarantee
you are women my age.
Represented on
Tick Tock Moms and sort of like people that grew up in this time frame
and they're like, Wait a minute.
No feminism is still very valid, and it still represents
protecting somebody's rights like women's rights.
It's tricky,
like how do you see something that's so prevalent
and so positive for so long and then kind of divorce yourself from it?
I don't think you fully can.
But what I think you can do is not be angry at it.
Feminism didn't mean to hurt anybody.
It just didn't identify with everyone.
And that was the biggest problem.
I have two daughters.
Should I teach them about girl power?
Should I even teach them the word feminism?
I'm going to have to do more research
because this is going to be something that is a continued conversation.
In the end, I think that being a part of the girl power movement was positive.
I do think that sort of having this legacy
of being these like very empowered women
through my characters that people know is something
that I can continue to be proud of.
And can I just say, hey, you know, to my daughters, like
There’s another thing that my daughters do that is super sweet.
The avatar that I've saved on our Disney Plus account is Kim
Possible, and my daughters are now five and about to turn three.
And they like to say that mommy is Kim Possible and mommy can do anything.
And like that is something that I'm super proud of.
That gives me a lot of motivation on a daily basis
to be a better person, to try harder to show up for my kids.
I don't think that having a legacy of empowerment
is something that you should be afraid of.
That is divisive in nature to be disempowered
by something that once empowered you.
If it wasn't hurting anyone, philosophies can coexist
and conversations can be expanded and philosophies can grow.
They can always be more inclusive, and I believe in reaching
across the aisle to make the world a better place for everybody.