Geri Halliwell updates Spice Girls’ “girl power” slogan to be more gender inclusive
Geri Halliwell-Horner has suggested an update to the Spice Girls‘ famous “girl power” slogan, in a bid to make it more gender inclusive.
The singer and author (aka Ginger Spice) recently spoke to a group of young people at a launch event for her latest children’s book, Rosie Frost: Ice on Fire, according to the Mail Online.
“‘Girl power’ was a sweet word for feminism,” she reportedly told the audience.
“But if you look in the dictionary and see what feminism means, it means the ‘equalisation between the sexes’.”
Halliwell-Horner continued: “Therefore, to me it’s irrelevant what your gender is, I want everyone to feel their power, so let’s evolve that word from ‘girl power’ to ‘inner power’.”
The pop star had previously spoken about wanting to give feminism a “kick up the arse” in the 1990s. Her former bandmate Mel C once described “girl power” as “being able to do things just as well as – or even better than – the boys, and be what we want to be”.
Mel B, meanwhile, said the slogan was about “spreading a positive vibe, kicking it for the girls… It’s not about picking up guys. We don’t need men to control our life. We control our lives anyway”.
As Glamour noted, Mel C explained at a ‘Women In Music’ event a few years ago that “girl power” had stemmed from the sexism the Spice Girls had faced early on in their career. “We were told girls don’t sell,” she said at the time.
“We would go into magazines and editors would tell us: ‘We can’t put you on the cover because we won’t sell enough magazines that week’. That really made us have a bee in our bonnets, and that’s when we started talking about ‘girl power’.”
She added: “We realised we had something really important to say. It gave us even more determination to succeed because we realised very early on, we weren’t just doing it for ourselves and each other, we were doing it for girls.’”
Back in 2019, former NME journalist El Hunt wrote about how the phrase empowered young Spice Girls fans by encouraging independence, confidence and strength: “By the mid-90s, ‘girl power’ – originally the name of one of Bikini Kill’s zines – had become a slogan in mainstream pop.
“For a lot of girls and women who weren’t following the riot grrrl movement, the Spice Girls brought the concept of ‘girl power’ to their attention; though admittedly, a few eyebrows were raised when Geri Halliwell cited Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration.”
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Spice Girls’ debut single ‘Wannabe’ in 2021, NME said that “the arrival of a new brand of ‘girl power'” from the group “opened the door for a new wave of bands to even the score within the (even more) male-dominated industry”.
“They burst onto the scene as feminists and declared that ‘girl power’ was cool, showing women they could be themselves and be at the top of your game,” the article added.
In 2016, Garbage’s Shirley Manson said: “I always hated the term ‘girl power’. At the time, I found the Spice Girls abhorrent […] It was pretending to be women taking control, but none of them took control, they weren’t writing, they weren’t producing, they weren’t playing… I found it a sham.”
Meanwhile, Halliwell-Horner spoke about the possibility of new music from the Spice Girls last month, saying: “If it felt relevant [then we would], but if not, either way is OK.”
The group last embarked on a reunion tour in 2019, but the line-up did not include Victoria Beckham. The last time they all performed together publicly was at the London Olympics’ closing ceremony in 2012.
However, rumours of another Spice Girls comeback gained more momentum last spring when Halliwell-Horner, Emma Bunton, Mel C, Mel B and Victoria Beckham gave a surprise performance of ‘Stop’ at the latter’s 50th birthday party.
This March, Halliwell-Horner teased that “there will be something” from the five-piece in the future. “My hope is we come back together as a collective,” she said. “It’s more respectful to come as one.” She also revealed that all five members currently shared a group chat.
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Tom Skinner
NME
