Girl Power, Platform Shoes and a Hairbrush Microphone

I blame the Spice Girls for quite a lot of things.

My early attempts at dancing, for starters. An unfortunate belief that platform shoes were practical footwear, and the conviction that five women shouting about Girl Power could probably sort out most of the world’s problems before teatime.

Looking back, I think they might have been onto something.

Tomorrow is International Day of the Girl, and it’s got me thinking about growing up with the Spice Girls. I was only a toddler when Wannabe came out, but their music was everywhere throughout my childhood. By the time I was old enough to understand what Girl Power meant, I’d already spent years singing into a hairbrush and deciding which Spice Girl I wanted to be.

Usually Baby Spice, although I occasionally fancied being Ginger because she seemed capable of causing absolute chaos and getting away with it.

There was something wonderfully ridiculous about five women with completely different personalities becoming such an enormous part of popular culture. Sporty, Scary, Baby, Ginger and Posh. They weren’t presented as five identical women trying to squeeze into the same mould. They were loud, funny, ambitious, glamorous, athletic, mischievous and, occasionally, spectacularly badly dressed.

And we loved them.

I remember the excitement of their music, the posters, the dance routines and the arguments about who got to be which Spice Girl. Being a girl suddenly seemed like something worth making an enormous fuss about.

Not because boys were somehow less important, but because here were five women making it perfectly clear that girls didn’t have to sit quietly in the corner waiting to be invited into the conversation.

They could start the conversation.

Preferably at full volume, wearing enormous shoes.

Of course, being a grown woman has taught me that Girl Power is rather more complicated than singing into a hairbrush. Nobody warned me that female independence would involve paying council tax, remembering dental appointments and spending an unreasonable amount of time wondering whether the washing machine had finished.

I distinctly remember being promised that I could have it all.

Nobody mentioned that I’d have to organise it all as well.

But I do think the Spice Girls changed something important.

They didn’t invent women’s independence, and generations of women had been fighting for equality long before anybody put on a Union Jack dress. Yet they brought a message of female friendship, confidence and ambition into ordinary homes in a way that felt exciting rather than like a lecture.

They made being outspoken look fun.

They made different personalities something to celebrate.

And they helped popularise the idea that girls could support one another without constantly competing for approval.

That mattered to me.

It still does.

Now I’ve got a daughter and a son of my own, I find myself thinking about what those messages mean for the next generation.

My daughter is growing up with opportunities that women before her helped create. I want her to know she can be ambitious, clever, funny, difficult, determined or wonderfully eccentric without believing she has somehow failed to behave like a proper girl.

And I want my son to grow up understanding that a confident woman isn’t somebody to fear, control or dismiss.

She’s simply somebody who knows her own mind.

Admittedly, both children are currently more interested in negotiating whose turn it is to choose what’s on the television, so the feminist revolution in our living room is progressing at a fairly modest pace.

But we’ll get there.

Naturism has added another dimension to how I understand Girl Power.

When I was younger, confidence seemed to involve looking fabulous, wearing the right clothes and being able to dance without resembling a wardrobe falling downstairs.

These days, I find confidence in much quieter things.

Being comfortable in my own body. Having an opinion. Knowing when to say no. Not feeling obliged to look a particular way to deserve respect.

At home, being naked is simply how I live.

There’s no performance involved and certainly no need to resemble a pop star.

Which is fortunate, because my current hairstyle suggests I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge.

I think the real strength of Girl Power was never supposed to be about everybody becoming famous, glamorous or extraordinarily successful.

It was about girls recognising that their voices mattered.

And that’s something we should still be talking about.

International Day of the Girl reminds us that girls around the world continue to face barriers to education, safety, opportunity and independence. A catchy pop song cannot solve those problems, but changing the expectations we place on girls is part of creating a better future.

The Spice Girls helped make those conversations accessible to a generation of young girls who might otherwise never have thought much about equality.

They made us laugh, dance and imagine possibilities.

And perhaps, in their own wonderfully chaotic way, they encouraged some of us to grow into women who are a little less willing to apologise for being ourselves.

That’s certainly something I recognise in the philosophy of Naturism Wales.

Every Body Matters isn’t about looking like a particular kind of woman or fitting somebody else’s idea of what femininity should be. It’s about belonging, equality and recognising the value of people as individuals.

I don’t want my daughter growing up believing she has to be beautiful before she can be heard.

I don’t want my son growing up believing a woman’s value is measured by how attractive he finds her.

And I don’t want either of them thinking that being different means being less.

If the Spice Girls taught me anything, it’s that five very different women can stand together, make an extraordinary amount of noise and change the conversation.

Not a bad lesson to carry into adulthood.

Although I’m slightly disappointed that nobody has yet invented platform shoes suitable for doing the weekly shop.

Perhaps that’s the next great challenge for women’s liberation.

In the meantime, I might introduce my daughter to a little Wannabe.

I’ll supply the hairbrush microphones.

She can choose whichever Spice Girl she likes.

And if my son wants to join in, he can be whoever he wants too.

So, who was your favourite Spice Girl, and do you think Girl Power really changed what girls believed was possible?