https://thecritic.co.uk/the-good-side-of-girl-power/

Not that the Girl Power of the nineties ever felt like much of a feminist force to be reckoned with. On the contrary, as several older feminists pointed out at the time, it in many ways epitomised third-wave feminism’s dropping of the ball. Rather than continue the rebellion, it opted for adaptation — at best, a watering down of key feminist principles (sisterhood, sexual autonomy, female self-assertion), at worst, a reframing of the anti-feminist backlash of Loaded and ladettism as a newer, better, more “palatable” form of feminism. You get something sweeter, as Horner herself suggests, when you replace the word “woman” with “girl” (especially if the “girls” are women in their twenties, their own names replaced by cutesy epithets such as Baby, Ginger, Sporty, Posh and Scary).

Does it matter, then, if the term “Girl Power” dies a death? If the reason for this were because, as feminism goes, it was a pretty rubbish, often counter-productive form, I’d say it didn’t. If the reckoning we were having today involved saying that actually — as predicted at the time in books such as Overloaded and Female Chauvinist Pigs — this kind of “feminism” was paving the way for the ultra-misogyny of the porn age, that would be one thing. If what was under attack were the worst aspects of nineties “feminism” — the infantilisation of women, the trivialising of sexual objectification, the reduction of female experience to short skirts and pillow fights — I would be happy to see it go.

Following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of women, we are starting to see organisations respond by deciding it is better to have nothing at all for women, if “women” doesn’t mean everyone. Now it seems we’re not even allowed feminism in its crappest form. At least girls of my generation were told that, in theory, you can have things which are just for you, your female friends, maybe even your mum, too. What do today’s girls have? The sense that perhaps even being a girl is problematic (how dare you be you without giving someone else a go?).