Fifty years ago, Virginia Slims cigarettes were marketed to women with the tagline: "You've come a long way, baby."
Seen a half-century later, the condescending male tone is obvious. Ladies, you've come so far that you can even have your own cigarettes because, God forbid, you can't smoke Marlboros because that's a man's cigarette and no matter how far you've come or will go into the future, you'll always be baby to us.
Yet the marketing campaign was a hit, attracting significant sales among female smokers.
That's because many women loved the idea of a long, narrow cigarette as a fashion accessory, appreciated a product geared for them alone and accepted the obvious truth of the marketing message. Ladies, we've come so far that we can buy our own cigarettes because no self-respecting woman wants to smoke Marlboros anyway and all of us still yearn to be a special man's baby, just like in all the love songs.
A half-century later, these tensions around femininity and who defines it remain firmly entrenched, even as the definitions have expanded.
At the box office, Wonder Woman dominated the year. Besides being an entertaining superhero popcorn movie about goodness and loyalty defeating evil, the film proudly wore its politics regarding women holding physical and emotional power without losing their femininity, without needing to become a man.
In both the comic book and the film, Diana is a warrior woman, raised on Paradise Island in a culture that glorifies violence and conflict, where enduring peace is impossible without having to fight for it. This is where the messages underlying Wonder Woman - the movie and the character - start to contradict each other. Is she merely the latest "you've come a long way, baby?" female character, incomplete without the love of a good man, or is she a modern depiction of a uniquely female strength, one allowed to be the smartest and strongest among men?
The Wonder Woman movie's popularity is due the fact it works both ways, appealing both to those with more traditional and fixed views of gender and those who see both femininity and masculinity as more flexible and able to overlap.
Along with her strength, one of the greatest weapons at Wonder Woman's command is that magic lasso attached to her hip, making the truth a devastating tool to overcome power. In recent weeks, women in real life have been expressing that exact same truth to challenge power like never before.
The long and growing line of men who have seen their careers destroyed and reputations crushed by multiple allegations of sexual conduct against women - as well as girls and boys in some cases - in the last few months shows that male power and privilege is not absolute. It also demonstrates that female strength can be expressed through the courage and the integrity of the whistleblower to call truth to power, to shine a light on corruption and wrongdoing.
But let's not get too excited about the prospect of a Hollywood popcorn movie and the downfall of a handful of dirty old men sparking instant, widespread change.
For some men and women, the current revelations aren't about gender at all. Instead, they confirm a widely-held cynicism that wealth and power is only attained through cutthroat treachery. Through that lens, what is happening at the moment is simply a long overdue housecleaning that will never be finished.
And for others, it is a time to cry about reverse discrimination, demanding powerful women also be held accountable for their abuse of men and women.
In response to Kathi Travers's column last week on this topic, one person commented on the Citizen's website that it's the same as it's always been, that "men use power to get sex and women use sex to get power."
What an elegantly worded piece of trash.
As if sex, power and gender could ever be reduced to mere transactions, momentary truces in an endless war for dominance.
A man who uses power to get sex is simply revealing his inability to earn sexual consent. A woman who uses sex to get power is simply revealing her inability to earn consent to wield power. Intelligence, respect and collaboration earns both men and women sex, power and consent, while only a fool denies the path remains more difficult and hazardous for women.
On the screen, in the news and in our lives, women are exerting power, both in familiar (that is, masculine) ways and in new and unique (that is, feminine) forms, often intermingling the two.
It shouldn't take a two-hour action movie or the latest revelations from the victims of sexual abuse to remind us that wonder women are everywhere, rightfully expressing femininity and power on their own terms, not through the male lens.
"Nobody puts Baby in the corner," as Johnny wisely informs Baby's father near the end of Dirty Dancing.
She's come a long way.
She'll decide which way she's going next.
She'll decide how far she'll go.
And she alone will decide who or when anyone calls her "baby."
