Musings on Hyperfemininity: The Y2K Aesthetic, Queer Feminism, and The Female Gaze
An essay
Last week, watching Jawbreaker for the millionth time and listening to Blaque between a That’s So Raven binge— it occurred to me that Y2K was still my favorite cultural era. Not only because it was the golden epoch for rom-coms, clumsy technology, and my own childhood nostalgia; but a fashion/beauty aesthetic that interrogates the limits of gender expression and feminism.
After all, Y2k style had the origins of ‘90s Black Girl “camp” with a futuristic twist. It was bubblegum pink and butterfly clips, body glitter, velour tracksuits, and rhinestones galore. It was low rise jeans and exposed thongs, jersey dresses, sky-high ponytails, and graffiti crop tops. And while other hyperfemme aesthetics (kinderwhore of the 90’s, Barbiecore, freaknik, coquette) remain countercultural or niche, Y2K went mainstream, selling the spectacle of girliness in every mall in America.
And at its height, the kitschiness of Y2K could even twist elitist notions of “elegance”, or “tastefulness”, by being ostensibly “cheap” and blingy.
Of course, none of this was inherently subversive.
Y2K ideals were still thin and white, in the era of long taut torsos and bottle blonde hair. And the media was determined to sell us 3rd wave feminism in pink “Girl Power” packaging. But for my generation, Y2K inadvertently forged a powerful reckoning with the politics of hyperfemininity, resurfacing now in the TikTok discourse of Gen Z.
For one thing, the misogynistic backlash to high-femme looks reveal the paradoxical nature of gender performance. Under patriarchy, heteronormative femininity requires women to put forth effort but also restraint. It should be beneficial to men, but never a hindrance. It should not impede on his schedule, cost too much of his money, slow him down in stride, or inconvenience his impulsive sexual needs. The labor of hetero-femininity should remain invisible and effortless; with aesthetics he can logically trace to the merit of his own status.
But hyperfemininity is unapologetically high maintenance, inherently disruptive, and gleefully conspicuous. It is a badge of femme labor pinned to the chest, unconcerned with obscuring the hours of planning and process, or decoding its conclusion for male comfort.
That is, in a sense, the real potential for molding a colloquial Female Gaze1 or Femme perspective. Or in wearing outfits and making references men "don't get" (because they never have to.) It is to use culture and aesthetics to communicate these intricacies amongst each other, to give a gendered wink, to build a temporary fortress within a man's world.
Though what gets lost in the cishet side of the Female Gaze dialogue is the inherent queerness of hyperfemininity.2 Women whose particular gender performance aims to attract other women, lesbians, sapphics, and femmes, while discarding cishet men altogether.
It is the (white) cishet feminist tendency to instigate the subversion of the Male Gaze through the lens of defeminization and desexualization. They forget other "gazes" can (or should) exist. More than that, this view of feminist reclamation filters every aesthetic choice women make through the binary of "agency" or "male approval", which only re-centers the Male Gaze as the site of validity. It is the job of patriarchy after all, to force women to always choose between two things; forfeiting one illusory freedom for another.
Through the same rigid model, uncritical feminism views the explicitly sexual aspects of hyperfemininity as more oppressive or collusive.
But the goal of freedom was never to compulsively flee from sexualization—dehumanizing in itself—but to be seen as sexual beyond objectification, as men have space to be all of the time. This is perhaps the power of cleavage at an academic conference, or short-shorts at a preschool drop-off: forcing the public to contend with our sexuality and seriousness, our fuckability and functionality, re-mapping desirability onto motherhood, intellect, autonomy, and political threat.
The queer lens of Y2K and other high-femme aesthetics remind us that gender neutrality is not the only way to challenge patriarchy. That a tall bi-sexual woman can sometimes wear tall shoes For The Girls because her right to take up space intimidates men. Or Beyoncé might move her tribute to black queer culture to a World Tour stage, donning flamboyance, creative genius, sex appeal, and power. Refusing to relinquish any of it.
Media that helped shape my thinking around this below, in addition to bellhook’s writings on black/queer gaze in art/film and Audre Lorde (in general).
Inherent queerness:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejfYa9/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ej6KHj/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejRdf7/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejN4Vr/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ej5dUv/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejRLAH/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejS6vB/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejUySE/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ejjSgQ/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8eMV965/
so very well said!! wonderful reminder that instead of looking at gender neutrality as the only way to avoid the Male Gaze and its echoing consequences in the subconscious of women, we should also redefine the edges and nuances of desirability in places where the Male Gaze tells us it doesn’t exist, and find femininity where we are told it’s not desirable.
You are the reason why we need femme voices!!!
"It is the (white) cishet feminist tendency to instigate the subversion of the Male Gaze through the lens of defeminization and desexualization." And not only that, but they misinterpret the Male Gaze as something that you are able to escape in the first place, the Male Gaze was a term coined in order to critique the very inner surveillance women feel about how they're being perceived by men. Framing oneself as a defeminized or desexualized version does nothing but legitimize the Male Gaze. In the contemporary notion through the Male Gaze, it's almost like being androgynous (in a male leaning way, male generic and all) is what is supposed to signify that one is more respectable.
Sorry if my thoughts are a bit disjointed lol but I absolutely adore your work! P.S. Jawbreaker is one of my favorite movies ;)