Kelly Cutrone is the founder of People’s Revolution, a branding, PR, and marketing firm. She is a highly successful businesswoman who hard-working and intelligent and considers herself “Mama Wolf.” Cutrone has become known and sometimes celebrated for her take-no -prisoners-attitude. She advocates a new platform of feminism as seen in the video and both challenges and supports the work of women in past feminist movements. However, her new platform for feminism is basically a recycling of old ideals. This is seen through her newest book, (with the help of Meredith Bryan) If You Have to Cry, Go Outside … And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You.
Cutrone challenges the notions of what it means to be a powerful woman today. This idea lays the groundwork of her new book, which she describes as a “kind of a pop culture fourth wave of feminism book” (Observer, 2009). It is a compilation of autobiographical work, self-help, and “feminist manifesto for a post-feminist audience” that creates an “unconventional brand of kick-ass, downtown, 1980s, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar estrogen-fueled feminism” (Tonic, 2010). She argues that women of this generation must take charge of their lives in order to succeed in a man’s world and not let anything stand in their way. She wants to empower women by encouraging them to examine their true identity and work hard to achieve their goals in life.
One key issue that Cutrone advocates is empowerment, reminiscent of Friedan. Cutrone acknowledges the success of the feminist movements, which have given women equal opportunities and she strives to work off of these previous notions to develop her own sense of empowerment for women of today. She writes:
“We all are given opportunities to find out what we are by figuring out who and what we’re not. I was taught [I should be] this girly, cheerleader, feminine, sexy, typical booby and legs [type girl] – revealing -- what we call a Cavalli girl or a Dolce girl in the fashion world. I didn’t know any better…My role model was you get married, you have three kids, your husband works, and you stay at home” (Out, 2010).
Cutrone argues that we as women have been programmed to act in a certain way. We were taught things like “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage” (YouTube, 2010). This was has been ingrained in our minds for a long time and at what point can we change this socially constructed image. Cutrone did not follow this route: “I realized I’m not that kind of person who can make those kind of commitments because to me they’re really outdated. I started searching for things internally and externally and recreating a life that held something more than the patriarchy” (Out, 2010).
Like Friedan, she wants to relay her experiences of nonconformity in this socially constructed society to other women. Friedan recognized the “problem of no name” and encouraged women to reach outside of marriage for fulfillment, demand political rights and flood the job market (Baumgardner and Richards, pg 153). Why should women settle for anything less and conform to notions of how society constructs their identity? Cutrone would admire Friedan’s insistence on getting women into the workforce because Cutrone seeks to change these stereotypes by advocating females to create a name for themselves. She asks women to examine their own lives and evaluate if they have achieved all they desire: “Are we living our lives to the fullest, are we questioning convention enough, or are we simply floating along like driftwood, allowing the current to carry us, trance-like toward death?” (Out, 2010). Friedan spearheaded the change for women to seek alternatives and not just submit to a life that they were traditionally told to follow.
Cutrone argues that women should not be submissive, which also follows women of the 3rd wave of feminism such as Levy in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. “Raunch culture” refers to the nature of mainstream female sexuality, which is about “endlessly reiterating one particular-and particularly commercial-shorthand for sexiness” (Levy, 30). Our culture depicts women as being constructed this way and that we should accept and embrace it. Traits such as being “boy crazy, shallow and directionless” (Tonic, 2010) are all reflective of how society stereotypes women. Cutrone writes, “I think that women have been taught to sit back, which I think is sad.” Women need to create a name for themselves by standing up for their rights and not perform in acts that sexually objectify themselves with the backing that they think it makes them successful. Cutrone, like Levy, would argue that a Female Chauvinist Pig is not empowered; rather, they are quite the opposite. However, even though she agrees with Levy, she is feeding into Levy’s analysis of a Female Chauvinist Pig. Her actions reflecting a “salty sage” and her “power bitch” attitude make her appear as a Female Chauvinist Pig. Although she may argue that she is partaking in the “raunch culture” for money and success to get to the top, she is nonetheless contradicting her recommendations and advice for young women in her book.
Media also plays a large role in our culture and influences the choices women make. “If you look at women on television, I mean even “Sex and the City,” it's like you know Sarah Jessica Parker's character's obsessed with Mr. Big and Kim Cattrall's getting banged 20 times. There aren't that many examples of powerful women on TV who work and make their own money who aren't obsessed with dudes” (Out, 2010). Many times, media portrays women as less than men, acting in interests for them. This is not the way we should be representing ourselves. As much as it creates great entertainment that we all love to watch, we must look at the deeper issues surrounding it. However, upon closer inspection, this deep issue we should investigate is the issue surrounding Cutrone in the media. She is hypocritical and the one reinforcing the stereotypes of women in media by having her own show, “Kell on Earth” on, of all channels, Bravo. She is working with a network predominantly known to create this exact type of negative stereotype for women, making her “new platform of feminism” seem much less about women's liberation than it appears on the surface. What is this really saying about her?
Cutrone departs from a brand of third wave feminism as seen in Manifesta, a book written by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. While this is only one particular stance in the 3rd wave of feminism, Cutrone in the same wave, advocates empowerment differently. Baumgardner and Richards provide a new voice of feminism, much different from previous feminist movements. Manifesta advocates the “Girlie Girl” (Baumgardner and Richards, 136). The “Girlie Girl” encompasses the “tabooed symbols of women’s feminine enculturation-Barbie dolls, makeup, fashion magazines, high hells-and says using them isn’t shorthand for ‘we’ve been duped’” (136). While Baumgardner and Richards assume power with femininity, Cutrone would disagree and states that reclaiming femininity is not the sight of power and women should not reinvest in things that have been traditionally devalued. To her, femininity is to do whatever it takes to get to the top. Being respected, she claims, “takes precedence over being ‘liked’” (Tonic, 2010). This may involve as Cutrone has coined, to be a “power bitch.” She stands in opposition to the culturally accepted notions of femininity. She is not the “glamour girl”—she does not wear makeup or high heels, is known to yell at her employees, curse in conferences, and looking like a mess when attending fancy fashion events. She runs her office like “a pack of wolves with strict pecking order” (Tonic, 2010). This is certainly not the image of the “Girlie Girl;” this is more like a Female Chauvinist Pig. These conflicting ideals are examples of current issues women are tackling in this third wave of feminism. However, one thing they can agree on is that women’s sexuality is still objectified and many women project themselves in certain ways for the male gaze.
Cutrone’s book indicates that feminism remains a key issue in society, but does not really reflect a new spin on feminism. This book begs the question as to where the feminist movement is going and what the next frontier will be. Despite recycling ideals from the 2nd and 3rd movements of feminism, there are many drawbacks to her argument. She is reaffirming and embodying the negative stereotypes and problems that women keep running into. With that in mind, are these new directions that she proposes in her book appropriate for this generation?
Work Cited
Baumgardner, Jennifer, Amy Richards. Manifesta: young women, feminism, and the future. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Neyfakh, Leon. “Kelly Cutrone Writing Girls' Guide to Life and Power For HarperCollins .” New York Observer. 2009.http://www.observer.com/2009/media/kelly-cutrone-writing-girls-guide-life-and-power-harpercollins>.
Pope, Carol. “Kelly Cutrone: Burning in Kell Fire.” Out. 2010.http://www.out.com/detail.asp?id=26457>.
Worland, Darragh. “Take Notice Ladies.” Tonic. 2010.http://www.tonic.com/column/raves/kelly-cutrone-if-you-have-to-cry-go-outside/>.
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