Tracy Flick vs. Elle Woods

To illustrate the powerplayer/sex kitten divide, I've chosen two blonde prototypes of the female superpower archetype, both played by Reese Witherspoon. First, we have Tracey Flick from the film Election. She is, simply put, out to kill. This girl will win her bid for high school presidency at any cost.

Second, Elle Woods, equally successful in the end, but patronized and parodied, while generally acknowledged as beautiful.

Tracy seems almost asexual in her turtleneck sweaters and perpetual frown (although the viewers know this masks a recent affair with a married man.) Elle shamelessly plays up her physical gifts, sending law school admissions a video of herself in the pool wearing a bikini in lieu of an application. (She gets in, natch.)

What do the two sides of Reese tell us about powerful women in media culture? Frankly, ladies, we can't have it both ways. Either you're the cold, manipulative, competitive Tracy Flick or you're the perpetually sweet, slightly dumb, certainly inoffensive Elle Woods. Both get to be powerful, and both get what they want, but the trade-off, of course, is in popularity. The message: it's okay to be successful and maybe beautiful as long as you're also unfailingly nice and probably a little bit dumb, so as not to offend anyone, sweetie.

This delicate balance between class president and homecoming queen is rarely walked by men. They, of course, are sexy BECAUSE they are powerful, not despite being powerful; therefore, "masculine" elements of power, being assertive, decisive, even abrupt, are okay for men, but threatening when co-opted by women.

(To illustrate this point, how often have you witnessed the following conversation circles among groups of women: "What do you want to do?..... "I don't care. I mean, I sort of like movies, yeah movies are okay....I mean, I don't care. What do you want to do? I'll do whatever you want...") I know women who would rather talk circles for hours than risk seeming like they had an opinion contrary to any other member of their friend group.

When I lived in South Dakota, the number one adjective used to describe me was "intimidating." Even strangers at dive bars would level this claim at me (although it was sort of surprising they knew a five-syllable word.) As an assertive pro-choice feminist in an oppressively red state, I probably did seem sort of scary and maybe a little bit dangerous. It bothered me at the time, but I have a better perspective now on why they were mistaken. I think the double-Reese dichotomy is false. We've been trained to identify powerful, successful women as bitches, unless the success is tempered with a degree of sweetness, even to strangers, even when unwarranted.
We're Just Not That Into You Lesson: We don't need to be all things to all people. Embrace both your inner class president and class homecoming queen when appropriate. Don't hide in practice the very gifts that brought success in the first place. We're powerful because of the gifts that we embrace, not the attributes we shun.