Can women really have it all?: the post-feminist narratives at the heart of the 2000s chick-flick boom

Posted On March 20, 2025March 20, 2025

During the late 1990s and 2000s, a cinematic trend emerged that allowed young women to take centre stage: the ‘chick flick’. Often used as a dismissive term, these films have been viewed by many as fluffy, hollow stories for women—lacking the depth or substance to be considered essential viewing. ‘Chick flicks’—typically female-led comedies about romance and friendship—occupy an interesting space in cinema history. More complex, though, is their place within the feminist cinema canon.

Several years after the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, many people were of the belief that rights for women had been achieved, that women ‘could have it all’ (whatever that means), and that they were now free to be sexually-liberated career women who could afford apartments in the big city. This idea is known as post-feminism, a mode of thinking that was incredibly popular during this ‘chick flick’ boom, and its effect can be seen in many of these shows and films, often unconsciously making its way into storylines and presenting a distorted view of the realities of womanhood – or perhaps simply a one-dimensional view that excluded anyone who wasn’t a middle-class, straight, white woman.

Beloved pieces of media like Sex and the City, The Devil Wears Prada, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, 13 Going on 30, and Confessions of a Shopaholic all bear the influence of the postfeminist era, although they often highlight the fact that the world these characters were living in was still in dire need of active feminist action. These protagonists, from Carrie Bradshaw to Jenna Rink, are all beautiful white women with jobs in areas like fashion or journalism who live independently in New York. Their lives encapsulate a romanticised dream of early 2000s cosmopolitan and capitalistic bliss, with constant shopping trips, cocktail events, fashion shows, and dinners at fancy restaurants defining much of their time when they’re not working.

It isn’t hard to fall in love with the atmosphere crafted by these films, where characters hop from lunch with their friends (wearing the latest Prada dress, no less) to Dior for a quick browse through the rails before swinging by the hottest new club in town for VIP treatment, of course. You can’t help wanting to live in their worlds; their careers are aspirational, friendship is celebrated, and the quest for romance is exciting as much as it appears draining. 

In these post-feminist rom-coms, sexual liberation is of significant emphasis, as demonstrated by the likes of the women in SATC, who aren’t afraid to sleep with a new man each episode or discuss their conquests openly with one another. The show was revolutionary, becoming one of the first proper examples of a series truly opening up a discussion surrounding female sexuality and allowing women watching at home to feel understood, empowered, and represented. Finally, women could tune into a show that debated the ethics of monogamy, fuck buddies, cheating, or in some cases, abortion, interracial relationships, mental health issues, infertility, and illness.

While SATC handled many topics clumsily—there’s no denying that—the show felt like a godsend for countless viewers, and its influence on modern media, like Gossip Girl or Girls, is evidently clear. SATC is heralded as a feminist work of television, and while in many ways it is, it certainly encapsulates many of the postfeminist era’s issues, as evidenced by the fact that when we look back at the show now, we can’t help but notice various elements that have aged terribly. 

The series is overwhelmingly white, for starters, with the show proposing a world where only a certain kind of woman can seemingly ‘have it all’. This lack of diversity reflects the era’s ignorance towards intersectional issues – something that post-feminists turned a blind eye to. In the rom-coms of this era, black, queer, or disabled characters are largely nowhere to be seen, leaving us to wonder if women who didn’t fit the mould exemplified by the characters in SATC or The Devil Wears Prada could also achieve the same opportunities.

Bisexuality and transgender people act as punchlines in SATC, while in How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, various sexist and fatphobic comments are espoused without criticism, with these pieces of media depicting a world where only some women are allowed ultimate freedom to exist. What’s more, these films and shows often rely heavily on the quest for male validation and settling down into a heteronormative nuclear relationship. Sure, it’s not un-feminist to want companionship and a relationship with a man – that would be absurd – but in many of these titles, the protagonists neglect vital aspects of their lives, including friendships, career opportunities, and independence, in the hopes of attracting their ideal man.

These pieces of media reflect the fact that post-feminism is really just a myth. The women in these movies and shows still face gender-based discrimination, and they often struggle to juggle various elements of their lives that men wouldn’t have to think twice about, like Miranda in SATC, who tries to balance single motherhood and her job as a lawyer. With their lack of intersectionality and perpetuation of the idea that if you just persevere and harness a strong sense of individual strength, you’ll be able to overcome any issues you might face (which, in reality, are actually systemic barriers), these rom-coms exist in a world that is ultimately unsustainable and unfulfilling.

The fact that all of the protagonists in the aforementioned films and series find themselves miserable with certain aspects of their lives is plain evidence that the era’s belief in post-feminism was actually rather regressive. Out in the real world, the media was shaming female celebrities for every ‘wrong’ move, while rates of gender-based imbalances in the workplace, sexual assault statistics, and casual misogyny were continuously increasing.

When we revisit these rom-coms now, we can undoubtedly delight in their romanticised worlds, loveable characters, and compelling storylines, but we can also recognise in them the flaws of a society that believed in a false sense of equality and liberation for women.

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