‘90s women vs. the media: has anything changed?

Madonna and Hillary Clinton couldn’t be more different, but in the 1990s, they were two of the most frequent names in the media, along with Anita Hill. Beyond being headline fodder, these three women inverted the persistent stereotypes about women projected by the mass media. In 2016, Clinton, Madonna, and Hill continue to fight media labels by running for President of the United States for the second time, remaining a top-selling pop star, and fighting for gender equality as an author, activist, and professor.

In 1994, feminist scholar Susan J. Douglas wrote a book about women and the mass media, Where the Girls Are. Douglas identifies herself as a woman of the Baby Boom generation and analyzes the media’s depiction of women, the mixed messages it sends to women, and the battle between feminism and sexism from the 1950s up to the 1990s.

Although Douglas says it’s too soon to know what the legacy of the 1990s would be, she identifies Madonna, Clinton, and Hill as change-makers. While that was certainly true when the book was published, Douglas could hardly know these women’s continued impact, decades later, on the media landscape and multiple generations of women.

While my generation, the millennial generation — which spans the 1980s to early 2000s — is in the midst of rampant nostalgia for the ’90s, we could use a reminder of how the media of our youth controlled the dialogue when it came to women.

Madonna cemented her pop star status with the release of “Like a Virgin”. Many questioned whether this brash young woman, who wasn’t afraid to sing or talk about sex, would last. She quickly became a target for media attention and criticism. But Madonna wasn’t rattled by the attention; rather, she reveled in it.

In her book, Douglas raises questions often asked about the singer: “Is Madonna a feminist or not a feminist? Is the way she plays with sexist imagery good for women or bad for them? Why were there so many Madonna wannabes?” Madonna didn’t allow herself to be pinned down as a certain “type.”

Maybe that’s what so many women found attractive about Madonna. In her videos and on stage, she posed as a sex object, while at the same time, she rejected the idea of a woman being passive. “Madonna aggressively took control of her own sexuality and affirmed that it was healthy and liberating for a woman to express her sexual desires, whether they were threatening to men or not,” Douglas said.

Madonna takes on many roles in her videos and Douglas points out how she often plays with the virgin/whore dichotomy, “…womanhood was a series of costumes and poses and [Madonna] shoved in everyone’s face how mutually exclusive these roles for women were.”

In her personal life, Madonna was dealing with a divisive role of her own. While a successful businesswoman and performer, she was also involved in an abusive marriage to Sean Penn. Madonna filed for divorce in January 1989.

During her Blonde Ambition World Tour, she received criticism for simulating masturbation during “Like a Virgin” and was threatened with arrest by the police in Canada. She responded, “The tour in no way hurts anybody’s sentiments. It’s for open minds and gets them to see sexuality in a different way. Their own and others.”

She wasn’t going to stop there. The 90s saw her release a book, Sex, which was a series of sexually explicit and provocative images by Steven Meisel. Although the book received negative reactions from the media and public, it sold 1.5 million copies in a few days. Madonna put out her fifth studio album, Erotica (1992), and launched The Girlie Show World Tour, where she dressed as a whip-cracking dominatrix.

Now Madonna, who released a new album, Rebel Heart, in August, is subject to the media’s sexist double standard towards middle-aged women. Last April, her appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and her ambush kiss with Drake at Coachella found her in the headlines again. People commented on her appearance, outfit, and age in the Fallon video. Her kiss with Drake was not any better received, with people calling her gross and saying she was twice his age.

Men Madonna’s age are still considered sexy, but the minute a 57-year-old woman acts the same way, she’s called a grandma. Never mind that Madonna often dates men who are much younger than her. Madonna has thwarted the media’s sexist agenda since she dressed in her virginal best in 1984. She’s influenced a variety of pop artists from Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga, and dare I say it, Beyonce.

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In the early 90s, Clinton was getting more media attention than Madonna. In 1993, Clinton was on the cover of almost every American magazine. Spy depicted her as a lingerie-clad dominatrix, a reference to the other blonde making headlines, Madonna.

Before the Clintons entered national politics, Hillary was already unlike many other politicians’ wives. When Bill entered politics in Arkansas, she continued with her own legal career. Her decision “flaunted long-established gender norms of the politician’s wife as homemaker and supportive wife-mother,” according to TIME.

In January 1992, Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes interviewed the Clintons. Already, Bill was facing allegations of extramarital affairs. Gennifer Flowers was an Arkansas state employee who said she had a 12-year affair with him. Even on the presidential campaign trail, Hillary wasn’t afraid to share a piece of her mind. In response to Kroft’s questions about Flowers, Hillary said, “I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And you know, if that’s not enough for people, then heck, don’t vote for him.”

The quote, particularly the part about standing by her man like Tammy Wynette, was the talk of the news media for weeks.

These incidents on the campaign trail, as TIME pointed out, spoke to a time when the U.S. was still figuring out the implications of the sexual revolution and the women’s rights movement. It wasn’t clear how a politician’s spouse, who happened to be a feminist and have a career of her own, should act.

While Clinton might have tamped down on some of her off-the-cuff remarks during the rest of the campaign, she wasn’t going to be bound and gagged by the media’s attempts to vilify her. It became clear she was going to be politically involved in her husband’s White House and unlike previous presidential spouses, who were involved in their husband’s politics (like Eleanor Roosevelt), Hillary wasn’t going to do it quietly.

In 1993, there was the healthcare fiasco. Hillary appeared before Congressional committees to address the Clinton Administration’s plan to provide universal healthcare. As Douglas said in her book, “Every time she went to Capitol Hill it was a big story because she was doing what no previous First Lady had done: in the full light of day, she stepped over the threshold of power and walked into the male sanctum sanctorum.”

The healthcare plan — which earned the moniker “Hillarycare” — backfired, collapsing under outrage and pressure from the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The attempt at universal health care diminished Hillary’s popularity.

Recently, former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward criticized Clinton’s vocal style and delivery, saying she shouts too much. Meanwhile, her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, often raises his voice at campaign rallies or debates and doesn’t receive the same criticism. In an article on The Hill, a political website, women in the Senate said Clinton is being subjected to a sexist double standard on the campaign trail. “What’s being said about Hillary is what women have heard for centuries. You’re too loud, you’re too aggressive, you’re too pushy. There are many Senate men that feel the same way we do. When are we going to start talking about ideas?” Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) said.

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She may not be a mega-pop star or a former First Lady, but the woman Douglas said “we owe the most to” is Anita Hill. In 1991, President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Hill, an African-American lawyer, who worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sent a statement to the Senate citing the incidents where Thomas talked about subjects of a sexual and inappropriate nature in the workplace. This statement leaked to the press and Hill was called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hill speaking up about harassment was a rare and radical act. “My purpose was to tell the Senate about behavior I had experienced at the hands of Clarence Thomas,” Hill said in a 2014 documentary, Anita, directed by Freida Lee Mock.

The hearings were supposed to be about Thomas’ character, but they became about Hill’s character. Thomas’ supporters questioned her credibility, saying she was a spurned woman seeking revenge. They were unable to comprehend why Hill would wait ten years to report Thomas’ actions or why she would continue to work for him after the first incidents occurred.

When Thomas was questioned about these accusations in front of the Senate judiciary committee, he called it a high-tech lynching. “They didn’t challenge him on that term,” Harvard professor Charles Ogletree said in Anita. “What about the lynching of a black woman who just testified?”

In her book, Douglas cites the importance of the Thomas-Hill hearings and how they resonated with the media images of “women as victims, women needing to keep their mouths shut, women needing to stay in their place, women needing to be deferential, compliant, ever smiling. The sight of this poised, accomplished, well-spoken woman sitting alone, across from a firing squad of complacent, self-satisfied white men, who after all this time didn’t get it, hit a nerve.”

Even though men continued “not to get it,” public interest in Hill’s story and testimony launched awareness and open discussion of workplace sexual harassment in the United states. A year after Hill’s testimony, harassment complaints filed with the EEOC were up 50 percent.

Hill continues to work in the sphere of gender inequality. Anita chronicles her continuing work as both a professor and an activist. “I’m going to be a public voice for gender inequality because the more I understood about sexual harassment I understood it was only part of the problem. Sexual harassment is only part of the larger issue of gender inequality,” Hill says.

Hill’s testimony and influence are still felt 25 years later. HBO will tell her story to a new generation in April. Kerry Washington will play Hill in Confirmation. Today, while this new generation benefits from a more open dialogue on topics like sexual harassment, rape, and street harassment, women are still faced with a sexist double standard. Women are cast as the victim, but we often hear that our clothes and our bodies are “asking for it.” We’re told to “smile” on the streets because we are expected to always please men.

While a “woman’s place” has certainly changed since the Baby Boomer generation were children, there’s no doubt that many people still possess latent, inherent sexism when it comes to women and how we should be seen, think, and act. Sadly, the media is the biggest advocate of these ancient viewpoints and continues to promote sexist double standards.

However, with the millennial generation increasingly being the ones writing articles in Vulture and BuzzFeed and various other media outlets, maybe we can finally be the ones that change the narrative.

Whatever your views are on Madonna or Clinton, their influence is worthy of recognition. They continue to push boundaries, despite having spent the last twenty-plus years being called out for their actions by men, by other women, and by the media.

In her book, Douglas concludes her argument, “We have watched women like Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton breach barricades and cross boundaries they weren’t supposed to: we have seen how stepping out of line has been punished and how effective — and utterly futile — such punishments have been. Certain women are demonized, but they, and others emboldened by their actions, come back for more.”