Last year spawned the latest Sex and the City release. Yet again Carrie poses endless rhetorical questions and is rewarded for the tone by a fat pay cheque and a free trip to Abu Dhabi.
Carrie is an icon for many a modern day woman. Why? Because she manages to juggle glamour, a career, her girlfriends and a man in one exciting walk down Madison Avenue, Manolos clacking.
But it occured to me just the other day that Carrie Bradshaw is, in essence, living the life of a man. Those who love the show will be familiar with the episode where she tries to have sex like a man, but this intention itself demonstrates that she sees herself 100% as a lady, a woman, a female.
Carrie Bradshaw doesn't have children. Carrie Bradshaw does not cook, famously using her oven to store her overflowing wardrobe. Carrie Bradshaw does not clean. She used to paint her flat to overcome problems, in a way that reflects a stressed man donning his 15-year-old t-shirt come Saturday to indulge in some escapist DIY. Carrie Bradshaw engages frolicks with endless, nameless men.
OK, so she buys shoes, has long hair and wears makeup. But does she possess the fearsome yet gentle motherly instincts of Miranda? Does she exude vulnerable femininity like Charlotte? Does she embrace her role as sexual magnet like Samantha, who exploits her body to her own physical ends? She does not.
In my mind, Carrie is an icon because she is a women masquerading as a man. There is a reason she took so long to settle down, a reason why gay men love her so. Her success is on a masculine level, and yet the illusion of her feminism makes her a shining light for so many women quashed by their responsibilities. They can forget the baskets of ironing, cupcakes to be baked and dinners to be washed up because Carrie never even thinks about those things. And unlike many career women of today, she doesn't feel guilty about it.
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