Be pure. Be sexy. Be a nurturer. Don’t breastfeed in public. Messages to women are more conflicted than ever.

We live in an advanced era of cloud computing, virtual personal assistants and cars that can parallel park themselves. So why is it that women so often feel like we’re still living in the dark ages? The question of whether we should even have access to birth control is still a part of our everyday political discourse. Fathers are symbolically claiming their daughters’ virginity. We’re slammed with objectifying ads that tell us to be more sexy, then shamed for claiming our sexual identities. And perhaps the saddest part of all is that it isn’t just men who are forcing these forms of suppression and control onto women’s bodies; the pressure comes from other women, too.

Purity pledges

Young girls are such delicate, corruptible little flowers that their wise, protective fathers must not only rule their sexuality with an iron fist, but demand that their daughters pledge their virginity to them. So goes the rationale of the Purity Ball movement, engineered largely by Christian fathers as a means of control over their progeny’s blossoming bodies.

What makes this even more disturbing is the fact that these girls are not making this decision for themselves at puberty (and even then, they’re too young to realize just what their fathers are asking of them.) Girls are brought to their first Purity Ball at the age of five, where they prance around in white dresses, listen to sermons about living a “pure life” and pledge themselves to their fathers. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the girls are given ominous warnings of the “terrible consequences” of losing their virginity, and essentially told that they have no input on their own burgeoning sexual identities at all. Many girls receive lock charms on necklaces, the keys held by their fathers, who will pass them over to their husbands on their wedding day in a transfer of male power.

Of course, there’s no equivalent movement that attempts to force young men into pledging their virginity to their mothers. Because that would just be weird.

Virginity tests

Taking control over young women’s vaginas to a far greater extreme, virginity tests are the literal examination of a woman’s hymen to be sure that she hasn’t had sex before marriage. These tests are illegal in many countries, and Amnesty International classifies them as torture. That doesn’t stop them from happening all over the world, both in institutional and private settings. Some cultures require that brides-to-be undergo such a test before their wedding day. Last year in Egypt, female protesters were subjected to them by military authorities; an official explained “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place.”

Because if they aren’t virgins, clearly they’re asking for it.

Think this practice is long gone in the west? The British government used virginity testing for young female immigrants until 1979, believing that if they were virgins, they were more likely to be telling the truth about moving to Britain for marriage.

Gender segregation

Women are told to sit at the back of the bus – in Brooklyn. In Israel’s Beit Shemesh, a growing sect of powerful ultra-Orthodox extremists are fighting to keep women separate from men in nearly all public settings, even preventing women from going to the podium to accept their rightfully earned prizes at an awards ceremony. In many other areas of the world, the segregation of men and women has been going on for so long, and is so deeply entrenched in local culture, that changing it seems like an impossible task. The problem is particularly troubling in Islamic cultures, where fundamentalists place strict limits on interaction between women and men who aren’t their relatives.

In many cases, the reasoning behind segregating women from men is preserving the “virtue” of women and the “honor” of men, the idea being that women are not only helpless against the temptation of jumping on any random men who cross their paths, but that the mere sight of women could corrupt and distract men who are supposed to be focusing on more important things. It also reinforces the idea of women as property, who must be governed by male overlords.

Reproductive rights

Our supposedly progressive president refused to relax restrictions on Plan B, preventing women of all ages from accessing the morning-after pill directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves. Our legislators threaten to cave to fringe groups that want to redefine life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, which would outlaw all contraceptives, including birth control pills. One of our Republican presidential nominees, Rick Santorum, not only believes that birth control damages society, but wants to make all abortions illegal, even in the case of rape or incest, saying women should “make the best of a bad situation.” A bill in Georgia proposed the persecution of women who couldn’t prove that they didn’t cause their own miscarriages.

In other nations around the world, women’s ability to make choices about their own bodies and lives are in even more desperate straits. Women are all too often seen as passive baby-making machines, essentially existing only to further the continuation of the species.

Breastfeeding brouhaha

Breasts are so sexy – except when you’re feeding your baby. Then, they’re just gross. So gross that people will go out of their way to yell at mothers trying to provide her infant with the best sustenance in the world, and shame them into hiding. The problem is, society at large only wants to think of breasts in a sexual context; we’re so far removed from the biological realities of our species that many people feel disturbed by the sight of a baby suckling. Some honestly believe that women only breastfeed in public because they’re exhibitionists or trying to make a statement, not because their babies are hungry. Some even view it as pornographic. It’s a sad state of affairs when a mother is told that a dirty public restroom is a more appropriate place to feed her baby than a table at a restaurant.

The great cover-up

In Saudi Arabia, women who are already shrouded from head to toe in impenetrable layers of cloth, even in the harsh heat of the desert, are being told to cover up their sexy eyes. If a man decides that a certain woman has eyes that are too “tempting,” he has the right to order her to cover them immediately lest she face fines or public lashings. In Israel, the same extremists segregating the sexes are spitting on little girls who are dressed “too provocatively” as they walk to school. There are even movements within America to return to some misguided Victorian celebration of modesty. Women have come a long way since the days when they could be institutionalized just for having a bad reputation, but they’re still treated as if their bodies are weapons with which they might accidentally (or intentionally) bring ruin upon themselves and the men who look their way.

Slut shaming and rape blaming

Well, if you don’t cover up, don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you when you get raped. That’s the message that’s foisted upon us by modesty advocates and other groups who argue that showing virtually any skin equates to inviting violent sexual assault. And if you dare to claim your own identity as a sexual being, you should be ashamed of yourself. Slut-shaming has everything to do with patriarchal directives for women – how we should dress, how we should act, how we should conduct our sex lives. If we don’t conform, and especially if we dare to be aggressive about our sexuality, we’re ridiculed. Men, on the other hand, get a free pass – the more frequent and public their conquests, the more admiration and approval they gain.

Objectification

On the other side of the coin is the duality of expectations on female roles in society, specifically the wife versus the mistress, the modest and nurturing woman who is practically asexual versus the sex object that only exists for the pleasure of others. Both roles objectify women by removing their personalities and individuality. Sexual objectification is much more in-your-face, pushed on women every day by the mass media, treating women like commodities to be ogled and traded. For all of the pressure to be chaste there’s an equal opposing force pressuring women to be vapid, fleshly blow-up dolls. A prime example is a t-shirt offered by Abercrombie and Fitch (the same store hawking push-up bras for kids) emblazoned with the slogan, “With These, Who Needs Brains?”

Lesbian torture clinics

It’s no secret that homosexuality, another basic biological reality of our species, is seen by certain groups as something to be “cured.” But your jaw might just drop in horror when you learn that some of these “cure clinics” use physical torture and psychological abuse in an attempt to “straighten out” queer women. Ecuadorian activists are speaking out about 200 torture clinics operating under the guise of rehabilitation centers where both men and women are shackled, starved and sexually abused. Thankfully, a Change.org petition has brought about the beginning of the end to this practice in Ecuador, but we’re all too aware that there are still plenty of other groups across the globe that want to dictate who you can and can’t have sex with.

Female genital mutilation

Circumcision is a touchy issue, even here in America where it’s routinely performed on baby boys. Delve into the sticky cultural context of female circumcision as it’s practiced in Africa, and you’re opening a whole other can of worms. Some African feminists maintain that female genital mutilation is part of their cultural heritage, and one that “first world feminists” have no right to condemn – just as Jewish and Muslim traditions dictate that circumcision is a must for boys. But many woomen can’t help but feel that these practices were designed to control women by robbing them of sexual pleasure. Can you imagine a cut to your unanesthetized clitoris as anything other than torture? This is controlling other people’s bodies to the extreme, and truth be told, maybe we should leave everybody’s genitals alone and let them decide what they want to do with them once they reach adulthood.

Photos: progress ohio, tim & selena middleton, rutlo

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And if that’s left you feeling super-empowered, check out our 40 quotes on feminism for more inspiration.

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

No matter where you live, no matter how many life experiences you have, and no matter how much self-confidence you hold, there is nothing to stop certain men from treating you like a little girl. Blame it on some bizarre, existential threat that men – and at times, other women -  feel equality between the sexes will bring about, but it’s really pretty hard to wrap your brain around how the female gender is still, in 2012, frequently told to step down and be sweet.

In fact, we are told our writing is clearly female, our money decisions should still be dictated by our husbands, and those pat-downs? We should have worn a pants suit because blazers and trousers wouldn’t have provoked the assault. Sexist cliches: the ultimate comeback kid!

“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles,” Scott Adams of the cartoon Dilbert writes.

I say suit up.

My first job out of college in 1996 was by far one of the more shining examples of sexual inequality.

Working in the city of Portland, Oregon, my ad-writing job was run by three tight-knit Mormon males just as side swept and Old-Spiced as Mitt. The nearly all-male office seemed harmless enough. The patriarch of the family would greet each one of us every morning in his 6’2″ splendor with a vitamin C tablet.

“Because who wants to get sick?” He’d say, laughing through his front teeth.

My colleague, Dan, and I would quickly spit out the tablet as soon as he passed (he waited for us to put it in our mouths) and keep on working, writing ads for truck stops and insurance companies all over the U.S. A few months into my job, I learned I was pregnant, and while everyone was elated (what Mormon family wouldn’t be with a woman bearing fruit?), from then on I was spoken to differently, handled differently.

And then the day.

Co-workers were feeling free to talk shop about pay and raises and time invested and that moment of finding out I was being paid $5.00 less per hour than all the men. The same men who went outside to smoke, who called their wives non-stop to argue, who sat and read magazines when no one was looking while I finished my work and helped whoever needed it – they were being paid more than I was. Furious, I sat there with a baby moving in my stomach, wondering if there was a hidden camera. Was I in a dream?

Dan said I should set a meeting up with the boss. Everyone believed I should be getting paid the same, if not more. And so I did, but the boss had me. Where else could I get a job in the next four months, already being five months along?

I was brought into his mammoth office, which was tricked out in John Wayne paintings, Cherokee warriors and boasting a desk covered in picture frames of kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, husband and wife shots, family shots, him with his two sons.

That toothy smile was bigger than ever and there was a huge bowl of plastic wrapped candy before me.

“Care for a candy, Amy?” Like we were both having a hard time. Like wasn’t being paid $5.00 less per hour kind of a bummer.

Nothing changed from that meeting, and my feelings about candy are now forever skewed.

It’s not a stretch to label yourself as a feminist these days and actually fit nicely in it, because sometimes even the people you think are smart and educated want to put you down. We’ve got the Republican presidential nominees telling us what to do with our bodies and whom we can marry – all the while, enjoying their own sex scandals. It feels a little too like The Handmaid’s Tale, and we are being trained for the Sons of Jacob.

Care for some candy, little girl?

I was talking with an author and fellow editor the other day and she said, “The climate of the country is always reflected by what women are doing.” She mentioned knitting, DIY, this need to be “grounded in something real.” I thought about all the knitting circles popping up all over the country under the guise of simple handwork, when we all know better.

Between the Lines is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country, between inner worlds and outer.

Image: 2timesm

A collection of inspiring, controversial, and downright outrageous quotes on feminism.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute. -Rebecca West

Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, “She doesn’t have what it takes.” They will say, “Women don’t have what it takes.” -Clare Boothe Luce

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, “It’s a girl.” -Shirley Chisholm

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. -Faith Whittlesey

No one should have to dance backward all of their lives. -Jill Ruckelshaus

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. -Roseanne Barr

I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay. -Madonna

[Feminism is] a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. -Pat Robertson

Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society. -Rush Limbaugh

You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. -Jane Galvin Lewis

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation. -Brigham Young

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. -Gloria Steinem 

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union … Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less. -Susan B. Anthony

One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man. -Marlo Thomas

I’ve yet to be on a campus where most women weren’t worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I’ve yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing. -Gloria Steinem

The only jobs for which no man is qualified are human incubators and wet nurse. Likewise, the only job for which no woman is or can be qualified is sperm donor. -Wilma Scott Heide

My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it’s very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do. -Ani DiFranco

When a woman behaves like a man, why doesn’t she behave like a nice man? -Edith Evans

People have accepted the media’s idea of what feminism is, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right or true or real. Feminism is not monolithic. Within feminism, there is an array of opinions. -Judy Chicago

What, do you think that feminism means you hate men? -Cyndi Lauper

Feminism’s agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to “choose” between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves – instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men. -Susan Faludi

People think at the end of the day that a man is the only answer [to fulfillment]. Actually a job is better for me. -Princess Diana

The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life. -Betty Buckley

Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Women get more unhappy the more they try to liberate themselves. -Brigitte Bardot

No man is as anti-feminist as a really feminine woman. -Frank O’Connor

Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who’ll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it’s the latter, so I sign up. -Margaret Atwood

Until women learn to want economic independence, and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots. -Crystal Eastman

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. -Timothy Leary 

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor – they have children that they don’t want or they cannot feed. -Isabel Allende

Male supremacy has kept woman down. It has not knocked her out. -Clare Boothe Luce

The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race. -Susan B. Anthony

I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He’s just incapable of it. -Barbara Jordan

The modern woman is the curse of the universe. A disaster, that’s what. She thinks that before her arrival on the scene no woman ever did anything worthwhile before, no woman was ever liberated until her time, no woman really ever amounted to anything. -Adela Rogers St. Johns

A good part – and definitely the most fun part – of being a feminist is about frightening men. -Julie Burchill

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There’s just too much fraternizing with the enemy. -Henry Kissinger

Instead of getting hard on ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men – bring them softness, teach them how to cry. -Joan Baez

My advice to the women’s clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias. -James McNeill Whistler

When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch. -Bette Davis

Why do people say “grow some balls?” Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding. -Betty White

Image: Karen Horton, James Vaughan, The U.S. National Archives, David Shankbone.

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A young Pearl Bailey reminds us to take some time to embrace the rhythm.

As we age, so might our confidence. And this is exactly why we need Pearl Bailey’s Frankie to pull us through tough times. Sure, an impromptu dancing and singing number on stage can be seen as a ploy for attention, but it can also be an empowering move of self-expression when one hears the music calling. Sometimes, a girl just wants to dance.

Here we see Bailey performing in Carmen Jones (1954), one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies featuring an all African-American cast. It’s a retelling of Bizet’s opera about a strong woman “who lives by her own rules and discards men when she tires of them.” A well known singer, Bailey’s sexy, throaty rendition of the “bump bump bump” in the music is enough to get her grooving. She’s vibrant, powerful, and most importantly – confident.

A fantastic vision of an all-black world set on an army base in the South during World War II, Carmen Jones courted controversy for director Otto Preminger and star Dorothy Dandridge. Opinions weren’t sure the lead’s slatternly ways were a good role model for black women at the time. Then lady-like Dandridge showed up for her second audition with heavy makeup and asked screen test partner James Edwards to blow on her freshly-painted toe nails. Dandridge got the part, going on to become the first African-American woman to be nominated for Best Actress.

ColumnWhat defines the new chic? Grit and glimmer in conscious measure.

Over dinner recently, a colleague and I abandoned a hot and heavy discussion about the political zeitgeist for something decidedly more dessert-appropriate: women. The End of Men, the death of the the Death of Marriage myth, Lady Gaga, gay marriage, the endless debates about women getting funded in Silicon Valley – XX as cultural object is too hot to handle right now, but it’s less What Women Want and more What Women Are (and fools who confuse the two shall soon be parted from their money). If Superwoman is mercifully out, so is Single Girl. Women no longer fit into neat boxes, if they ever did: Wife. Mother. Career Woman. Bohemian. Twentysomething. Fortysomething. Old. Nope. Not your .xls, not your funnel, not your category. An extremely palpable swirl of chutzpah and quirk, charm and cojones, rock solid and rock star? Yep. And just in time. “It’s like there’s a new chic going on,” started my creme brulee compadre.

“She’s cool like confident.”

“She’s not afraid to say she wants a relationship.”

“But only if she wants one. Which she might not.” This, with a wink.

“She thinks ‘feminist’ is a pretty word.”

“Aw. Because it is.”

How to spot The New Chic? It’s motorcycle boots in your minivan. It’s courage, it’s eschewing Christmas if you feel like it, it’s not being afraid to be less liked and more respected, it’s borrowing the best traits from the boys and making us all more human in the process.

The New Chic means dropping the fear of fat. Bring on the butter. It’s good for your brain.

The New Chic likes girls, or boys, or both, and sometimes out of order, and don’t worry so much about it.

It’s breaking rules in accordance with her limits, which she knows intimately.

It’s leading the conversation in mixed company; something that can still stun a man. Try it, it’s fun!

Also? The New Chic doesn’t consider singledom a thorny brambles of broken GPS on the proper path to the soul’s completion, formerly known as a wedding day.

“This could go on all night!”

The New Chic often does.

The New Chic doesn’t go gaga over babies by default; in fact, she may not even notice them.

Did you hear? She brags and delivers.

She tells The Nagging Voice to fuck off so fast it scurries.

You’ll never catch her judging another woman with her eyes in group company.

She hasn’t done it all. She hasn’t seen it all. She isn’t everything and everyone.

She might have a hot pink stripe in her hair. Over 40? She still wears it long.

The New Chic is a forever fan of chivalry and that means: she extends it to others including and especially men.

Fact: a good thick moisturizer beats caking on the foundation any day.

The New Chic means walking out the door looking good; not made up, good.

She wouldn’t be caught dead in fast fashion.

She can drive a stick shift but prefers to bike in her heels instead. Because she wears heels. Sneakers. Are. For. Running.

She doesn’t prefer to text with the men she sees.

She is scrupulously honest because it just feels wonderful.

She is on time, every time.

She blurs the lines and doesn’t look back because she has nothing to hide on Facebook.

Two words: black coffee.

The New Chic does not drink Diet Coke. Does not diet (exception: the three hours before a date).

You can spot her because she stands up straight, sucks in her tummy tight, squares her shoulders and doesn’t pad the living daylights out of her nipples.

To err is human, to never brush your teeth in front of him, divine.

The New Chic is loving what you own to the greatest degree but letting it all go just as readily. Think of it as If the Buddha Consumed (and hey, he did). Example: A friend’s grandmother, who is something like a bonus grandma to me, has built a vast fortune in her life, and she has the personal drapery of diamonds to prove it. I’m talking the kind so big, they slide to the sides of her fingers whether she wants them to or not. Not bad for a girl from Oklahoma whose first crib was a drawer. “We never have insured these old things,” she drawled to me over brunch one cold Dallas day. “If a piece gets lost or stolen: eh, so what? I’ve enjoyed it.”

On that note: celebrates old people.

It’s being inspired by men rather than finding them merely useful. (We are all going to be better off for that one.)

It’s having the courage to build towards the best.

The New Chic has better things to do and hires people to help.

The most timely thing about The New Chic, though, is the sheer fun of it.

Your turn.

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Whatshername?

Rita Hayworth’s Gilda was the ultimate femme fatale, but do we want to emulate her?

Becoming a classic Hollywood femme fatale is very simple. Start with the basics. Lean back in your posture at all times. Lead with your breasts. Work your eyelashes vigorously as if live tarantulas are in fact affixed to your lids. Keep your arms akimbo with your hands on your hips. Make direct eye contact a lot, but don’t look too alert. Then start slapping everyone you see. (*Don’t slap everyone you see.) You’re out for revenge.

Becoming a new Hollywood femme fatale is simpler. You flash your crotch at the camera and then take an ice pick to anyone who gets in your way. Luckily, you sometimes get to wear flats.

But back to the old school way of femme fatale thinking.

Rita Hayworth used to say “They go to bed with Gilda, and they wake up with me.” Her 1946 turn as Gilda was made iconic by her one-glove striptease, placing Hayworth permanently into the American cultural brain as the ultimate femme fatale. She played such havoc on the zeitgeist that her “bombshell” image was affixed to the first nuclear bomb tested after World War II. You know you’re sexy in America when your cinematic image evokes mass destruction.

We enjoy ourselves a femme fatale, but we’re not sure we ought to. Like a George Clooney girlfriend, they seem interchangeable. Sure, she might have red hair, or blonde ringlets, or sleek black bangs, but doesn’t it just seem like she’s there to make the man look good? We covet their style, their hair, their ability to work an evening glove. But the femme fatale is often a non-entity, a woman who doesn’t seem to be in control of her own life. Her central theme is inevitably a man’s downfall or redemption. And really, where’s the fun in that?

So let’s reclaim our femme fatales. Gilda does not have to be anti-feminist. She’s like a lollipop. They aren’t inherently sexist, until you place one in the hands of a greased-up 24-year-old woman on the cover of a men’s magazine. Instead, let’s see Gilda as a window of empowerment. We can all vamp in red lipstick, corsets, and elbow-length gloves, but we’re doing it for ourselves and carefully, in heels.

The modern screen heroine can learn from Brigitte Bardot’s unapologetic sexual power.

In 1956, “My Fair Lady” opened on Broadway with Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle. Fidel Castro began to inflame an uprising in Cuba. And the U.S. Supreme Court declared Alabama’s bus segregation laws illegal. America may have been in the thick of Eisenhower’s puritanical 1950s, but the shades of a social revolution were starting to stir.

In the midst of it all, Brigitte Bardot exploded onto American movie theater screens. Her 1956 film “…And God Created Woman” made the 22-year-old actress an international star, catapulting both the French ingénue and the foreign film market straight into the American consciousness. Bardot became the symbol of a new kind of sexuality, embracing both frankness and spontaneity with an abandon never before seen on American film screens. Consequently, her defiant disdain of convention both shocked and inspired a generation of women and men.

As Juliette Hardy, Bardot became much more than a stereotypical sexpot. The first time we meet her, she’s sunbathing naked in the St. Tropez sun as the camera plays on her naked form. But her sex is the source of her power. Sex is not a weapon she’s using to get what she wants – it is her end goal.

Mix Bardot’s “unbridled appetite for pleasure” into 1950s American culture and you have the beginning of a feminist revolution. She was the first of her kind, a new kind of sexually-liberated heroine. Bardot was a threat to the status quo. Her Juliette was confused, abandoned, and at times childlike, but conversely one of the most powerful female characters of her time.

But did Bardot’s example survive in cinema? She was scandalous to the 1950s American public. Today, she’s just as rare. After all, who would be her modern equivalent? There is Angelina Jolie, whose screen presence often seems to hold sexuality like a sidearm. But compare Bardot’s Juliette to most characters played by a Julia Roberts, or Katherine Heigl, or Kate Hudson. It’s like putting a panther next to a litter of kittens. The so-called modern screen heroine pines for marriage and Mr. Right in a typical modern romantic comedy. Ironically, it’s the 1950s that’s considered a quaint and conventional period in American history.

So perhaps it’s time for the modern screen heroine to take a page from the Bardot’s handbook. We’re not prudes, sluts, or whores: we’re women empowered to unapologetically get what we want. So let’s reclaim the modern woman from an image as a marriage-obsessed desperado. Even if it means dancing a mambo, stepping on a man’s face, or being called a “demon-driven temptress.”

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman reminds us of the best way to make a statement – and an exit.

Many of us fantasize about our dream comebacks.

Here’s one: Say there’s ketchup gracing your upper lip because of an essential meeting with French fries during your lunch hour. You return to the office and someone notices the dried red condiment just under your nose and makes a snarky comment, like “Don’t you know how to eat?” Before you sink into a deep depression from failing at something so natural, like eating and wiping your mouth, you do some quick, grease-fueled thinking. “Yes, I know how to eat,” you offer before slinking off to see if there are any cold fries left in your office trash can.

Not a strong comeback for you.

Maybe you should take heed and handle an uncomfortable situation like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Because really, when is kicking ass then back-flipping out of a situation not the best way to make an exit?

To many Gen Xers, “Batman Returns” remains one of the best childhood realizations of strong womanhood. The Tim Burton-helmed film came out in 1992, giving Third Wave Feminists a whole new ideal of sass. I still have a miniature Catwoman figurine climbing a string tied to the corner of my desk, where she remains an iconographic reminder of how one might behave in a situation calling for drop kicks. She’s also a good remember that a snappy, well-crafted comeback really just needs the right amount of confidence. Granted, Catwoman’s confidence comes from a lunacy inspired by a drop off a skyscraper, but now we’re just splitting cat hairs, right?

For further lessons in psychotic feline behavior, check out how Catwoman cleans out her wardrobe. Goes on a date. And quits her job.

SeriesWomen we love on film who inspire and motivate the rest of us.

Many of us are all about those times when we get to rise above the cacophony of everyday life, even if it’s just for the time it takes to watch a Youtube clip. Be they feminist or girlie or green, these are the moments when you realize that life is really this complex, wonderful thing. We’re riding its wave, occasionally bumped into our own realities by some spectacular moments of clarity.

Joyce Carol Oates once wrote, “It is only through disruption and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone’s private world with our own.” For many of us, our motivation comes from many places – including film. After all, what more than film gives us the illusion that we’re “colliding” with someone else’s private hopes, dreams, dramas and triumphs?

This is just the kind of thing you might need in the morning with your coffee and multi-grain toast points. And so, we’ve decided to offer up a series of cinematic heroines for your viewing pleasure. These are the characters who have had us out of our seats through the years. Whether we’re cheering, weeping, applauding, or laughing alongside them, we’re always routing for them to succeed.

So who better to kick off our series than our first feminist heroine, Norma Rae? The Academy Award-winning 1979 film of the same name stars Sally Field, fearless textile worker and young mother. Norma Rae Webster is a minimum wage cotton worker who agrees to help unionize her mill despite threats and intimidation. Already angry by the terrible conditions of her work place, she meets New York union organizer Reuben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman). Despite pressure at home from her husband Sonny (Beau Bridges) that she’s neglecting her young children, Norma Rae preserves.

“Norma Rae” is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton, who in 1973 took a real-life stand on a table to protest the deplorable conditions of a textile factory in North Carolina. As The New York Times reports, “Ms. Sutton (then Crystal Lee Jordan) was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at the J. P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., when she took her stand.”

Low pay and deplorable working conditions motivated Sutton, who was fired after months of efforts to improve conditions. Because of her stand, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union won the right to represent her former co-workers. Sutton eventually became a union organizer herself.

Life imitating art or art imitating life?

Regardless, after seeing Norma Rae, women everywhere started walking into work a little taller.

Image: The Best Picture Project