Byline: Madeleine Brindley
One hundred years ago women were fighting for the vote. Today the only thing the sisterhood is fighting for is the Prada handbag or last season's Chanel in the bargain bin on the first day of the winter sales. MADELEINE BRINDLEY asks where have all our heroines gone?
THEY have helped sell a million books and made hard-to-pronounce shoe designers' names common currency in the cut and thrust world of must-have fashion.
We laugh at their lives, dished up in bitesize chunks, while identifying with their daily dilemmas. We try to emulate their style, hoping their luck and way with the world will erase some of the drudgery in our not-so-glam lives.
But most of all we want to be them.
Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw have become the latest by-words for the modern woman at the turn of the century.
If you're a little bit kooky, can't quite seem to find and hold on to a man and not as light on your feet as those annoying charts on the back of doctors' doors say, you're a Bridget.
If you have the offbeat designer wardrobe, can balance on the four-inch heals of a pair of quintessential Manolo Blahniks and like to ponder over philosophical-sounding questions about the state of modern man, but still can't seem to hang on to one of your own, then you're definitely a Carrie.
There is no denying this pair have become the number one female icons for women today, and along the way have brought us comedy, tears and a fresh take on the world in which we find ourselves living.
Replica Banquet handbagBut it is also undeniably tragic, not to mention downright sad, that in this day and age these obsessive and self-obsessed, make-believe characters have become not only our own role models to aspire to but the very epitome of femininity.
Rather than furthering the cause of the sisterhood in a world where men still expect to and do dominate, these two characters have instead associated the essence of a woman with the very traits that we have fought so long and so hard to distance ourselves from.
I'm not for a minute suggesting there is nothing wrong with caring what you look like and taking pride in your appearance, enjoying a girlie night out and lusting over Colin Firth's interpretation of Jane Austen's 19th-century hero Darcy or comparing the pros and cons of dating Big.
But when they become the defining features of femininity - they are the be all and end all of Bridget and Carrie - and threaten to undermine our abilities in both the workplace and society as a whole, shouldn't we all be curling our toes in horror that to be female is either to be Carrie or Bridget?
After all, in the best luvvie tradition, just what are their motivations?
While Bridget Jones may encapsulate the unspoken neuroses of a generation of single women sliding fast into their thirties she is, when it comes down to it, little more than a weight fanatic who knows the calorie content of every meal conceivable yet lacks the chutzpa to function and thrive in the real world.
And aside from having the style which any fashion conscious woman would love and the dream job which only seams to take up half-an-hour of the day, Carrie Bradshaw is little more than an articulate Bridget Jones let lose in Manhattan with an unlimited shopping budget. Even her philosophical sounding one-liners have little relevance outside the confines of the Sex and the City set.
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