Does this represent female empowerment?

Trumps that is what I thought too. It just highlighted how ridiculous she looked, that it was mid morning on a cold day and evening dress was her 'choice'.

Women can be empowered in how they choose to dress. I think it depends on the culture you come from.
If you are from a culture where you are required to cover your hair, then simply removing your head covering is a radical act. Some men would view a woman like this as immoral, sexually available, (a derogatory word that I’m not going to use). The woman would still be empowered by her choice. It could be a feminist choice.
It’s been like this in the past in the West too. For example, with women in the early twentieth century shortening the hem length of their skirts to above the ankle. People were scandalised at the time, because women ‘shouldn’t’ do this.
Nowadays, when I have full freedom to choose what I wear, the act of choosing clothes is no longer empowering.
If Little Mix/ Jennifer Lawrence are told what to wear that is the opposite of empowerment.

I think there is little point criticising little mix individually for what they wear, they are just fitting in with an expectation within the music industry, particularly within certain genres that women are overtly sexual and sexy. The last time I had the misfortune to watch mtv I was struck how video after video had women in underwear or bikinis and yet every single man was fully clothed in baggy clothes. It didn’t matter if the women were backing dancers or lead singers.

Young women receive the message that the best, most important thing they can do in life is be sexy and pretty. It is very hard to resist that expectation if succeeding in your dream of becoming a pop star depends on it.

epic that is exactly the image my DD and I were discussing. My point being why was she wearing an evening dress in the middle of the day, on a cold day? Would she really wake up and think, "oh it's cold, I've got lots of interviews, best wear something open to the waist? Look at my colleagues, all over-dressed in their several layers, they'll overheat!" That's an informed personal choice? Not one I'd make, but I'm at that age when I just constantly seem to be saying (only partly in jest) "she'll need a nice vest on with that".

The patriarchal structure has for centuries reinforced teenage girls as the beauty ideal. That’s why the nudes in the paintings by the Old Masters have no body hair and gravity-defying, tiny breasts. They’re not women, they’re girls.

It’s not surprising that girls and young women internalise this and wield the fleeting “power” of that attractiveness and feel empowered because of the validation this brings.

It’s not real power though, and the patriarchal structure infantilises women, because older, educated women are a threat to the structure. Keep women wanting to look like and behave like girls, and they are less likely to pose a threat to male dominance.

It’s also unsurprising that as women get older the scales fall off our eyes and we see that “power” based on sexual attractiveness only lasts as long as we are considered attractive by our culture. That’s why liberal feminism is a young person’s philosophy.

Ah, I see what ya mean now.

I just don’t understand what that has to do with their sexuality.

Oh

they seem to own their sexuality

What do you mean by that? How ?

Genuinely not understanding that.

It sounds more like internalized misogyny than empowerment.

Young women, in particular, often confuse the two.

Look at how a lot of the more unpleasant men treat women.
Now look at how they, or their type, view Little Mix. Or anything else actually. Porn is a prime example.

If you're unsure if something empowers women, look at how misogynists react to it. There's your answer. If it empowered women, many men would be against it.

User
That's an interesting post and something I've thought about a lot too now that I'm middle aged and menopausal.

I always considered myself a feminist but I'm heterosexual and although I think I tried not to believe this I knew that if I was full on I'd probably never get laid so I wanted to believe in choosy-choice liberal feminism because it allowed me to embrace the things I loved like make up, fashion, Madonna etc etc without questioning any of it.

I feel differently now and it's best described by a friend who said that the menopause meant she had woken up and for the first time could properly see how much intensional & unintentional pandering to men she had done in her life. Now she could clearly see the way things really were she was filled with crusading rage and a desire to challenge everything and she didn't care if that meant she wasn't nice anymore she was going to roar.

I found that all quite inspiring...

This Jennifer Lawrence promoting her new movie

Sorry for the poor SPAG.

How are they representing empowered women? Do they sing about the importance of education, treatment of women by society?
Do you think that any of those women would have that job if they didn’t look and dress in the way that is sexual appealing to most men? Keeping their job basically depends on their perception of fuckability.

user1471506568 and those young women on social media dress the way their “empowered” hero’s dress - shame those hero’s are being told how to dress by men in their 50’s / 60’s.

Anyone who thinks that Little Mix have much choice in how they present themselves is kidding themselves. It's all big business. And the patriarchy's greatest triumph of recent years is persuading women that sexualised/pornified behaviour and dress is "empowering"