5 female gender identities of the 90s

[Newuser123123]

Sporty
Scary
Posh
Baby
Ginger

I identified as posh, but it was a phase and I desisted

I didn't really identify as any, but always admired that Sporty could wear shell suit bottoms and still be an icon in a girl band

I was posh but identified as ginger. Anyone who pointed out that I was a brunette was being hateful.

Sporty was sporty.

But Scary wasn't scary, Posh wasn't posh, Baby wasn't a baby and Ginger wasn't ginger.

It's a metaphor for something.

There was also a Pete Best Spice, who was replaced by Posh.

I remember being amazed by the Spice girls as a teenager because to my mind they were the first girl group to all wear different clothes and therefore have different personalities. Whereas all the previous girl groups wore the same clothes and even the same colours and I could barely tell them apart. It was like they just had to be 'pretty and sexy' and that was all whereas the spice girls were allowed to have personalities which at the time, to me anyway, felt revolutionary.

I used to like posh spice's outfits the most. I miss those simpler times.

I always noticed that their platform shoes were different heights so they all came out looking the same height.

Posh was stylish.

Very funny thread, newuser.

There was a 6th Gender.

It was lndie Spice for those who liked guitars and detested pop.

You forgot Margaret Thatcher, who was the original Spice Girl apparently but none of us wanted to be her.

Scary was only scary because the Sun editor couldn't think of any other adjective for a black woman.

Sylvia Patterson at Smash Hits came up with Sporty, Ginger, Posh, Baby, Scary.

Here’s her book. Very funny. www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/sylvia-patterson/im-not-with-the-band/9780751558692/

Was Scary working class? How offensive!

Not so funny how that reads now but Mel was actually extremely err in your face. As was Geri in those early days. ( l am being purposely obtuse here .....) Sylvia interviewed them and coined the names jokingly in Smash Hits, as a joke against the compartmentalisation of girl groups put together by men in the music business.
They didn’t have to stick with them, but they all embraced her nick names From that one very early article wholeheartedly and ran with it.

I misunderstood and thought Sporty was Scary because she looked like my PE teacher.

Or Peter Loraine of UK Magazine/Top of the Pops, who came up with the names, according to Mel B herself. She referred to him as a "lazy journalist who couldn't be bothered to remember all their names". Apparently, Mel B was a bit loud at a photo shoot and this warranted the moniker "scary". Racist and sexist then.

Just to be clear, I couldn't give a stuff who came up with the names, but I can guarantee that it ws a white person who came up with it. The "scary black woman" trope is something some of us have had to live with, and having one of the most high profile women of the 90s going by that name was incredibly disappointing.

90’s brain casualty! Yes Peter Lorraine not Sylvia... her book is good though. And yes, as l said the nicknames are not so funny when you think about it now.

I was defo was posh. The lbd was my go to going out outfit. I also had that pout down to a T too

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.graziadaily.co.uk/celebrity/news/spice-girls-got-names-mel-b-peter-loraine/

This is MelB speaking.

“The names jumped out at us. We laughed the most when we came up with Scary. Jennifer Cawthron, who was also from Leeds, came up with that one because Mel B was so loud and had tried to take over our whole photo shoot.”

I was Ginger Spice. Because I have.... red hair.
I wanted to be Posh, but Ginger was the most sassy anyway, so it's all good.

No, that's not Mel B speaking, that's Peter Lorraine speaking. It's plain from the article.

'Angry black woman' is so endemic and lazy. Who cares who came up with it? God forbid you're even slightly loud, or have an opinion, as a woman or a black person.

I once saw Mel B in an interview saying she loved hers, but yes it was pretty suspect. I told myself at the time it must be because she had piercing etc because I couldn't believe they'd be that blatant!

Other people thought I was Posh, but I identified more with Sporty - not because she was sporty, but because she was tomboyish. But indie spice would have suited me better :o

I also liked how they were all different and had their own looks. At the same time I thought the whole girl power thing was manufactured bollocks - but you can't overstate what a massive impact they had when Wannabe first came out, with its amazing video. They were totally different.

looking back it's quite depressing the concept of:

Mixed raced with an afro= scary
white with blonde hair = baby

as a mother of a mixed raced girl this now pisses me off!