A Pop Culture Blueprint for Womanhood
Miley Cyrus. Demi Lovato. Selena Gomez. Ariana Grande. Sabrina Carpenter. Each one of these celebrities had a similar trajectory: played lovable and sometimes a little bit clueless characters on the Disney Channel, went through some sort of reinvention of themselves, and came out as a successful and very “grown-up” version of themselves. For most of them, the transition from girl to woman included seriously difficult events: mental health challenges, addictions, deeply broken relationships with parents and lovers. It’s no surprise that they did not remain the innocent young girls they played on Disney Channel. But what did it mean for them to “grow up?”
For women, in the examples lived out by these young stars, growing up often means becoming sexualized, jaded, and accepting a materialistic and objectifying culture. That is not all it is, but it’s certainly the aspect our culture magnifies. Sabrina Carpenter is one of the most recent examples of a cultural expectation that a young girl personifies innocence while a woman is defined by her sexuality. The sexualization of womanhood has shown up increasingly in Carpenter’s music as she has moved out of her teen years and into her twenties.
Carpenter’s 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send was introspective and nostalgic, kicking off with an intro addressed to her father, enumerating the ways his infidelity to her mother emotionally scarred Carpenter. The album also includes several emotionally potent tracks like “Because I Liked a Boy” and “Skinny Dipping” that see the pop star exploring heartbreak, reconciliation, and the downsides of fame. But which song from that album blew up and put Carpenter on the fast track to uncontested A-list pop princess? A song titled “Nonsense,” which (especially in its Christmas Remix version) is little more than a stream of (admittedly clever) sexual innuendos. More than just the songs, Carpenter has gone viral on social media for her endlessly imaginative improvisations of lyrics and *ahem* dance moves in her live performances—which are, again, all comically sexualized.
In her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, you might say that Carpenter is just leaning into what has worked for her in the past: songs full of cheeky, inappropriate jokes and tales of casual sex with clueless boys. But Carpenter’s pop persona isn’t just a measure of what sells. To the preteens who watched her on Disney Channel and are now twenty-somethings figuring out for themselves what it means to become an adult who listens to her music, Carpenter is implicitly saying, “This is what it means to be a woman.”
A Short n’ Sweet Search for Satisfaction
The obvious criticism of Carpenter is that she embraces the sexualization of herself, as well as the objectification of others. But beyond that, Sabrina’s music problematically implies that maturation for a woman is sexualization. While Carpenter objectifies both herself and the men she’s singing about, is she any better off for it?
Carpenter’s more introspective songs on Short n’ Sweet communicate anything but satisfaction. On the album’s lead single, “Espresso,” she sings, “I can’t relate to desperation,” but the rest of the album is saturated with dissatisfaction and even desperation. On “Slim Pickens” she bemoans that she’ll never find a decent guy, with a variation on the same theme on “Dumb and Poetic.” In “Don’t Smile,” she deals with her inability to find resolution after heartbreak, and in “Lie to Girls,” she wrestles with the incongruities in the life she lives (“I’ve never seen an ugly truth that I can’t bend/ To something that looks better/ I’m stupid, but I’m clever/ Yeah, I can make a ***t show look a whole lot like forever and ever”). Below Sabrina Carpenter’s glitzy surface, it doesn’t seem like the version of femininity that she’s accepted has brought her satisfaction.
Conclusion: What is Femininity?
Short n’ Sweet juxtaposes the hypersexualized world of female pop stardom with disappointment and dissatisfaction. The sexualization gets most of the attention—fueled, imitated, and magnified by social media—while the discontentment remains largely overlooked. The type of femininity that Carpenter shows plays out over and over in the lives of our celebrities, is emulated on social media, and becomes the earworms that we can never get out of our brains. Still, this vision of femininity doesn’t fit the world we actually live in. It leaves too much to be desired. So, we have to ask, what is femininity, and where can we look for true examples?
Some say that femininity is “socially constructed”1—and to be sure, elements of what people consider to be “feminine” are influenced or determined by the culture they are in. But, is there not something really real and truly true about what women are and what a woman should be? From a Christian perspective, there certainly is, as women were uniquely made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). The Bible gives descriptions of a godly woman (Proverbs 31:10-31), but at the same time, we should be careful not to be overly prescriptive of what femininity looks like. Femininity may look unique in different contexts, but that does not mean that femininity is therefore arbitrary, defined by individuals’ preferences or by cultural norms.
Yes, there are things uniquely feminine, and there are also things that all people share in common. As one commentator points out, “…almost all of the biblical commands and virtues are gender-neutral.”2 Paul indicates as much when he writes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28, NIV). Paul isn’t removing our distinctions, he’s articulating a higher point about unity. Women, just like men, are called to holiness.
It can be hard to pin down what exactly biblical femininity is because it may look different in various contexts. However, there are certain things we can know are not expressions of femininity. From a moral standpoint, we can say that if expressions of femininity do not align with the holiness God calls all people to, it cannot be true femininity. But morality alone can seem stifling, a judgment more than anything else. So we should add that our vision of femininity should aid, not impede, a person’s heart finding rest in God.3 Sabrina Carpenter is an attractive character, with what for many is an attractive image of the feminine. However, digging under the surface just a little shows us that peace and satisfaction have not accompanied her version of what it means to be a woman.