But a brief look at the history of the bad girl reveals it to be a term applied to any women who has ever taken control of her own life. Cleopatra, for instance, or Middleton's predecessor Anne Boleyn – two women who got to the top using the only weapon in their arsenal, their sexuality.
"Anne Boleyn is remembered by her contemporaries as someone with the beast in view," says Nicola Shulman, author of Graven with Diamonds: the Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt. "She grew up in the French court and had wonderful French manners – she could write poetry, sing, dance and she was witty. And she clearly had phenomenal brains. She wasn't just worked from behind by her family. Anne Boleyn was the engine of her own destiny."First of all, love referring to Anne Boleyn as Kate Middleton's predecessor, which is not exactly the logical identification of the two I would first make. Second, the first paragraph seems to imply that all Boleyn had was her sexuality, while the second seems to imply that she had a good deal more. Or is the implication that smart, powerful women get reduced to their sexuality as a way of marginalizing their personal strengths? If so, then the praise heaped on Middleton's 'bad girl' phase appears to reinforce the idea that a woman will be reduced to her sexuality no matter her other gifts.
ALSO: I am not sure how an article that explicitly references Madonna earlier on seems to think that Katy Perry and Lady Gaga represent some sea-change from older female pop stars like Britney Spears. These things go in cycles...
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